Google awarded grant funding to Appalachian Voices, a regional non-profit, to build solar powered microgrids to act as community resilience hubs in Duffield and Dungannon, Virginia.
The Sharing the Power Foundation grant is partially funding a 30.5-kW solar project paired with 115 kWh of energy storage at Dungannon’s town hall and historic depot, as well as a 75.6-W solar project paired with 246 kWh of energy storage at Appalachian Sustainable Development’s Appalachian Harvest building in Duffield. The projects will be built by Tiger Solar of Charlottesville.
Appalachian Harvest in Duffield, Virginia. Appalachian Voices
“We are thrilled for this opportunity to direct funds generously granted by Google to implement important elements of the resilience plans we have spent the last several years developing with our friends and neighbors in Southwest Virginia,” said Adam Wells, regional director of community and economic development with Appalachian Voices. “In addition to serving as a public resource in times of need, this investment in solar and battery storage technology will lower energy bills for our community partners all year long.”
Resilience hubs are public facilities that provide critical support for communities during widespread power outages and local disasters, including access to power. Appalachian voices stated that these hubs are more critical for southwest Virginia after the region has experienced more severe weather in recent years.
“We’re proud to collaborate with Appalachian Voices to help bring more low-cost, reliable power to Southwest Virginia,” said Kaitlin Savage with energy market development at Google. “Resilience hubs are a vital resource for communities facing increasing weather-related challenges, and this partnership further reflects our commitment to advancing affordable energy solutions and community preparedness in vulnerable regions.”
Invest Appalachia and the Appalachian Solar Finance Fund are providing additional support for the solar + storage projects. The solar microgrids are expected to start construction and complete commissioning in 2026.
Google’s grant support of these PV projects is occurring amidst the company’s push to expand data center proliferation globally. The search engine giant’s parent company recently acquired a data center energy specialist in a multi-billion-deal to help procure energy for the high-power demands of data centers.
