Featured in Reasons to Be Cheerful, Together New Orleans’ Community Lighthouse initiative is transforming local churches and community centers into solar-powered resilience hubs. Born in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, the growing network provides emergency electricity, essential services, and a safe place for neighbors during power outages and disasters, demonstrating the power of community-led solutions.

The New Orleans City Council has cleared the way for a new backup battery program that advocates say will help keep the lights on at homes, businesses and community sites when the grid goes down.

A backup battery program that advocates say will keep the lights on at more than 1,000 New Orleans homes and businesses when the grid goes down has cleared a key hurdle at the City Council, moving the initiative one step closer to reality.   

Facing the threat of extreme weather and natural disasters, Catholics and other groups are creating resilience hubs that help people survive.

As the New Orleans City Council prepares to take up a program to install backup batteries in hundreds of homes, businesses and community institutions, advocates of the initiative gathered Wednesday outside City Hall to emphasize the importance of the plan in a city that has been plagued in recent years by grid failures.

The Sisters of the Holy Family and Together New Orleans are developing a 22-acre community solar farm on the congregation's motherhouse property in New Orleans East.

As city officials finalize plans for a $30 million virtual power plant (VPP) program, New Orleans has an opportunity to become a national leader in using distributed battery storage to strengthen the electric grid, improve storm resilience and lower energy costs.

Volunteers to expand disaster resilience hubs across Louisiana: ‘Power makes the difference’ Together Louisiana, a group of 250 congregations and civic organizations, is spearheading the project, with a goal to have a lighthouse within 20 minutes of every resident.

How a "ragtag" group of nonprofits turned a utility settlement into an ambitious, community-led virtual power plant.

The storm-prone city is making its local utility design a $28 million incentive program to get hundreds more backup batteries into homes and businesses.

New Orleans churches and community centers are being outfitted with backup and solar power to create a microgrid for residents during the city’s frequent outages. But that’s not the only value they offer.