The federal government plans to reimburse state and local governments that rebuild damaged public buildings to be more energy resilient.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency will begin paying to install solar panels on schools, hospitals and other public buildings that are rebuilt after disasters, making them more resilient against future disasters while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The change, set to be announced on Tuesday, reflects the disaster agency’s decision to use federal dollars to expand renewable energy as it copes with worsening climate shocks.
The number of billion-dollar weather disasters keeps rising, straining the country’s ability to respond, as well as the ability of local officials to keep offering basic services to residents.
“If you’re installing solar panels, you are creating more energy independence,” Deanne Criswell, FEMA’s administrator, said in an interview.
The change comes amid major shifts in America’s response to disasters. Insurers are withdrawing from high-risk areas. People are donating directly to survivors through the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe, although that money largely benefits the wealthy. FEMA is overhauling its programs to help individual disaster survivors, after acknowledging that the current programs often fail to provide adequate support.
I had a business idea (Which I’ll never do because that is too much work) where I essentially go around and just buy/lease people’s roofs and install solar panels on them. I’d pay either a portion of the energy re-sell value over a very lengthy period of time, or a flat estimated portion amount of return. I feel like solar’s biggest issue is mostly land so people don’t really do much with their roof, it’s free real estate!
Instead of someone coming by and saying “Pay us to put solar on your roof” you’d get me going “I will pay you to let me put a thing on your roof which you will probably never notice, I’ll even insure the roof so if there is storm damage to your roof I’ll cover it”.
Add in the situation where you decide to keep the panels you can buy them off me by either buying it straight up, or letting me just keep the portion I would be giving you for some amount of time, then your roof and the panels’ ownership would revert back to the homeowner.
