The nonprofit Solar United Neighbors (SUN) is a gaggle working to assist communities transition away from fossil fuels to solar energy.
In our time of local weather disaster, there may be an much more pressing must cease utilizing fossil fuels and undertake renewable power sources.
“[T]The launch of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the burning of fossil fuels is warming our planet sooner than something we have seen within the geological report,” stated Brookings’ 2020 report. A report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) estimates that “90 % of the world’s electrical energy can and should come from renewable power by 2050,” the United Nations factors out.
On Earth Day, celebrated on April 22, 2024, the Biden administration introduced the 60 recipients who acquired $7 billion in a solar energy grant competitors known as the Solar for All program. Awardees are chosen by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and this system will assist convey residential photo voltaic tasks to greater than 900,000 US properties.
The nonprofit Solar United Neighbors (SUN) has labored carefully with the 12 candidates within the Solar for All program and can proceed the method with grant recipients as funds are distributed. In an interview with me for the Independent Media Institute on April 26, SUN’s director of communications, Ben Delman, stated it had been an “thrilling week” as his group put important work into the Solar for All program. . He says it would “present cash to native governments to assist increase photo voltaic entry” in low-income communities.
“We have been working particularly to increase photo voltaic entry and assist low-income households with photo voltaic for about half a dozen years or extra now. The growth of a collection of pilot mission fashions actually serves, I believe, as a proof of idea for what we see right here on the street immediately,” he stated.
SUN works to assist communities across the US transition away from fossil fuels and towards solar energy. They do that by public training and by establishing neighborhood-based cooperatives, which assist decrease the worth of putting in photo voltaic panels by group buying and negotiation help.
The mission was began by two preteen mates who had been moved to behave after watching the documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” in 2007. Twelve-year-old Walter (son of Anya Schoolman, founder and government director of SUN), and his buddy of the identical age, Diego, determined to go door to door of their neighborhood in Mt. Pleasant in Washington, DC In two weeks, the boys gathered about 50 neighbors who additionally wished to go photo voltaic. This is the muse of Mt. Pleasant Solar Cooperative and the beginning of what’s going to turn into SUN. From there, the youngsters — supported by Anya Schoolman — labored to go laws to enhance photo voltaic insurance policies within the Washington, DC space.
Started at Mt. Pleasant Solar Cooperative is petitioning TransferOn for laws to require Washington’s major utility firm, the Potomac Electric Power Company, to make use of renewable energy and help the addition of photo voltaic panels within the area. More than 2,000 Washington, DC residents signed the invoice, serving to it transfer to a single vote. It was collectively handed in 2011. At the identical time as engaged on the legislation, the cooperative is making an attempt to unfold the phrase about their battle for clear power rights on the group degree. “Soon after, different neighbors from throughout the area began organizing photo voltaic co-ops and combating for higher photo voltaic insurance policies collectively,” the SUN web site stated. The group has since expanded to places throughout the US, with on-the-ground tasks to assist help communities transitioning to photo voltaic power.
In 2023, for instance, SUN based the Phoenix Metro Solar Co-op in Arizona, in an effort to teach residents about photo voltaic power and educate them to discount as a gaggle to scale back the worth of buying solar energy.
“Imagine strolling into the workplace of a photo voltaic firm with 50 or 100 of your neighbors and saying, ‘We all need to get photo voltaic. What sort of deal are you able to give us?’” SUN’s web site stated.
SUN cooperatives additionally embrace a staff that solicits and critiques proposals from photo voltaic firms for a neighborhood. Here’s the way it works, in keeping with the web site: “First, Solar United Neighbors solicits bids in your behalf. Then, a committee of your fellow co-op members meets to weigh the professionals and cons and make a alternative of the very best installer for the group.
SUN created a video to clarify the advantages of becoming a member of an area photo voltaic cooperative, and the way becoming a member of a photo voltaic co-op is “free, and open to anybody” in a delegated space co-op. Phoenix Metro Co-op, for instance, is offered to residents of Maricopa County, San Tan Valley, and Queen Creek.
Solar cooperatives organized by SUN collect between 50 and 100 neighbors in a gaggle to go photo voltaic collectively at a given time, supported by consultants from SUN at each stage of the method.
Arizona specifically has the potential to steer the world on the trail towards utilizing photo voltaic power and shifting away from fossil fuels, as a consequence of its sunny climate. According to the US Energy Information Administration’s state power profile evaluation of Arizona in 2022, it ranks second within the nation by way of photo voltaic power potential (after Nevada). The state was discovered to be “one of many high 5 states within the nation in complete solar-powered era capability from utility- and small-scale installations, with greater than 5,483 megawatts.”
Delman additionally shared that certainly one of SUN’s focuses is to convey photo voltaic entry to rural areas, particularly by the Renewable Energy for America Program. This is a federal program run by the US Department of Agriculture that gives each grants and loans to farms and small rural companies that need to undertake renewable power programs.
“We educate folks by that program,” he shared. “We’re doing a collection of guides and webinars to assist folks with photo voltaic.”
Delman says one other mission SUN is worked up about is its Solar Help Desk—launching in late 2023—which is a free service geared toward serving to reply folks’s solar-related questions. . He stated it is designed for folks “who’re simply beginning to do photo voltaic analysis, who would possibly need assistance evaluating proposals.” The service can also be for individuals who have already gone photo voltaic and have “questions on their installer or one thing that is not working correctly.”
“We’re additionally in a position to coach folks by that course of,” he stated. “And I believe as extra individuals are serious about photo voltaic and need to learn about it, I believe the desk is one thing that may be a helpful useful resource.”
Delman says there are lots of causes folks need to go photo voltaic—from saving cash to utilizing a clear power supply—and that SUN has discovered that individuals are extra prone to go photo voltaic if their neighbor or somebody they know has gone photo voltaic. And, he stated, typically individuals who need to go photo voltaic cannot entry it due to the prices.
“In this enterprise, we speak about this concept of ’power burden’ – and all which means is that always the folks with the least sources pay extra, or the next proportion of their month-to-month that we, in power,” he stated. “This is as a result of, for instance, they’re typically within the housing inventory that isn’t very environment friendly or they’re in areas the place electrical energy is dearer. By serving to these households to go photo voltaic we will scale back the burden in power so we’re excited for that chance as properly.
He says with new federal funding by Solar for All, there may be extra hope to increase entry to photo voltaic for folks experiencing this power burden.
April M. Short is an editor, journalist, and documentary editor and producer. He is a co-founder of the Observatory, the place he’s the editor of Local Peace Economy, and he’s a writing fellow on the Independent Media Institute. Previously, he was a managing editor at AlterNet in addition to an award-winning senior employees author for Good Times, a weekly newspaper in Santa Cruz, California. Her work has been printed within the San Francisco Chronicle, In These Times, LA Yoga, The Conversation, Salon, and plenty of different publications.
This article was created by Local Peace Economy.
