BATON ROUGE — The Louisiana Department of Energy and Natural Resources Monday received $156 million in federal funds to help build out solar infrastructure to improve energy resilience in low-income and disadvantaged communities.

The program, "Solar for Y'all," will be overseen by DENR's Energy Office and is funded by the Inflation Reduction Act.

"Louisiana is in a uniquely positioned to benefit from this federal investment, with so much of its population in the areas of highest risk for devastating storms, such as Hurricanes Ida and Laura in recent years, that create widespread and long-lasting power outages," DENR Secretary Tyler Gray said.

Laura caused over 600,000 outages, impacting more than 900,000 customers, with some outages lasting a month or longer. Ida caused some customers to be out of power for weeks at a time.

In 2021, the average customer in Louisiana experienced more than 80 hours of power outages due to extreme weather; the national average is seven hours per year.

"Solar for Y'all" will fund upgrades to prepare homes in affected areas for solar equipment, as well as developing developing low-cost and easy-to-access financing options for those who could not to access solar otherwise.

The program will also create new loan programs for community resilience hubs, resilient schools and disadvantaged businesses, a release from the DENR said.