{"id":9473,"date":"2015-02-23T08:02:26","date_gmt":"2015-02-23T14:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/energyexchange\/?p=9473"},"modified":"2016-08-09T15:04:21","modified_gmt":"2016-08-09T20:04:21","slug":"lets-talk-about-solar-power-and-equity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/energyexchange\/2015\/02\/23\/lets-talk-about-solar-power-and-equity\/","title":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s Talk About Solar Power and Equity"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"rp_solar-cells-491701_640-300x200.jpg\"<\/a>We need to have \u201cthe talk<\/a>\u201d 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 \u201call the good things, and the bad things, that may be.\u201d<\/p>\n

First things first: the price of solar panels has fallen by 80 percent<\/a> since 2008. This significant decrease in cost, coupled with incentives such as net metering<\/a> 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 \u201cleasing\u201d programs<\/a>, has led to an explosion of local solar in the U.S.<\/p>\n

We now boast an estimated 20 gigawatts<\/a> of solar energy nationwide (enough to power more than four million U.S. homes), and the United States added more solar capacity<\/a> in the past two years than in the previous 30 years combined. In fact, as President Obama highlighted<\/a> in his State of the Union address, \u201cevery three weeks, we bring online as much solar power as we did in all of 2008.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, who is benefiting from this solar boom? In regard to rooftop solar, it is mostly middle-income and working class homeowners, according to analysis<\/a> from the Center for American Progress:<\/p>\n

“Rooftop solar is not just being adopted by the wealthy; it is, in fact, mostly being deployed in neighborhoods where median income ranges from $30,000 to $90,000.”<\/p>\n

The growth of the solar industry is also creating good jobs<\/a>, and plenty of them. The solar industry added jobs nearly 20 times faster<\/a> than the national average in 2014, and solar employment has increased 86 percent in the past five years. \u00a0Solar installers make an average of $20 to $24 per hour, and solar salespeople can make $30 to $60 per hour. And, as I have written<\/a> before, solar and other clean energy jobs are generally more accessible to people of color and folks without advanced degrees.<\/p>\n

Not to be overlooked are the environmental benefits<\/a> of solar: the deployment of this clean energy resource helped avoid an estimated 20 million metric tons of harmful carbon dioxide emissions in 2014, the equivalent of taking four million cars off U.S. highways. The fact that solar averts dirty, fossil fuel pollution has a critical equity aspect, as approximately 68 percent of African Americans (and a similar percentage of Latinos) live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant, and a recent study claims that nearly 40 percent of communities of color breathe polluted air.<\/p>\n

While all of this news is encouraging, there are still important questions about local solar access and affordability for low-income people, renters, and communities of color \u2013 constituencies that greatly overlap.\u00a0[Tweet “We need an informed dialogue about how local solar power can impact low-income communities. http:\/\/ow.ly\/JAG2J “]<\/p>\n

There is no easy answer, but fortunately this issue has been a priority for many lawmakers and advocates \u2013 including Environmental Defense Fund \u2013 who are working to find solutions. A community solar pilot project in Los Angeles<\/a>, for example, will empower residents to own a share of a local solar garden without installing panels on their own roofs. This has the potential to reach 51 percent of the population in L.A. who rent, and large swaths of residents who can\u2019t afford their own solar system. These and other policies can create access and affordability for people who otherwise could not join the clean energy revolution \u2013 and we need to get these policies right.<\/p>\n

But, in the meantime, we also need to counteract misinformation and bad ideas.<\/p>\n

Enter the \u201csolar hurts low income people<\/a>\u201d argument, which claims that low-income people are paying higher bills to subsidize solar power they can\u2019t afford, and thus advocates and lawmakers should oppose it. This argument is misguided, ignores critical information, and often emanates from industry groups trying to turn low-income communities against clean energy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To be clear, asking important questions regarding clean energy and equity is productive; so is pushing lawmakers to find solutions that work for all communities and don\u2019t place unfair, burdensome costs on low-income people. What\u2019s unproductive is misinformation and conjecture. To forge fair, lasting solutions, we need real<\/em>, unbiased data and analysis on the costs of solar to customers and the grid, some of which already exists:<\/p>\n