Martin Luther King Jr. Center unveils new 'microgrid' to ensure consistent community power access
May 12-A new solar and gas microgrid will power East Central's Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in the event of an outage, developers celebrating the completion of the project said at a Tuesday panel and ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The more than $2 million project took three years to complete, the center's director Freda Gandy said, and can provide a powered environment for up to 400 people in an emergency.
The microgrid, which was engineered by Avista Utilities, uses solar energy drawn from the MLK Jr. Center's roof to charge large batteries just to the side of the main parking lot. When the power goes out, there is essentially a switch from the city's power grid to the batteries, said Mike Diedesch, the manager of Avista's "grid innovation lab."
In the case of long outages and cloudy conditions, a backup natural gas generator kicks on to ensure the center always has a power source. Even when there isn't an outage, the grid should reduce the center's day-to-day operating costs, Avista CEO Heather Rosentrater said.
The project was Gandy's initiative. The MLK Jr. Community Center is a nonprofit organization that provides childcare, social support, food pantry services and more.
"It just gives us peace of mind that if there are any disruptions, that the people in our community will have the resources that they need, and that the MLK Center will also do its part in providing those resources during any natural disasters," Gandy said.
Gandy recalled when she had just come to Spokane and was a single mother to a 2-year-old. She had moved from Mississippi, and didn't own a real coat when the ice storm of 1996 hit the region, knocking power out for 100,000 homes and buildings for up to two weeks.
Nobody told her that she should have gone to stay somewhere with power, that being in the cold for so long can be dangerous.
"I'm fortunate enough now that when the power goes out, I can go stay in a hotel, but that's not reality for families that we serve," she said. "You know, they have kids, they have pets, that have all these different things or just don't have the money to do that."
Rosentrater said extreme weather events are becoming increasingly common in Spokane and its surrounding communities.
"The need for cooling centers or heating centers and having access to electricity in those kind of emergency events is just going to be more frequent moving forward," she said.
The microgrid is the first of its kind in an Eastern Washington community center, Diedesch said. Avista previously helped engineer a microgrid on Washington State University's Spokane campus, which was energized in 2020.
A number of city and state officials showed for Tuesday's ribbon -cutting. Mayor Lisa Brown applauded Gandy's vision, and state Sen. Marcus Riccelli highlighted that the project was "your taxpayer dollars being invested in the community the way we want to see them invested."
The $2 million came from a mix of Avista and state commerce department grants, both parties painting the project as an investment into the East Central community and clean energy.
Spokane City Council President Betsy Wilkerson lives just blocks away from the center.
"I'll be honest, I never thought I'd say 'East Central' and 'microgrid' in the same sentence, because for once, we're the first and we're not the last," she said, rousing audience applause. "We have (borne) the brunt of environmental challenges, suffering, extensive damage while being the last to receive necessary repairs and support."
The East Central Neighborhood has one of the highest concentrations of Black residents in Spokane due to historic redlining, leading to disparities in the physical environment today.
"Yet today - somebody say 'today' - today we stand on the cusp of a new dawn with the establishment of a microgrid that represents hope and also represents promise," Wilkerson said.
Gandy said she almost wishes the power would go out for a moment so the center has an excuse to try out its new backup. In the meantime, she said the community can continue advertising the center as an available resource for anyone in need.
"If your power goes out, come on down to East Central," Wilkerson said. "Freda said she got some food for you. You can plug in and charge up."
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