This text is a part of the March 2023 version of our publication The Sol SOURCE. Click on right here to learn the total publication.
In 2020, we introduced our first energy buy and group funding settlement. The settlement was a milestone in our “Infrastructure + Affect” mission, representing a groundbreaking technique to leverage clear energy era to put money into under-resourced communities and communities disproportionately harmed by local weather change. Beneath that settlement, Sol Programs is charged to craft community-focused clear power options and assist native workforce improvement by partnering with native organizations which might be working to handle challenges of their communities.
As we speak, our initiative has grown from 5 organizations primarily based in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. to 10 organizations serving a wide range of rural and concrete communities. Like their predecessors in this system, our latest companions are centered on renewable power, environmental justice, and job creation and coaching. These partnerships additionally carry new assist to our “Pathway to Solarization” goal, which acknowledges the significance of house repairs and power effectivity upgrades to increasing entry to photo voltaic, in addition to educating and rising the clear power workforce. Under are just a few of the organizations that now we have labored with intently over the past 12 months and can proceed to work with within the 12 months to come back.
Primarily based in Boone, North Carolina, Appalachian Voices envisions an Appalachia with wholesome ecosystems and resilient native economies that permit communities to thrive. They work to extend power effectivity and finish dangerous fossil-fuel practices (comparable to mountaintop-removal coal mining), and try to shift to scrub power sources, together with photo voltaic and wind energy. Sol Programs’ partnership will set up a photo voltaic readiness fund. This fund will broaden the work of Appalachian Voices’ established photo voltaic finance fund, which offers catalytic assist to unlock photo voltaic investments in coal communities. Particularly, the photo voltaic readiness fund targets services whose key barrier to photo voltaic is poor roof situations.
Primarily based in Christiansburg, Virginia, Group Housing Companions was based to carry out house repairs for low-income households residing in unsafe or unhealthy situations. Because the complexity of house repairs grew, the group integrated, obtained a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) designation and have become Virginia’s first supplier of federal Weatherization Help Program providers. Sol Programs’ partnership will assist power effectivity and security upgrades, enhancing residents’ high quality of life and lowering the power burden in a low-income house group in Pembroke, Virginia.
Primarily based in Washington, D.C., Rebuilding Collectively DC Alexandria is a part of a nationwide community of associates working to protect reasonably priced homeownership, revitalize neighborhoods, and supply crucial home-repair providers that get rid of well being and security hazards freed from cost to these in want. Sol Programs’ partnership will probably be used to make energy-efficient upgrades to 2 services: an reasonably priced housing facility for homeless veterans and a housing unit for low-income households owned by So Others May Eat (SOME). SOME is a Washington, D.C. group and present companion of Sol Programs working to assist break the cycle of poverty and homelessness within the metropolis. SOME is the present beneficiary of a 915 kW group photo voltaic set up just lately accomplished for FedEx at a facility in Washington, D.C. FedEx is allotting a part of the electrical energy invoice credit generated by the photo voltaic set up to offset the yearly electrical energy prices of two SOME services.
Primarily based in Baltimore, Maryland, Local weather Entry Fund is a inexperienced financial institution whose mission is to cut back the power burden and carbon footprint of Maryland’s low- and moderate-income (LMI) households by facilitating entry to scrub group photo voltaic tasks. Sol Programs’ partnership will assist the financing and implementation of a group photo voltaic challenge on the Henderson Hopkins College in East Baltimore, which can reserve 100% of the solar energy generated for LMI households in the neighborhood. Different group advantages will embody photo voltaic workforce coaching and an after-school membership for center faculty college students.
Primarily based in Petersburg, Virginia, Virginia Environmental Justice Collaborative was created when 4 organizations (the Southeast CARE Coalition, Appalachian Voices, the Federal Coverage Workplace of WE ACT for Environmental Justice, and New Virginia Majority) noticed the necessity for statewide coordination to assist Virginia organizations addressing environmental justice points. Sol Programs’ partnership will assist the group’s efforts to ascertain a solar-plus-storage resilience hub and launch workforce improvement initiatives in Petersburg, a traditionally under-resourced group in Virginia.
Within the 12 months forward, we’ll proceed to foster relationships with our present group companions whereas increasing our influence with new ones. Our persevering with partnerships deepen the influence now we have in D.C., Baltimore, and Philadelphia, whereas our new companions will permit us to broaden our work into new geographical areas, particularly rural Appalachia in Virginia and North Carolina.
