Energy Exchange

The Sun Belongs to Everyone

By Jorge Madrid / Published: March 3, 2016

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I thought only supervillains like Mr. Burns or Supreme Leader Snoke from Star Wars were bold enough to try snuffing out the sun…I was wrong.

I’ve been writing about solar power and economic equity for eight years now and I still firmly believe the vision that drew me to this issue in the first place: solar and other forms of clean energy hold the potential to be a jobs and economic growth machine for communities who need it the most.

Back in 2008, I joined a collective movement of environmentalists, community and justice activists, and labor and faith groups who coalesced around a vision for the “green collar economy.” The idea of this movement was to fight climate change while also lifting people out of poverty and jails, and helping them transition into promising careers in growing industries.

Since then I’ve seen many great strides in the creation of a clean energy economy that employs hundreds of thousands with well-paying and accessible jobs, propelled by smart policy, innovation, and upstart private and public sector players, all making meaningful investments in communities. Rooftop solar in particular has begun to challenge the status quo by turning people’s homes into mini power plants, cutting into dirty power and the monopoly-dominated, electric grid.

Yet, despite this progress and opportunity, some states – fueled by short-sighted officials, fear-mongering, and the threat of declining profits for big business utilities – want to shut it all down. Read More »

Local Solar Can Be Good For All Neighborhoods

By Jorge Madrid / Published: November 18, 2015

Solar power in California has, in many ways, been an unparalleled success: the state has more solar power installed than the rest of the country combined. There are more solar workers in California (55,000) than working actors or utility workers. Solar workers earn a higher than average wage, and the industry is making strides in employing more women, veterans, and people of color. And, the median income of households installing solar in California in 2012 was between $40,000-$50,000, mostly middle- and working-class homeowners.

But there are two sides to this story because, unfortunately, solar power is still inaccessible to many low-income households.

Take my neighborhood of Boyle Heights, on the east side of Los Angeles, for example: over 70 percent of residents are renters and cannot install solar on roofs they don’t own. For those who do own their homes, many can’t afford to purchase their own solar system (the median income is just over $33,000) or don’t qualify for traditional financing. Residents here have captured a paltry $0.33 per capita in solar incentives over the past 15 years, as compared to Bel Air (yup, that Bel Air) which received almost $200 in solar incentives per capita – over 600 times more than Boyle Heights. Read More »

Posted in California, Clean Energy, Energy Equity, General, Solar Energy / Comments are closed

‘Eastside Sol’ gets L.A. Community Dancing to Solar Power

By Jorge Madrid / Published: August 26, 2015

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Walking around my neighborhood in Boyle Heights, on the eastside of Los Angeles, I see murals and street art conveying pride in the community and the cultural roots of its residents. I see street vendors and informal entrepreneurs trying to capture the America dream, smell delicious food, and hear infectious Latin music that will make you want to move with the rhythm. What I don’t see are solar panels, plentiful shade under trees and green space, electric vehicles, and other icons of the growing clean energy economy. Instead, I smell vehicle exhaust and feel the heat trapped in my neighborhood and many like it on the eastside, where communities are bisected by freeways, surrounded by toxic facilities, and bound by a jungle of concrete.

But it doesn’t have to be like this. Recently a coalition of labor, environmental justice, and community organizations teamed up with Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to put together Eastside Sol, the first 100 percent solar powered art and music festival on the eastside of Los Angeles. The goal of the event was to create a vision of what the community might look like with abundant solar power, more trees and greenspace, and a fair share of the growing clean energy economy. Read More »

Posted in California, Clean Energy, Energy Equity / Tagged Community Solar | Read 2 Responses

The Revolution will be Solarized

By Jorge Madrid / Published: April 2, 2015

There’s a clean energy revolution happening in California – and it has the potential to topple the old polluting forces while fighting climate change with the power of the sun.

California is not only producing the most solar power in the country – 8.5 gigawatts, enough to power two million homes – it’s producing more solar power than the rest of the country combined. In 2014 alone, the state more than doubled its solar power, becoming the first state to generate five percent of its total electricity from utility-scale solar. This record does not even count rooftop solar and distributed generation (where California also leads the country), bringing the state closer to an estimated seven percent of its total power generation from free sunshine.

The solar industry employs more than 54,000 Californians – nearly one-third of all solar workers in the nation – and solar jobs in the state grew by 16 percent in 2014 alone (compared to 2.2 percent overall state job growth in 2014). California solar jobs are expected to grow by another 17 percent in 2015.

California cities are the vanguard of this revolution, with Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, and Sacramento leading the charge. New research finds that California’s cities and urban centers could generate enough solar to meet the state’s power needs three to five times over, without developing a single additional acre of the state’s natural areas. Read More »

Posted in California, Clean Energy, Energy Equity, Renewable Energy / Read 6 Responses

Let’s Talk About Solar Power and Equity

By Jorge Madrid / Published: February 23, 2015

We need to have “the talk” about solar power and equity, because ignoring uncomfortable questions will invite misinformation and bad decisions. We need an informed dialogue about how local solar power can impact low-income communities and communities of color in the U.S. We need to talk about “all the good things, and the bad things, that may be.”

First things first: the price of solar panels has fallen by 80 percent since 2008. This significant decrease in cost, coupled with incentives such as net metering which allow customers to send the energy they produce from their solar systems back to the grid and receive a credit on their bill, and the emergence of new financing models like solar “leasing” programs, has led to an explosion of local solar in the U.S.

We now boast an estimated 20 gigawatts of solar energy nationwide (enough to power more than four million U.S. homes), and the United States added more solar capacity in the past two years than in the previous 30 years combined. In fact, as President Obama highlighted in his State of the Union address, “every three weeks, we bring online as much solar power as we did in all of 2008.”

Posted in Air Quality, California, Clean Energy, Energy Equity, Energy Financing, Renewable Energy / Read 11 Responses

Momma Said ‘Time-of-Use’ Electricity Pricing

By Jorge Madrid / Published: September 16, 2014

Map of polluting power plants in Los Angeles County. Many are located in or near the region’s most vulnerable communities that are already over-burdened by air pollution.

My mom is a pro at shopping for good deals. She taught me the importance of timing my purchases during the off-peak season to get the most value for my dollar.

Time-of-Use (TOU) electricity pricing reminds me of the lessons my mom taught me, and it can help empower families to take control of their energy use, while saving money AND improving air quality.

Like the name implies, TOU pricing allows customers to choose when to power-up large appliances (think laundry, dishwasher, A/C) in order to avoid using high-demand, “peak” energy – which is more polluting and expensive. It is a voluntary program with a proven track record.

Peak energy demand typically occurs late in the afternoon when everyone is coming home from school and work, running the A/C, charging phones, cooking, doing laundry, or streaming Netflix on a T.V. During this high-demand time, energy prices spike and electric utilities flip on expensive and dirty fossil fuel “peaking” power plants to meet energy demand (because nobody wants to lose power and heaven-forbid the Internet!). Read More »

Posted in Electricity Pricing / Read 2 Responses