Climate change has been considered a middle class issue.
When a community is faced in survival mode,
there tends to be a gap as far as what you can actually do.
These are the type of neighborhoods
that deal with higher asthma rates
and are considered front line communities,
They're closer to the incinerators.
They're closer to the railroad tracks.
However, they're left out of clean energy.
Kristal Hansley is trying to expand the reach
of renewable energy,
and address systemic imbalances in the process.
She's the first Black woman to run a company
specializing in community solar -
a fast-growing part of the industry
that she hopes will make it easier
for marginalized communities to go green,
and see economic benefits in the process.
My vision is to bring solar to every city in the country,
and so cities like Baltimore City
will be able to be a part of that just transition
across the nation.
Solar is going to be fairly critical
to the overall decarbonization goal.
It's one of the cheapest forms of clean energy around.
And costs are steadily declining.
To really get a sense of what how far solar has come
need to look at over the last sort of 10 years.
In the early 2010 or so, solar electricity,
it would cost you about $300 per megawatt hour.
Today, you can get that electricity
for around $30 a megawatt hour.
And what has really driven that
is a sort of fall in the cost of the solar panels.
Manufacturing efficiency has steadily improved
as well as well as the efficiency of a panel.
Those cost declines have turned solar
into a booming industry in recent years.
In the U.S., not even a pandemic could stop 2020
from becoming a record year for new installations.
But those gains haven't been evenly distributed.
Traditionally, there've been barriers
that precluded African-American communities,
underrepresented communities from accessing solar
for a simple fact that you needed to own a home
or have 700 credit score to get a nice interest rate
on a solar loan.
As a result, many minorities are left out of the savings
that can come with switching to solar.
Now, a new type of solar business
is looking to solve that problem.
Community solar is a model
in which anyone who might consider putting solar
on their roof but is not able to do so
for whatever purposes,
signs up to receive a share of the electricity
from a larger project.
So, community solar is an approach
that lets everybody participate in the benefits of solar.
Tom Hunt's company, Pivot Energy,
is based in Denver, Colorado,
and has deployed around 50 megawatts of solar
across the country.
You know, that might serve
something between 5,000 and 10,000 customers total.
He estimates at least half their business
is in community solar.
It's growing very fast for us.
I would guess in 2021, we might deploy
double the amount of community solar
that we deployed in 2020.
Community solar started right here in Colorado, actually
back in about 2010 or so.
Colorado is a great place, obviously,
to develop solar, you have lots of sunshine here.
But even more so, you have a really strong foundation
of experts in the technology
and the commercialization of solar.
A lot of that, I think, comes from having
the National Renewable Energy Laboratory here,
there out in Golden and have been around for decades.
And so, I think that set a really strong foundation
to have the solar industry grow here
and make impact on the world.
We are at the site
of one of Pivot's community solar gardens
on the outskirts of the Denver metro area.
The subscribers are a nice mix of local governments,
juts regular individuals that want to participate
and a few organizations that serve low-income community.
Obviously, we produce clean energy,
but with community solar, we're also engaging
a wide set of the community
in participating in that solution.
From its origins in Colorado,
community solar started picking up steam in 2016,
and it's since spread to nearly every state.
One up-and-coming hotspot is the greater Baltimore area.
This farm on the city's outskirts, built in 2020,
was developed by Bithenergy, whose CEO, Robert Wallace,
is one of the few Black business owners
in the solar industry.
Baltimore, like every other city, in my opinion,
need solar energy.
It reduces the carbon footprint.
But it also is an economic engine.
Our process involves using local minority
and women businesses to help build the projects.
Baltimore's about two thirds African-American.
I believe that solar energy, like every other industry,
should reflect the communities in which it serves.
And that is a smart business principle.
I think it's the right thing to do
and the moral thing to do.
Wallace says his company has three community solar farms
currently serving the Baltimore area,
with another seven in the works.
Meanwhile, Kristal Hansley of WeSolar
is working to make sure Baltimore's poorest residents
can reap the benefits of community solar.
State subsidies allow low-income residents
to save up to 25% on their electric bill
if they make the switch.
So that's really huge for folks who are still, you know,
struggling while we climb our way out of this pandemic.
But it's often easier said than done.
The main challenges that's associated with my role
in the industry, which is managing a subscribing customers
for these type of solar projects, is the trust.
Folks typically do not believe
that those savings that you're promising will exist,
It's new, no one's seen it before,
coupled with they've been bamboozled
and lied to in the past.
To overcome those barriers, Kristal partners
with local community leaders,
such as Reverend Cleveland Mason,
who opened his church to Kristal
to make her pitch to his congregation.
How you doing, Rev?
Doing great.
I'm always looking for something
that's gonna benefit our people.
As long as we can help our people
understand benefits like this that are available to them,
we're helping them to save money.
We're helping them to make their life a little bit easier.
But COVID has made those outreach efforts
more challenging, especially since low-income
and elderly residents are less likely
to have internet access.
You know, I'm still bringing people online
for worship services.
But it's a process.
You know, these people are just new to the technology.
Most of them are not doing something different
simply because they just don't know.
And I think it's our job to help make sure
that they are aware and, hopefully,
improving their lifestyle along the way.
Ultimately, community solar is just one part
of the remarkable success story of the solar industry,
which has become an undeniable bright spot
in the fight against climate change.
But it isn't yet clear how big a part
this new business model will play.
In terms of the scale
at which solar more broadly can grow,
a lot of the growth rate is actually coming
from like utility scale power plants.
In terms of adding more clean energy to the grid, overall,
those projects are definitely doing more.
But community solar can definitely allow more companies,
more people to get access to sort of the benefits of solar.
You know, my my company has begun doing projects globally.
We just kicked off a project in the Virgin Islands.
We've we've done we've marketed in West Africa
and Latin America.
This is an emerging global market.
We have a burgeoning middle class.
I think that to the community solar model
is the perfect model to accelerate the penetration of solar
in those markets.
The solar industry is in a really strong position.
At this point, solar is just about the cheapest
form of energy possible for electricity.
For those of us who have been in the industry
for quite a while, it's something we knew we would get to
but had to fight quite a bit to make it happen.
I expect that by the end of my working career,
solar will be the largest source of electricity
in the United States.
It's is cool and awesome
like to say that you have a company
that's not only fighting climate change,
but also saving low income families money.
My end goal is to be able to bring solar
to every single household in the country.
That's my goal
and I think it's definitely viable and feasible.