West Tisbury has received a major state climate resiliency grant, allowing the town to partner with the RAND Corporation to bolster its emergency facilities in the face of growing climate threats.

The $73,429 grant comes from the state’s Clean Energy Center and is part of a climate-week initiative that awards funds to towns to increase the water and power capabilities of their town buildings during emergencies. All three down-Island towns received competitive state grants for climate action projects last Friday, totalling nearly $400,000 in funds. 

In a press release that went out last week, the Gov. Charlie Baker administration announced that it had awarded over $800,000 to various communities and organizations across the commonwealth, including Cohasset, Framingham and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

The West Tisbury grant will specifically allow the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit policy think tank, and three other engineering firms to work with the town to ensure that six town buildings have power for critical loads during power failures, and that residents have access to water at the facilities throughout the town during power outages, including the public safety building, the original fire station on the Edgartown-West Tisbury Road and the West Tisbury School, which is the town’s designated shelter.

The three other buildings mentioned in the grant are the public library, which is the town’s cooling shelter, the town hall and the Up-Island Council on Aging.

Kate Warner, who is chairman of the West Tisbury climate advisory committee and co-authored the grant with Sue Hruby, chairman of the town energy committee, said the idea for the funding came from a Coastal Zone Management workshop on Nantucket. One of the speakers at the meeting was from Puerto Rico. When Hurricane Maria hit, the speaker said, the island lost power for six months — which also left millions of people without water.

After hearing the presentation, Ms. Warner said she hoped West Tisbury could avoid a similar scenario in the event of disaster on the Island, prompting her to apply for the state funding. The grant was awarded late last week.

“We’re thrilled,” Ms. Warner said. “The first step for the town is to back up town buildings so that we can provide some of the services that the town needs to provide during a prolonged power failure, and we have spots that have been designated for public water consumption. So the idea was, if we have backup power, then we can have places where people can get water, too.”

The grant will allow the town to look into providing solar power, with battery backup, for the emergency services and designated disaster relief buildings. Ms. Warner said the engineers would be looking at creating microgrids — or distinct areas that could have power if the grid shuts down. 

“What the engineers will be looking at are what are the critical loads in the building. What needs power?” Ms. Warner said. “In the event of a power failure, you don’t have to run the entire building, like all the lighting and the mechanical equipment. But you do need to have enough power for the designated critical loads.”

Although the RAND Corporation will lead the work, Ms. Warner said engineers from three other firms that have all worked together on military projects will also be involved in the grant. The team will look at ways to convert the town public safety building, which currently uses fossil fuels to heat its truck bay, to all-electric power, among other projects.

An Islandwide resolution is set to come before towns at upcoming town meetings to shift to 100 per cent renewable energy by 2040.

The West Tisbury fire station on the Edgartown-West Tisbury Road also serves as one of the Island’s two backup communications centers, according to fire chief Manny Estrella 3rd, making its emergency planning and power capacity crucial.

The work will take about a year, according to Ms. Warner.

“We wrote the grant at the beginning of the virus. At the time, because of Covid-19 we figured we maybe had a better shot even though we were a small town,” she said. “We’re very excited.”