‘Solar For All' Brings Clean Energy to Low- and Middle-Income DC Residents

Organizations across the country work to make sustainable solar energy accessible for low-income communities. Through creative financing models that allow community members to maintain ownership over their neighborhood solar panels, these organizations keep financing in the hands of community members rather than corporate entities.

San Francisco-based New Resource Bank was launched with environmental sustainability lending as its niche. But it pursued easier profits for a time, risking its survival and mission until a new CEO turned its fortunes around with a laser focus on the original mission, bolstered by learning its borrowers' businesses intimately. The bank doubled in size and merged with a larger bank, making itself a model for mission-driven lending in such businesses as solar, wind energy, and organic foods – and by attracting institutional depositors and investors as interested in social change as they are in profits.

Denmark’s Samso Island has not only succeeded in generating 100 percent of its electricity from renewable energy - which is the nation’s goal by 2030 - it is now carbon negative. Locals initially pushed back on the idea of loud and unsightly windmills but had a change of heart when part ownership of the turbines was offered. Samso Island’s success in addressing climate change so effectively was a result of civic participation and the opportunity for economic development.

A cryptocurrency mining company in Texas called Layer1 can power down its data-processing centers and sell its unused electricity back to the power grid. Instead of passively consuming energy, they are able to utilize batteries, smart meters, and artificial intelligence software to use more renewable energy and, at the same time, make a profit. While scaling this response can be difficult due to restrictions from utility companies on how consumers get their energy, Layer1 estimates it will save up to $6.7 million annually by cutting production for 30 minutes during some of the hottest days in the summer.

Design-build coops are employee-owned businesses operated under a democratic business model that "considers people, planet, then profit." These coops have steadily increased in New England resulting in workplaces that have a smaller pay-gap between the highest and lowest paid employees of a company, motivates employees who are invested in the long-term success of a company, result in companies better equipped to weather recessions and in turn, allow for more focus on green design models.

Ikea's innovation lab, Space10, piloted a block-chain powered solar energy grid as a way to creatively save money on electricity and create a sustainable energy alternative. Other microgrids around the world have seen success in allowing people who are part of the system to sell their excess energy and only use what they need.

Grassroots organizations, Empowered by Light and Empower Generation, are killing two birds with one stone: bringing clean energy to rural Nepal, and creating jobs for Nepalese women in the environmental sector. By helping to install electricity-generating solar panels, which simultaneously prevents illegal animal poaching, women are provided not only with a stable income and a ladder to reliable economic growth, but also with a rich work-life balance, allowing them to become “clean energy entrepreneurs” while continuing to care for their families and tend to their village’s needs.

Samsø, a small island in Denmark, has done what no other city has reached; energy independence. People on the island use a combination of wind, solar, and biomass, energy. How is such a large feat accomplished? Local leaders say it wasn’t because of technological breakthrough, but through collective action.

There is an ongoing competition to improve batteries as a method of energy storage that is environmentally conscious. Intense research on batteries is ongoing, including the development of the "saltwater battery', in order to improve their reliability, storage abilities and safety.

Since its commercial launch in 2012, M-Kopa has grown to exceed expectations for its revenue--now making more than $12 million a year. The company does this all while expanding access to affordable technology to the poorest rural population in Kenya, as well as providing them with credit and promoting green practices.