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.

This story was originally published by the Arizona Mirror

When Hualapai Spiritual Leader Frank Mapatis visits Ha’Kamwe’, the tribe’s sacred spring, to conduct any type of ceremony, the area must be completely quiet so that he can hear the water and connect with the land.

Mapatis said that as part of his traditional ways of life, when he is in prayer at Ha’Kamwe’, he hears the water sing, and when it sings, he connects with the creator to conduct ceremonies.

He has provided purification, healing and coming-of-age ceremonies at Ha’Kamwe’ for decades and visits the spring at least twice a month. The spring is also utilized for tribal members’ funeral ceremonies.

Not being able to hear the water, conduct ceremonies or provide traditional teachings to the Hualapai youth who join him during his visits to the spring are among Mapatis’ top concerns for the proposed exploratory drilling lithium project in the Big Sandy River watershed near the tribe’s sacred spring.

“It would stop me from doing ceremony,” he said about the drilling project as he testified in federal court on Sept. 17. He believes drilling in that area will traumatize the earth and water, and he would not want to use that area for ceremonial purposes due to that trauma.

Mapatis said he could continue his ceremonial practices in other places, but they would not have the same impact as doing them at Ha’Kamwe’ because of the water’s healing properties.

“It wouldn’t be as effective in other areas,” he added.

Ha’Kamwe’ is featured in tribal songs and stories about the history of the Hualapai people and their connection to the land. According to the tribe, the historic flow and spring temperature are essential for its traditional uses.

Mapatis was one of several Haluapai tribal members who testified during the Sept. 17 preliminary injunction hearing at the U.S. Federal District Court in Phoenix, where the tribe is fighting to extend the pause on drilling for the Big Sandy Valley Lithium Exploration Project for the duration of the tribe’s lawsuit seeking to block the project entirely.

The project allows a mining company to drill and test more than 100 sites across BLM land surrounding one of the Hualapai Tribe’s cultural properties, among them Ha’Kamwe’, a medicinal spring sacred to the tribe.

Tuesday’s hearing came after a federal judge granted the Hualapai Tribe’s request for a temporary restraining order against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, temporarily freezing the exploratory drilling project. 

The restraining order was granted weeks after the Hualapai Tribe filed a lawsuit against BLM, following years of the tribe actively voicing its concerns about the mining effort.

Ha’Kamwe’ is located within the Hualapai Tribe’s property known as Cholla Canyon Ranch, and the boundaries of the Big Sandy Valley project nearly surround the entire property. Only one portion of the tribe’s land does not border the drilling project.

The spring is recognized as a traditional cultural property and is eligible to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the tribe’s lawsuit claims that the project’s approval violates the National Environmental Protection Act and the National Historic Preservation Act. 

The lawsuit asks for full compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which includes having the BLM take a “hard look” at the exploration activity’s environmental impacts and consider the implications of its actions on historic properties.

The lawsuit claims that BLM approved the mining project without appropriately considering a reasonable range of alternatives or taking a hard look at water resources under the NEPA and moved forward with the project without providing mitigation measures under the NHPA for Ha’Kamwe’ and other resources essential to the tribe, thus violating both acts.

Out of concern for Ha’Kamwe’, the tribe submitted multiple public comments, sent several letters of concern, and participated in tribal consultations with BLM throughout the Big Sandy Valley Lithium Exploration Project planning phase. 

Big Sandy, Inc., a subsidiary of Australian mining company Arizona Lithium, leads the project and has sought approval since 2019.  Arizona Lithium is not a direct party in the Hualapai Tribe’s lawsuit, but it filed a motion to intervene in the case. Humetewa granted the request in August, allowing the company to defend against the tribe’s efforts to stop the project.

BLM’s approval of the Big Sandy Valley Project allows the mining company to drill and test up to 131 exploration holes across 21 acres of BLM-managed public land to determine whether a full-scale lithium mining operation could be viable. 

‘How we connect to our ancestors’

Throughout the hearing, several Hualapai tribal members and supporters sat in the courtroom listening to the hearing while others sat outside the Sandra Day O’Connor courthouse holding signs backing the tribe.

Hualapai tribal member Ivan Bender, 60, from Peach Springs, showed up to the courthouse in support of his community, carrying a flag that said, “Protect Ka’kamwe’. No lithium mining.”

“That spring has a life of its own,” Bender said. “The water source we’re trying to protect is part of our sacred waters.” 

The preliminary injunction hearing lasted more than six hours, during which Judge Diane Humetewa heard witness testimony from all parties involved in the case as she weighed the tribe’s request to keep the drilling on hold. 

Testimony surrounded the way the project would directly or indirectly impact the Hualapai Tribe’s ability to carry out their cultural and traditional ways of life at Ha’Kamwe’, and whether the drilling that will take place as part of the project will harm the water that feeds into the hot spring.

Ka-voka Jackson, the director of the Hualapai Department of Cultural Resources, was the first witness, and part of her testimony focused on how the Hualapai Tribe utilizes the area for cultural and traditional purposes — and how drilling can directly affect those practices.

Jackson told the court that tribal members often visit Ha’Kamwe for traditional practices or to gather and harvest culturally significant plants from surrounding public lands.

“That is how we connect to our ancestors,” Jackson said.

The tribe’s lawsuit states that the lithium project will create noise, light, vibrations, and other disturbances that will degrade Ha’Kamwe’s character and harm tribal members’ use of the spring for religious and cultural ceremonies.

Jackson said the project’s impacts could cause irreversible damage, affecting the water supply to the sacred springs and destroying the land.

“(It can) create a lot of negative energy and create a hostile environment,” she said.

As part of its environmental assessment, BLM listed several short- and long-term effects, including the temporary disruption to cultural practices at or near Ha’Kamwe’ and an impact on native wildlife and vegetation of up to 21 acres.

But even with these effects included in the assessment, BLM concluded that Phase 3 of the Big Sandy Valley Lithium Exploration Project would not significantly negatively impact the quality of the area, so an environmental impact statement was not needed.

“Visual, noise, and vibration effects from drilling activities would be temporary,” BLM wrote in its final report. “Coordination with and providing notice to the Hualapai Tribe of drilling activities in the vicinity of the Ha’Kamwe’ may reduce impacts to cultural practices at or near the hot spring.”

To provide the court with perspective on the distance of the drilling locations near Ha’Kamwe’, Ivan Martirosov from Navajo Transitional Energy Company testified on behalf of the defendants. 

Martirosov is the project manager for the Big Sandy Valley Lithium Exploration Project with Navajo Transitional Energy Company (NTEC), a mining and energy company owned by the Navajo Nation. 

NTEC entered into a mining agreement with Arizona Lithium in March. Under this agreement, the Navajo-owned company is responsible for permitting, exploration drilling, mine design, environmental assessments and development for the Big Sandy Lithium Project. NTEC has worked with Arizona Lithium since December 2022.

Martirosov is in charge of overseeing and executing the Big Sandy Lithium Project. He told the court that he walked all approved drilling sites on foot and described the site’s proximity to the Hualapai’s cultural property.

Of the 131 drill sites approved for the project, Martirosov identified 22 with a line of sight to Ha’Kamwe’, a majority located on the north side. 

Martirosov said that he was restricted from accessing Ha’Kamwe, noting that the drill sites that do not have a line of sight of the cultural property were due to distance and terrain.

BLM: Concerns are ‘overblown’

At the end of the day-long hearing, Humetewa ordered all parties to file briefs outlining their arguments for why the injunction should or shouldn’t be granted. She said she would issue a ruling in the near future. 

During the hearing, Humetewa said that she was tasked with determining what process BLM took in connection to NEPA and their Section 106 process.

The Section 106 process seeks to accommodate historic preservation concerns through consultation among an agency official and other parties interested in the undertaking’s effects on historic properties. The consultation aims to identify historic properties potentially affected by projects and seek ways to avoid, minimize, or mitigate any adverse effects.

The process is usually conducted in four steps: initiating it, identifying historical properties within potentially affected areas, assessing any potential adverse effects on any eligible historic property, and seeking to resolve any adverse effects.

Humetewa said in court that she wants to know where in the records she can find BLM’s engagement in those processes so she can fully understand the discussion about either approving or denying the project. That way, she said, she can understand what considerations went into the final environmental assessment and the NEPA assessment.

Earthjustice Senior Attorney Laura Berglan, who is part of the team representing the Hualapai Tribe, said she feels positive because their team presented all the points they wanted.

“I think it went well and we’ll see how it turns out,” she added.

BLM’s attorneys told Humetewa that the impacts this project will have on Ha’Kamwe have been “vastly overblown,” noting how their expert clearly testified that the water and temperature will not change due to the drilling in the project.

The tribe had its own expert testify. Winfield G. Wright, a certified hydrologist and president of Southwest Hydro-Logic, said he produced a report for the tribe about the water sources that feed into Ha’Kamwe’. Wright said his analysis found that the groundwater system that flows into the hot spring is very fragile, and any disturbances around the area can disrupt the water, the chemistry and the temperature.

Wright said a mixture of shallow and deep waterways feed into Ha’Kamwe’, and the BLM’s environmental assessment simplified identifying where the water comes from by saying a confined lower aquifer feeds it.

“It’s not a confined aquifer,” he said, noting that the lower aquifer in the Big Sandy Valley is not the only source of water for the spring. “The whole valley is connected because of the fractures.”

But Peter Burck, a hydrologist with the BLM, testified that the lower fractures of the lower aquifer are a more likely source of water for Ha’Kamwe’. 

Burck said that Wright’s claim the water comes from multiple sources is not conclusive. He said he did not see anything in Wright’s report that would lead him to conclude that the spring water source is a mixture of multiple flows.

He said that the likelihood of the drilling from Phase 3 of the Big Sandy Lithium Project encountering water or affecting the temperature of Ha’Kamwe’ is low.

BLM also told the court that any visual and noise disturbances from the drilling does not qualify as irreparable injury and is instead temporary. 

But Jackson said her tribe made a good case that the project would cause irreparable harm because they had people testify who had already experienced it.

“This is irreparable; you can’t go back and redo ceremonies,” she said. “There’s no such thing.”

Jackson said she understands that the court wants more clarification on whether or not the BLM took the appropriate steps under the NEPA and NHPA policies before making a final decision.

“We believe that they didn’t take into consideration the effects on Ha’Kamwe’,” Jackson said, adding that it is eligible for registration on the National Historic Register and a traditional cultural property.

Jackson said it deserves a thorough process included in the NHPA and NEPA. 

“I am proud of our people for sticking up for what we believe in and asserting our arguments,” she said. “Now, we just wait.”

Hualapai Chairman Duane Clarke echoed Jackson’s sentiments about how their team and tribal members presented a good case in court, and said he prays that the court’s decision goes with the Hualapai people.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes filed an amicus brief before the hearing supporting the Hualapai Tribe’s request for the preliminary injunction. 

“The sacred Ha’Kamwe’ spring has sustained the Hualapai people for generations, and its protection is critical for the Tribe,” Mayes said in a written statement. “The failure to properly evaluate the impact of this project on such an important water source is unacceptable.”

The amicus brief urges the court to take action to protect Arizona’s water resources from potentially irreversible damage posed by exploratory drilling near the Hualapai Tribe’s sacred spring.

“The BLM must fulfill its obligations under NEPA and fully evaluate this project’s impact on local water resources,” Mayes said. “I am proud to support the Hualapai Tribe’s efforts to protect their precious cultural and water resources.”

The amicus brief highlights the risk of irreparable harm to Arizona’s water resources if exploratory drilling is allowed to proceed without a comprehensive review. It also requests that the court grant a preliminary injunction to stop drilling activities while the case is being heard to protect Arizona’s water sources from potential compromise.

Hualapai Tribe fights to extend ban on lithium drilling it says jeopardizes a sacred site 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.

Illinois has $30 million in incentives available for solar installations on multi-family buildings. 

So far, though, the state program has not received any applications for such projects, according to Jan Gudell, Illinois Solar for All associate director at Elevate, the organization tasked with running the state program. 

In urban areas like Chicago, residents of environmental justice and lower-income neighborhoods are highly likely to live in multi-family residential buildings where it is extremely difficult to install rooftop solar. 

There is little incentive for a landlord to invest in solar that will provide cost savings to the tenants, and rooftops may need significant upgrades to handle solar. In condo buildings, homeowners association bureaucracy and other concerns must be navigated.

There’s also a lesser-known logistical and structural barrier — if solar is to be channeled to individual residential units behind the meter, a separate solar system is essentially needed for each unit — with separate inverters and wiring.

“That’s a lot of hardware, space and cost,” said Aliya Bagewadi, US director of strategic partnerships for Allume Energy, an Australian startup company that says it can address at least this part of the puzzle, by sending energy to individual units with only one inverter and system. 

The company has served thousands of customers in Australia, New Zealand and Europe with its SolShare technology. Now it is rolling out in the U.S., in sunny southern states as well as Illinois, because of the state’s robust solar incentives. 

“It’s inherently an energy equity issue,” said Bagewadi, who is based in Chicago. “We know [multi-family building residents] are much more likely to be lower-income, longer-term renters. We want to make sure those savings flow to people who can really benefit the most.”

Direct benefits 

Illinois isn’t alone in the lack of multi-family solar arrays. Solar developers and advocates have long noted the challenge nationwide, especially for affordable multi-family rental buildings. A 2022 study by Berkeley lab noted that in 2021, about 3% of solar installed in the U.S. was on multi-family buildings, mostly owner-occupied condos. 

“Solar may be a non-starter in a rental multi-family property because the owner may be looking at a complex, expensive and time-consuming process, where they would have to consider the design, permitting, installation, interconnection, and cost for multiple systems,” said Gudell. “For many property owners, this may be unaffordable and unmanageable.” 

A 2018 study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that the majority of potential capacity for new solar serving low- and moderate-income customers is on renter-occupied multi-family rooftops. California passed a law in 2015 specifically to address the dearth of solar on multi-family buildings, promising to invest up to $1 billion by 2031.

There are typically several ways to handle rooftop solar on multi-family buildings. 

In rental properties, the building owner can own the array, and use the energy to power common areas, like hallways, a pool or gym. Owners can also allocate a portion of the energy savings to tenants, by charging an amenity fee or otherwise collecting some revenue themselves. 

Alternately, the energy can all be sent back to the grid, in areas with viable net metering policies, and the compensation can be shared with tenants or among condo owners, often referred to as virtual net metering. Community solar offers a similar situation — where the solar isn’t onsite at all, but residents can subscribe to partake in savings. 

Solar advocates, developers, lenders, and policymakers have all been working at state and federal levels to improve opportunities for virtual net metering and community solar. 

These arrangements, however, can still be unattractive or impossible depending on state and utility policy. Community solar isn’t even legal in some states, and virtual net metering depends on utility participation. 

The California law requiring solar on new multi-family construction up to three stories high exempts areas served by utilities that don’t offer virtual net metering.

SolShare avoids these challenges by sending electricity directly from the solar array to individual users, without involving utilities or the grid.

“You can do behind-the-meter with direct benefit to tenants,” said Bagewadi. “We’re physically pushing the electrons to multiple meters.”

Possibilities 

Allume partners with solar installers and developers to help deploy rooftop solar on multi-family buildings, including by working with landlords to design financial structures that benefit both the building owner and tenants. In some cases, Allume acts as the solar developer itself. 

With SolShare, a building owner or manager can allocate energy from a shared solar system, based on unit square footage, in equal amounts, or however they choose. 

Where the technology is deployed in Australia and the UK, energy can be sent to different units on demand, Bagewadi explained. In the U.S., the rollout in Florida and Mississippi is being done with preset amounts that can be changed with 24 hours notice. 

An Allume case study from a 64-unit Orlando apartment building with SolShare notes that a 392-kilowatt rooftop system resulted in savings of almost $100 per month for each unit, with electricity purchased from the grid reduced by almost 60%. While the idea is for residents to use solar behind the meter, excess solar can be sent to the grid. Adding an on-site battery to the mix lets residents use all the power on-site behind the meter, and makes solar power available when the grid is down.

Solar advocates hope the EPA’s $7 billion commitment to the federal equity-focused Solar for All program — separate from Illinois’s state program — will “further unlock multi-family solar,” in Bagewadi’s words.

Gudell said Elevate and other experts know there are many Illinoisans living in multi-family rental buildings that would qualify to have solar installed through Illinois Solar for All. They hope policy and technology evolve to match the available funding. 

“We’ll need a solution that addresses the split incentive problem for rental situations, where the building owner cannot or will not subsidize solar for tenants; and the complexity of bringing solar to multiple electrical accounts at one building,” Gudell said. 

“Adoption of a technology that allows for a single system to be split into shares, for use by multiple electrical account holders, could help in that it would simplify the design, permitting and installation process.”

Startup pitches new model to unlock solar for multi-family buildings, in Illinois and beyond 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.

Editor’s note: Miles Braxton’s company is Okovate Sustainable Energy. A previous version of this post misspelled the company’s name.

Agrivoltaics — co-locating solar arrays with farming operations — is generating enthusiasm among both farmers and clean energy advocates as a way to promote sustainability in agriculture. 

When implemented correctly, agrivoltaics provides a vital dual income stream for farmers — in solar energy generation, but also as a means of providing an optimal growing environment for compatible crops and herds. The added revenue may allow more farmers to retain their land for themselves and future generations. 

While pilot projects around the country are identifying best practices, not all have been successful, and practitioners say that advancing the technology will require an equitable approach that centers farmers’ needs first.

A discussion during the recent Solar Farm Summit in Rosemont, Illinois, directly addressed the issue, featuring a majority-Black panel of practitioners and service providers. Three major themes emerged during the discussion: maximizing compatibility of solar arrays with existing land use, demonstrating the financial benefits of agrivoltaics, and addressing how solar power can help BIPOC farmers hold on to their land.

“I think one thing that, through our work in this technical assistance, has become very, very clear [is] that people don’t just want to build an agrivoltaics project for the sake of building an agrivoltaics project,” said Jordan Macknick of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), who also served as moderator for the discussion. “How does agrivoltaics enable you to take that next step and focus on things like succession planning or farmer training?”

Benefits for farmers

Miles Braxton started his company, Okovate Sustainable Energy, to work exclusively on “farmer-focused” solar development.

Braxton said after several years of developing community solar projects, he “really saw the inefficiencies” of taking farmland out of production for solar projects. “That’s a problem that is just going to keep piling on top of itself until it gets to the point where we can’t develop anything.

“We target crop farmers who are growing a very specific suite of crops that we know works well with our design,” Braxton said.

Cetta Barnhart, owner of Seed Time Harvest Farms in Florida, also cultivates her own plot of fruits and vegetables, and cited her background in food and wellness in promoting the compatibility of solar and agriculture to benefit the bottom line for farmers.

“This is more hands-on of what a farmer can really do in their current practices. If they’re raising cattle, there’s a way that they implement solar with that. If they are having bare land, the pollinator is another way that they can benefit from that,” she said. “So how these solar projects are developed and created for real farmers is still a big conversation to be had.“ 

Ena Jones, owner of Roots & Vine Produce and Café, and president of Community Partners for Black Farmers, cited her dual role as a working farmer and an advocate as an advantage in promoting the potential compatibility of agrivoltaics and cultivation — especially for Black farmers.

“We advocate and we also lobby for farmers at the state level for the state of Illinois and the state of Georgia. And I’m here to kind of segue to help farmers understand … how different solar opportunities can help them with production on their farms, and be an asset to the production on their farms. And also, to help solar developers understand farm[ing],” Jones said.

Noting that solar projects can help cut energy costs, Jones said “Energy use is one of the farmer’s [major] expenses outside of diesel, and of course seed. So, if they can reduce that cost dramatically, even by a third, that would impact their bottom line in revenue extensively. It is very important, especially for BIPOC farmers, to be ushered into this technology so that they won’t be left behind in the process.”

Making connections

Agrivoltaics can be a valuable tool to reduce overall costs, expand potential revenue – or both – as a means of promoting optimal use of farmland. A both-and approach can work to address what is often an inherent tension between the best use of large, flat plots of land for large solar arrays – parcels that also frequently comprise some of the richest soil for cultivation. 

For example, the 180 MW Madison Fields project in Ohio represents a test ground for large-scale agrivoltaics – farming on 1,900 acres between the rows of a utility-scale solar array. One of the project’s focuses is determining which crops and herds are the best prospects to coexist with large-scale solar developments.

“People have a lot of questions with regard to energy development going forward in this state … Finding a balance where you can do a number of things on the same ground — in this case energy production as well as agricultural production — is obviously huge,” Dale Arnold, director of energy policy for the Ohio Farm Bureau told the Energy News Network in July.

Macknick highlighted another project where NREL and Clean Energy to Communities (C2C), along with the Black Farmers Collaborative, worked on a proof of concept project which incorporated solar panels on a demonstration farm cultivated by Barnhart that features citrus trees, leafy greens, and other produce.

“I had already looked into doing solar on my property and was just looking at it to have solar as the backup,” Barnhart said. “But when we started talking as a team and then we found out about the agrivoltaics portion [and] how that can be incorporated into farming, it really brought forth a bigger and better opportunity to not just benefit by having it but also sharing that with other farmers,” Barnhart told NREL in 2023.

Mike DellaGala of Solar Collective said taking a farmer-centered approach can also be beneficial to product and service providers.

“I think a lot of the conversation … has been the difference between farmers and developers, and how we are or [are] not communicating and getting projects over the finish line or not. And I think… if you’re farmer-first or farmer-centric, I think that’s the way to success for everybody… allowing [farmers] to dictate a lot of the project details has been really successful for us. And it makes our job easier, frankly,” DellaGala said.

A farmer-centric and collaborative approach is especially vital in ensuring equitable access to the benefits of agrivoltaics for BIPOC farmers, Barnhart said.

“I stand in the gap somewhat between having conversations with [BIPOC] farmers and having conversations with project developers because you need someone in the middle. I’m a community advocate. I hope there are more of us in the room than not. They have to be in place in order to bridge the conversation as to how this really works well in real-life time,” Barnhart said.

Braxton cited the need to rein in the power of utilities, which he says frequently raise roadblocks to community-level projects to protect their own interests. 

“Utilities have too much power. They have too much money to lobby. They don’t want you to sell power back to your community because [of the impact to] their own rates that they can control. So that’s a risk. The root of those problems is that here in the U.S. … we have 50 little countries [states] that make up their own policies and do their own thing… I think there needs to be a policy to incentivize solar to be developed innovatively. I don’t think policy makers at the state level understand the importance of that,” Braxton said.

Jones noted that policy change will likely be driven by farmer demand, which by extension benefits the larger community.

“In my opinion, once the farmers understand [how solar can] help them on their farms, I can’t say this enough, they will force politicians to comply. The money will be there; the funding will be there. But the engagement needs to happen. It desperately needs to happen,” she said.

Land retention for BIPOC farmers

Loss of land –through racism and other factors, has long been a contentious topic among BIPOC farmers – and Black farmers in particular. According to a 2022 study, discriminatory federal policies contributed to Black farmers losing roughly $326 billion worth of acreage during the 20th century. In July, the Biden-Harris administration announced a distribution of $2 billion to thousands of Black and other minority farmers, created through the Inflation Reduction Act as a means to begin to address this inequity.

Agrivoltaics may not intuitively track as a relevant strategy for land retention; but Barnhart touted its value, especially for Black farmers. 

“[Black farmers] have lost a lot of land because we just couldn’t afford to keep it… We didn’t just lose land because it was confiscated… What solar does is add an income stream or a reduction in your expenses so that there’s more you can do on your farm and create an opportunity for the next generation. 

“It gives us a reason to keep the land going, and it gives us, in our community, resiliency we are experiencing through our climate change storms. For the families that can have that piece of land, that builds a resiliency to protect them in their neighborhoods, protect their own backyard, and protect the future generations, give the future generations something they can look forward to that makes sense to them. Then we build into something that takes care of our wealth building opportunities, our succession planning, and our look into the future to make a change,” Barnhart said.

How a ‘farmer-first’ approach could lead to more successful agrivoltaics projects 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.

Darryl Moton is ready to “get on a roof.”

The 25-year-old Chicago resident is among the latest graduates of an intensive 13-week solar training course that’s helping to connect employers with job candidates from underrepresented backgrounds.

Moton was referred by another job readiness program meant to keep youth away from gun violence. He “never knew about solar” before but now sees himself owning a solar company and using the proceeds to fund his music and clothing design endeavors.

He and others interviewed for jobs with a dozen employers assembled at a church on Chicago’s West Side on August 1 as part of the fourth training cohort for the 548 Foundation, which is partnering with Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on a recently-announced $30 million initiative to create 1,000 solar jobs in Chicago’s South and West side neighborhoods.   

The 548 Foundation is part of 548 Enterprise, a suite of renewable energy and affordable housing development projects, launched in 2019 and named after the public housing unit where co-founder A.J. Patton grew up. 

The idea is to help keep housing affordable by using solar to lower energy bills, while training people left out of the traditional energy economy to supply that solar. 

“When you invest in a community, the biggest question is who benefits, who gets the jobs?” asked Patton, during the job fair. “This is as good as it gets,” he added, about the recent state investment. “We just have to keep advocating for quality policy.” 

Employers at the job fair said such training programs are crucial for them to find workers in Illinois, where robust solar incentives are attracting many out-of-state companies eager to hire and hit the ground. Mike Huneke, energy operations manager for Minnesota-based Knobelsdorff said he has hired 18 employees from previous 548 cohorts, and he expected to make about six job offers after the recent interviews. 

“Illinois is on fire,” said Huneke. “We’re not from Illinois, so finding this new talent pipeline is what we need. We have a ton of projects coming up.” 

Lisa Cotton, 30, has dreamed of being an electrician since she was a kid. She had received two job offers at the August 1 fair before the group even broke for lunch. 

“A lot of times you go through a training program, get a certificate, and that’s the end of it,” said Jacqueline Williams of the Restoring Sovereignty Project, a partner which administers the wraparound services for the training program. 

The 548 program makes sure to connect graduates with employers, and only companies with specific openings to fill are invited to the job fair. 548 and its partners also stay in contact with graduates and employers to make sure the placement is successful. 

“We have a post-grad program where they can call us any time, and an alumni fund. If an employer says, ‘This guy can’t come to work because his radiator is busted,’ we’ll take care of that,” said Williams. 

Achieving equity   

After Illinois passed an ambitious clean energy law in 2017, multiple solar training programs were launched in keeping with the law’s equity provisions. But employers and advocates were frustrated by a seeming disconnect in which many trainees never got solar jobs, and employers weren’t sure how to find the workers. 

Since then, the state has passed another clean energy law – the 2021 Climate & Equitable Jobs Act, with even more ambitious equity mandates; and non-profit organizations have developed and honed more advanced workforce training programs. To access incentives under the law, employers need to hire a percent of equity-eligible applicants that rises to 30% by 2030. The program prioritizes people impacted by the criminal justice system, alumni of the foster care system, and people who live in equity-designated communities. 

548 affiliates help employers navigate the paperwork and requirements involved in the equity incentives. Several employers at the job fair said this is a plus, but noted that regardless of equity, they are desperate for the type of highly-trained, enthusiastic candidates coming out of the 548 program. 

“This is a great way to bridge what the state is trying to do with its clean energy goals, and connecting under-represented people with these opportunities,” said Annette Poulimenos, talent acquisition manager of Terrasmart, a major utility-scale solar provider. “We came here ready to hire, and I think we’re going to walk away with some new talent.”   

Member organizations of the Chicago Coalition for Intercommunalism do outreach to recruit most of the training program participants. 

Nicholas Brock found out about the training thanks to a staffer at one of these organizations who noticed his professional attitude and punctuality as he walked by every morning to a different workforce program. 

“Whatever I do, nine times out of 10, I’m the first one to get there, before the managers,” said Brock, 20. “He noticed that and asked me, ‘Have you ever heard about solar panels?’” 

Brock knew little about solar at that point, but now he aims to be a solar project manager. 

“I’m so glad I came here,” he said. “They bring out the best in you.” 

Full service 

Wraparound, holistic services are key to the program’s success. During the training and for a year afterwards, trainees and alumni can apply for financial help or other types of assistance. 

“There are so many barriers, it might be child care or your car is impounded,” said Williams. “We might be writing a letter to a judge asking to ‘please take him off house arrest so he can work.’ It’s intensive case management, navigating the bureaucratic anomalies that arise when you’re system-impacted.”

Moises Vega III, 26 – who always wanted to work in renewables because “it’s literally the future” – noted that his car battery died during the training program, and he was provided funds to get his vehicle working again. 

While ample support is available, the program itself is rigorous and demanding. Classes meet from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day, and trainees are required to check their phones at the door and be fully focused, notes instructor and 548 workforce strategies director Michael Thomas. During the hands-on boot camp week, the day starts at 6 a.m. 

“That’s when the trades start,” noted Thomas. “You need to figure out how that works, how will you get child care at 5:30 a.m.?” 

Sixty-one trainees started in the first three cohorts, and 46 graduated, the first group in July 2023. The fourth cohort started with 25, and as of the job fair, 18 were on track to graduate. Eighty-five percent of graduates from the first three cohorts are currently working in the field, according to 548. 

“Even though I wish the graduation rate were higher, the people who commit to it, stay with it,” said Kynnée Golder, CEO of Global HR Business Solutions, which has an oversight role for the 548 Foundation. “It’s monumental, it’s life-changing for a lot of people.” 

Comprehensive curriculum 

The curriculum starts with life skills, including interpersonal relationships, resume-building, financial planning and more. Each day begins with a spiritual reflection. 

The students learn about electricity and energy, and soon move into specific instruction on solar installation and operation. Rooms at St. Agatha’s church served as labs, where students connected wires, built converters and eventually mounted solar panels on a demonstration pitched, shingled roof. 

Terrance Hanson, 40, credited Thomas as “the best instructor ever.” 

“I’m not a young kid, my brain is no longer a sponge,” Hanson said. “He made sure I got it all. Now I feel like I know so much, I’m confident and prepared to get out and show what I can do.” 

He added that people in disinvested neighborhoods have ample untapped potential to be part of the clean energy workforce.  

“You see a lot of basketball players in my community because there are a lot of basketball hoops,” he said. “If there were golf courses in the hood, you would see more golfers. It’s about opportunities. And this was the most amazing and empowering thing I’ve ever been through.” 

Jack Ailey co-founded Ailey Solar in 2012, making it the oldest still-operating residential installer in Illinois, by his calculations. He noted that there can be high turnover among installers, and intensive training and preparation is key. 

“You’re out there in the sun, the cold, it’s heavy physical labor, wrestling 40-pound panels up to the roof,” he said. “You have to know what you’re getting into.” 

“Some training programs vary in quality,” Ailey added, but he was impressed by the candidates at the 548 job fair. 

Trainees test for and receive multiple certifications, including the OSHA 30 for quality assurance, and the NCCER and NABCEP for construction and solar professionals, respectively. The program is also a pre-apprenticeship qualifier, allowing graduates to move on to paid, long-term apprenticeships with unions representing carpenters, electricians, plumbers and laborers – the gateway to a lucrative and stable career in the trades. 

Thomas noted that most trade unions still don’t have a major focus on solar. 

“We’re ahead of the unions, and our graduates bring real value to them, and to the companies,” he said. “The students might know more than a company’s foreman knows. It’s a win-win situation. Solar is a nascent industry, there’s so much opportunity in this space.” 

When Tredgett Page, 38, connected with 548, his auto detailing work and other odd jobs were not going well. He had always loved science and been curious about photosynthesis and the sun’s power. 

“I had been in the streets before, and I was leaning back toward that, but God brought me here,” he said. “Now I have the confidence, I know what I’m talking about, I know about megawatts and kilowatts, net metering, grid-connected, pretty much anything about solar.” 

He sees metaphorical significance in his new trade: “Energy is life, and it teaches you balance, it’s all about negative and positive ions.” He feels like “the sky is the limit” after the training. 

“I have so much skill that they gave me, now I’m hungry to use it,” he said. “I’m a little nervous, but optimistic, excited, very exuberant!”  

‘The sky is the limit’: Solar program opens new opportunities for Chicago trainees 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.