Ensuring that traditionally disinvested Black and Brown communities are not left behind is essential for a just transition away from carbon-based energy sources. 

At the same time, many of these communities have vast stretches of vacant or underutilized properties, which could present opportunities for clean energy development. 

For instance, in Detroit, city officials are working with DTE Energy to build 33 MW of solar arrays on vacant property around the city. Detroit’s mayor has touted the project as a way to deal with blight while producing clean energy, but neighbors are divided.

Meanwhile, in the West Woodlawn neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, a community-based geothermal project is intentionally bypassing vacant lots, focusing instead on placing the necessary loop fields in alleyways.

“Not every block in the neighborhood even has a vacant lot that could be leveraged,” said Andrew Barbeau, president of The Accelerate Group in Chicago, which is providing technical assistance for the geothermal pilot, in an email. “Further, communities often have other ambitions for that land, whether it is new housing development, parks, greenways, or other beneficial uses.” 

For Blacks in Green, the Chicago-based organization leading the geothermal project, recognition of the role of the project within a broader scope is central to an overall goal of generating economic development and a healthy environment within the community, said Nuri Madina, Sustainable Square Mile director, who serves as point person for the pilot.

“We know that the communities have been underserved. And underserved by definition means that we have not gotten our fair share of taxpayer investment in the communities. We know what our streets look like. And one of the major assets in the community, which is not really viewed as an asset, is our vacant lots,” Madina said.

The geothermal pilot 

Conventional geothermal systems require substantial plots of land to lay the subterranean loop fields that circulate both hot and cold water — land that is often scarce in densely populated urban areas. 

But while West Woodlawn has a number of vacant lots, they are not being utilized for the project. Instead, alleys provide a potential solution for constructing geothermal loop fields, along with allowing for connection points for houses and multifamily buildings within the pilot footprint, Barbeau said.

“The good news is that based on the system design, we have more than enough capacity in the alleys to serve the load of the blocks we have modeled. The modeling also so far is showing us that the shared network model would require 20-30%  less wells than if each home built their own system,” Barbeau said in an email.

Locating the bulk of the geothermal infrastructure in alleyways also sidesteps the underground congestion of existing gas, electric and water infrastructure on city streets, said Mark Nussbaum, owner and principal of Architectural Consulting Engineers in Oak Park, Illinois.

“There’s a lot of stuff happening out near the street. It doesn’t mean it’s not possible to coordinate it, but it’s just what’s nice about the alley concept is, it’s kind of unused for utilities typically,” Nussbaum said.

Blank slate versus bright future 

“White flight” and housing segregation have left many U.S. cities with sections of vacant or underinvested property, typically in communities populated by Black and Brown people. 

With roughly 60% of the land area of Chicago, Detroit nonetheless has a much larger proportion of vacant land — approximately 19 square miles. In some neighborhoods,  multiple blocks may only have a single structure remaining, if any at all.  

DTE Energy’s plan to build large-scale solar arrays on some of that land is supported by some residents and municipal officials as a means to reduce illegal dumping and other nuisance crimes while working toward meeting city climate goals — and reducing utility bills for residents. 

But there has also been pushback, largely focused on potential detrimental impact on property values in adjacent properties and limitations on future use of the sites themselves.

“Solar panels will disrupt and destroy entire neighborhoods. There will be no future affordable housing being built anywhere around a solar farm,” councilmember Angela Whitfield-Calloway said during a city council meeting in July, as reported by Planet Detroit. 

Whitfield-Calloway also questions why municipal buildings or sites outside the city limits had not been considered for the solar arrays.

In Chicago, a battery storage facility constructed as part of the Bronzeville Microgrid project administered by electric utility ComEd generated similar debate during an extended period of community input. ComEd officials said the location of the battery facility, in the middle of a stretch of vacant plots near the South Side Community Art Center, was strategic to the overall microgrid project. 

A 40-yard-long mural designed and created by local artists and mounted on the exposed long side of the battery storage facility not only serves to obscure the structure, but also to highlight prominent figures in Black history and culture. While reactions to the mural have been overwhelmingly positive, reception of the battery storage facility itself has been mixed. 

“There were thorough talks with the community and the art community in Bronzeville about what they wanted, what [ComEd] planned to do [with] that battery station, because they did not want it to be an eyesore … they did not want it to just be, you know, brick walls around infrastructure,” Jeremi Bryant, a resident of Bronzeville, told the Energy News Network in February 2021.

For Bruce Montgomery, founder of Bronzeville-based Entrepreneur Success Program and a member of the advisory council for the Community of the Future, the location of the battery storage facility precluded potentially more beneficial future development for the site.

“That lot in most communities probably would have ended up being invested in as more quality residential,” Montgomery told the Energy News Network in February 2021. “But now you’ve taken it up with this box car. … You’ve got big things sitting out in the middle of a vacant lot a couple of doors down from one of the most historic locations in Bronzeville.”

Creating ‘multiple benefits’

For Blacks in Green, what might appear to the casual observer as a vacant lot overtaken by weeds belies its ultimate potential — as an affordable, energy-efficient residential complex, small business owned by a community resident, a much needed basic amenity like a grocery stocking fresh produce — or a native plant garden to attract pollinators.

On June 17, 2023, Blacks in Green collaborated with the Delta Institute to hold a combined Juneteenth celebration and BioBlitz to identify potential sites for green infrastructure. Experts and community residents worked side-by-side to map and measure plant life, insect populations, drainage and other elements during a walking inventory of vacant lots in the area.

In the case of West Woodlawn, installation of geothermal loop fields in its alleys — versus locating them in vacant plots — presents an opportunity to promote climate resiliency through mitigation of persistent urban flooding, by utilizing permeable pavers to replace existing concrete or asphalt, said Madina.

“All of our programs are designed to create multiple benefits,” Madina said.

Projects like the West Woodlawn community geothermal project represent a drive to revive and reinvent Chicago’s Black Wall Street within what once constituted the redline-confined boundaries of the Black population drawn to the city during the Great Migration of the 20th Century.

“In most communities, the vacant lots are really indicative of a declining community. But what we have tried to do is take that negative and turn it into something positive. So if we can take those vacant lots with weeds and debris and turn them into beautiful gardens, that is a very significant improvement in the community,” Madina said.

“So [we] could improve the quality of life, improve the spirit of the people in the community… that vacant lot can provide more than just beauty. It can provide more than just comfort for the residents. It can also provide biodiversity, it can provide pollination, it can provide food for the residents.”

Correction: A 40-yard-long mural was mounted on the side of a ComEd battery storage facility to obscure the structure and highlight prominent figures in Black history and culture. An earlier version of this story misstated its size.

Vacant urban land poses complex questions for clean energy siting is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Detroit’s City Council again postponed a vote on a fund connected with the proposed solar plan this week. The plan involves building 200 acres of solar fields in six neighborhoods to offset the energy used by municipal buildings.

Councilmembers continue to voice disagreements over the first phase of the plan, which would create 104 acres of solar in the Gratiot-Findlay, State Fair and Van Dyke-Lynch neighborhoods. 

Councilmember Angela Whitfield-Calloway has argued that utility-scale solar is wrong for the city and questioned why Detroit hasn’t explored placing solar on municipal buildings or developing arrays outside the city.

However, Councilmembers Fred Durhal III and Coleman A. Young II have said the plan could revitalize neighborhoods and save residents money. Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan has pitched the program as a way to meet city climate goals while reducing blight and illegal dumping in vacant lots.

Homeowners in the footprint of the proposed solar fields would receive twice the fair market value of their homes or $90,000, whichever is higher, while renters will get 18 months of rent to relocate. Homeowners within community benefits areas surrounding the projects will receive $15,000 to $25,000 each for energy efficiency upgrades.

In the five neighborhoods being considered for the second phase of the solar plan, 28 of the 31 homeowners have already signed letters of intent to sell their homes, according to Duggan. 

He has proposed using a $4.4 million equity fund derived from the Utility Conversion Fund, which is legally required to be used for energy conservation, to purchase these homes.

City council has twice delayed a vote on the fund so far, with Whitfield Calloway emerging as a strong critic. She said during the July 2 council meeting that the arrays would do little to address blight and crime. 

“Solar panels will disrupt and destroy entire neighborhoods. There will be no future affordable housing being built anywhere around a solar farm,” Whitfield Calloway said.

Young responded to Whitfield Calloway, saying the plan would help lower taxes for Detroiters who would otherwise be paying the utility bills for city buildings.

“I, for one, believe the taxes are too damn high,” he said.

One resident who lives near the proposed 40-acre State Fair solar project in Whitfield Calloway’s district spoke out against the plan on Tuesday, calling attention to the infill housing developed by the nonprofit Emmanuel Community House in the area.

“That area could be used again for single-family housing and bringing people back to the city of Detroit,” she said. “I’ve been there since 1980 and want to bring it back.”

Meanwhile, the city council is considering asking for an outside legal opinion on the solar plan. Council President Mary Sheffield has said she has questions about the city’s use of eminent domain and whether it can exempt itself from its own zoning ordinance.

Detroit Corporation Council Conrad Mallet and the council’s Legislative Policy Division have said that the solar sites are exempt because they’re being put to public use.   

Councilmembers question placing arrays in neighborhoods, criticize DTE Energy

As city council weighed the equity fund, its Public Health and Safety Standing Committee has been considering a resolution to approve the acquisition of land for the solar plan and the contracts for Lightstar Renewables and DTE Energy, the businesses chosen to develop the solar fields.

Developer representatives and city departments made lengthy presentations touting the potential for solar to improve health outcomes by reducing emissions from fossil fuel power plants and increasing energy reliability as the grid is upgraded to enable solar.

During Monday’s meeting, Whitfield Calloway questioned why Detroit hasn’t explored placing arrays on city buildings or developing solar fields outside the city limits as places like Chicago, Cincinnati and Philadelphia have done.

“Why not put the solar panels on the structures that we’re trying to drive power to?” she asked. “Why do we have to put them in neighborhoods?”

“We really feel that it was the right thing to do to invest in our land here and make sure that residents are able to benefit from it,” Trisha Stein, Detroit’s chief strategy officer, said earlier in the meeting. She said neighborhood groups had drawn up the areas that would host the solar fields and surrounding community benefits areas.

DTE Energy also came in for criticism on Monday, with councilmember James Tate saying he was met with “eyerolls” and “sighs” when he told the Detroit Green Task Force that DTE Energy would be developing some of these projects.

“You have a terrible reputation,” he said, calling out the utility’s opposition to community solar, which allows residents to subscribe to offsite solar arrays and receive bill credits for the energy produced.

The committee will continue deliberating on these contracts next week.

Detroit’s city council is divided over plans for utility-scale solar arrays in neighborhoods is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

This article originally appeared on Planet Detroit

While being a stay-at-home mom, Deana Neely had an idea. She began researching federal contracts and saw that Black women-owned businesses could win contracts and subcontract to other firms. 

She also noticed that properties were being purchased all over Detroit. She felt that Black Detroiters needed a bigger stake in the contract work being performed amid the city’s development boom. 

So Neely studied to get her electrical contractor’s license and founded Detroit Voltage,  a Detroit-based Black-owned company that provides electrical contracting services for residential, commercial and government projects. 

“It took me months. But after I got that first contract, my phone literally never stopped ringing,” Neely said. “Within my first six months of operating, we generated over six figures in revenue [and] became like the go-to electrical contractor in the city.”

Initially, Neely said she was not forthcoming about being a Black woman-owned business.

“It is very much so a white male-dominated industry, and I didn’t want anyone to know that I owned the company. And so everything about it looked like a white male owned it,” Neely said. 

But, when she participated in a Google small business accelerator, the leaders of Google’s program encouraged her to bring her face to the forefront, a move that paid dividends later. 

Addressing a lack of Black contractors in Detroit development 

The U.S. construction industry remains largely white and male-dominated. Only 10.6% of construction managers in the U.S. are women, and only 4.8% are Black, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as of January 2024. 

Despite the sector’s homogeneity, Neely is inspiring other people of color to enter the skilled trades with a focus on sustainability.

Today, Detroit Voltage is installing electric vehicle charging stations for DTE Energy in Detroit. And she’s also helping others enter the field.

In the Spring of 2022, Elevate, a national nonprofit based in Chicago, tapped Neely to help shape the Detroit Clean Energy Contractor Accelerator Program. The program trains contractors from underrepresented backgrounds to bring their businesses into the clean energy economy. The following year, Neely participated in the program’s first Detroit cohort. 

Inspiring people of color to enter the clean energy sector

“What we’re trying to do is build up a network of contractors that are located in Detroit,,” said Tim Skrotzki, Associate Director of partnerships at Elevate. “We want these contractors to look like and be from the community we’re working in. With Detroit being predominantly Black, 78%, we want contractors to reflect that.” Editor’s note: Skrotzki is an Advisory Council member for Planet Detroit

Beyond training workers in the space, the nonprofit seeks to get general contractors to understand clean energy technologies so that they can oversee such projects, he added. 

Neely said the clean energy accelerator program has helped build a connected local ecosystem for contractors like her.

“It also opened our eyes to partnering to get the work done. So if we didn’t have the capacity to do it directly, we can work within the group to make it happen,” she said. 

Detroit Voltage was contracted to install EV charging stations across the city on behalf of DTE Energy. Neely said that the two began working together last April, and Detroit Voltage had installed about 100 EV charging stations on behalf of DTE. Neely first connected with the utility giant through its Bright Ideas for Neighborhoods Business pitch competition, during which small local businesses compete for a cash prize. Neely won $5,000 at the competition.

Detroit Voltage was installing EV chargers prior to participating in Elevate’s accelerator, but the program introduced Neely to other possible services beyond EVs. For example, Neely said she plans to implement battery backup preventative maintenance sometime in the near future, such as inspections, testing, and upkeep of battery backup systems. 

“We have a very positive working relationship with Detroit Voltage. They are a DTE-certified electrician who takes part in our Home EV Charger Installation program,” Ryan R. Lowry, spokesperson for DTE told Planet Detroit. 

Before launching Detroit Voltage in April 2016, Neely spent more than a decade working for the Detroit Buildings, Safety Engineering, and Environmental Department. There, she met her now ex-husband and went on to have two children.

Similarly, Neely said she has tried to spread the word to young people in youth and professional organizations about opportunities in the industry.

“Everywhere you go there’s construction happening, ” Neely said. “Once you have this skill, you can go anywhere in the world and thrive with just the skill alone.” 

Meet the Black woman leading Detroit’s clean energy charge is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

This article was produced in partnership with Planet Detroit.

A new community center in Detroit’s Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood is also a key part of the city’s climate strategy. 

The Community Center at A. B. Ford Park is part of the first three networks of resiliency hubs on the eastside of Detroit. In case of climate emergencies like power outages, heat waves or floods, these facilities serve the residents of the community as a central hub for resources, distribution, shelter, internet access and a place to charge devices.

The new facility includes a 70-kilowatt solar array with a backup battery and generator. This system can provide up to 72 hours of power. Ryter Cooperative Industries, a Black-owned company, was the primary solar contractor, and the development project served as a training opportunity for local contractors to learn how to install solar arrays.

The parking lot is equipped with green stormwater infrastructure and lots of native plants. The Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood was hard hit with flooding in 2021. The Lenox Center, an existing building in the park that was a pioneering resource for disabled people in the 1960s, was demolished as part of the renovation project because it was vulnerable to flooding and would have required extensive renovations. 

“This is our first community center in over 15 years in District 4,” Detroit Councilmember Latisha Johnson said during her remarks at a ribbon-cutting event on Oct. 19. “This community knows how important green stormwater infrastructure is to addressing and ensuring that we don’t continue to have problems with our combined sewer overflow system.” 

The new $7.9 million community center — built on higher ground — has a welcome desk, a cozy living room and library with fireplace, a multipurpose classroom, a flexible space for indoor sports, exercise classes or parties, and a large community event and meeting space with lots of big windows to view the future landscaped park and Detroit River. 

“My hope is that this center will serve as a place of empowerment where individuals can access educational programs, engage in recreational activities and build lasting connections with one another,” said Mary Sheffield, president of the Detroit City Council. “Hopefully it will serve as a sanctuary of growth where the potential of our youth and the wisdom of our elders can be nurtured and celebrated.”

In the fall of 2024, with funding from the American Rescue Plan Act, the surrounding green space will be transformed into a new park for residents and visitors with playgrounds for different ages, picnic areas, outdoor fitness equipment, basketball court, pickleball court, walking paths, shelters and fishing area. There will be a meadow, new trees planted and a wetland for wildlife.

Over 200 community members from Jefferson Chalmers and District 4 were engaged during the design process for the park and the building. 

Tammie Black, founder of the Manistique Community Treehouse, has led solar roof projects in Jefferson Chalmers that have helped 25 houses get solar power. And she hasn’t stopped there. She mentioned that plans are underway for a solar training house where people will learn how to implement solar. 

“I am numb,” she said. “All of our dreams and everything that we wanted inside of this space is here,” Black told Planet Detroit. “We’re going to continue this effort throughout.”

William Dawkins IV grew up in Highland Park and is working at the new center as the rec leader. He hopes to be able to create programming for all of the ages who will visit the center. He spent time training at the Patton and Adams Butzel recreation centers. 

At the ribbon-cutting, Dawkins pointed out the classroom area where attendees played bingo. Iconic Detroit dancer and model Fast Freddy — still going strong at 77 years old — led a hustle dance class in the large community room. 

Frank Bach, who has lived a block away for 44 years, said enjoying the park taught him that “recreation is essential to physical health and to mental health.”

“This is a place people can go when the power is out. Not only when the power is out — it’s a place for people to convene just to be amongst other people,” said Jack Akinlosotu, director of the city of Detroit’s Office of Sustainability. “This project is essential to Detroit’s climate strategy.”

New community center provides Detroit neighborhood with a climate refuge is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

This article was produced in partnership with Planet Detroit.

What does it mean to wage love?

The question, inspired by deceased Detroit activist Charity Mahouna Hicks, formed the centerpiece of a recent gathering of Detroit environmental justice advocates. 

Hicks, who died from injuries sustained after being struck by a hit-and-run driver in 2014 in New York City, made the phrase her mantra. For the panelists, answering that question means charting a course toward a better future.

Waging Love: Building an Environmentally Just Detroit featured an intergenerational panel of local activists and residents from Detroit’s environmental and climate justice movements. 

The panel capped off the 2023 Allied Media Projects’ Seeds Series designed to “bring together visionary minds from across the AMP network for dialogue, resource-sharing, and reflection.”

Producer Liz Kennedy moderated the panel, including Ahmina Maxey of Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition; Chrystal Ridgeway, a Core City resident activist; and Norrel Hemphill, an Equal Justice Works Fellow and attorney at the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center who works closely with We The People of Detroit. 

The event was held in the newly renovated Love Building, a new social justice hub in Detroit’s Core City, which houses Allied Media Projects, Detroit Justice Center, Detroit Narrative Agency, Detroit Disability Power, Detroit Community Technology Project, and Paradise Natural Foods.

The event opened with a land acknowledgment and remarks by David Pitawanakwat, the founder of the Detroit Indigenous Peoples Alliance. Before the panel discussion, DanceAbility Detroit, a dance group for people of all abilities, performed. 

Hemphill said she did not know Charity Hicks but knew that Hicks was warning people in the 1990s about what was coming with Detroit’s water issues — massive shutoffs of low-income Detroiters, often Black mothers — for nonpayment. She said Hicks sounded an early alarm about how water is often used to punish the most vulnerable “because if there is no running water, you are at risk of losing your children.” 

Hemphill acknowledged many other forebears to her work, including Detroit activist and former council person JoAnn Watson, who recently passed away, and two co-founders of We The People of Detroit, Monica Lewis-Patrick and Debra Taylor. 

“JoAnn Watson is the reason I do this work,” Hemphill said. “Mama Watson always said to deputize yourself. No one is coming to save poor little Black women in Detroit. You have all the things that you need to save yourselves.”

“We don’t wait for anybody to parachute in, we don’t wait for permission, we don’t wait for a door or somebody to offer us something. We make demands,” Hemphill told the audience.

Maxey remembered Hicks as someone who “exuded love.” Maxey tries to “do work that comes from the heart, leaning on our ancestors to keep us going when the work becomes hard.”

Ridgeway said that it feels like there is a war waged against love. 

“If you wage love on a daily basis, we would have no problems,” she said. She quoted her dad, who often said, “Your job on this planet is that any person you come in contact with is left better off after having met you.” 

The panel worked to define an environmentally just vision for Detroit amid a growing climate crisis, unjust environmental policies, widespread power outages, floods, air pollution from wildfires, and industry.

Ridgeway pointed to the Core City fight against a concrete company that wanted to set up a crushing facility in their neighborhood. For example, residents stood up to fight for the integrity of their community. The company, she said, thought no one lived in the neighborhood.

“An environmentally just Detroit is a place where policies are not left vague,” she said. “As community members, we are responsible for being awake, aware, and walking our neighborhood.”

Maxey introduced the idea of affordable, reliable, clean energy as a crucial part of an environmental justice vision.

“Success to me looks like people who represent us at the city level and at the state level have Detroiters’ best interests at heart and are free from political contributions from these major polluters,” she said, noting that most legislators accept money from DTE Energy. 

“You see what’s happening in the state and the city with outages and shut-offs. You have a climate bill that is being pushed through the legislature that is trying to be carbon neutral instead of being 100% about renewable energy,” she said. “If you have 93% of senators taking money from the same person who’s gonna get affected by this particular policy, we’re never going to get to this vision.”

Success, Maxey said, is about fair representation.”No matter what you look like, no matter where you live, you have access to clean air and clean water. That your vote and your voice are not being co-opted by somebody who may look like you but is not actually representing you. The way to move towards success is to think about cumulative impact. Not the one facility but the 10 that are in the neighborhood.” 

Hemphill highlighted the year-old Detroit Lifeline Fund, a measure adopted by the city to tie water rates to income, as an example of community voice having an impact.

“The good that you see in the Detroit Lifeline Plan is the ‘we’ of the community and the ‘we’ that’s in We The People of Detroit. That dashboard you see is because we demanded transparency,” Hemphill said, referring to the city’s online tracker for the Lifeline program, which displays metrics for participation and dollars spent.

She insisted that residents must demand public officials do what they’re supposed to do and write letters so they go in the public record. 

Hemphill shared with the audience that state Sen. Stephanie Chang, D-Detroit, has been leading an effort to make water affordable for all Michiganders. She encouraged everyone to go online to Wel Coalition to take the pledge, sign on, and learn more.

“Community is the antidote,” Kennedy said. “Getting organized, knowing your neighbors. Being embodied in our relationships to living here on this land.”

This was the first public event in the Love Building. Allied Media Projects will have an official grand opening event soon.

Environmental justice activists issue a call to ‘wage love,’ work toward building an environmentally just Detroit is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.