US Community-Based Organizations and Solar: A Series of Reports

Report Links: 

• Key Findings from Two Reports on US Community-Based Organizations and Solar Energy
• US Community-Based Organizations and Their Relationship to Solar Energy Development
• Understanding the Relationships and Solar Experiences of US Community-Based Organizations
• Regional Summaries: US Community-Based Organizations and Their Relationship to Solar Energy Development

About these Reports: 

Community-based organizations (CBOs) play an essential role in helping low-to-moderate-income (LMI) communities access the benefits of solar energy by bridging the gap between regulators, policymakers, and the needs of the community. Programs developed in partnership with CBOs are more likely to be responsive to community needs and be able to overcome the distrust that some residents feel towards utilities, energy companies, and the solar industry. Additionally, CBOs are uniquely positioned to know the best way to engage and communicate with local residents.

The Clean Energy States Alliance (CESA) has released a series of reports based on the findings of a nationwide survey of CBOs. The survey, which included dozens of questions, yielded rich, nuanced information about the landscape of CBOs, their attitudes and experiences. The two main reports are:

• US Community-Based Organizations and Their Relationship to Solar Energy Development by a team of MIT researchers led by Professor Janelle Knox-Hayes. The report focuses on the characteristics of CBOs that do work related to solar, including their size, location, organization tenure, funding, and the focuses of their work.
• Understanding the Relationships and Solar Experiences of US Community-Based Organizations by Warren Leon and Lizzy Diaz of CESA covers some of the survey responses that are not fully explored in the longer report from MIT, focusing on CBOs’ relationships to their communities, stakeholder groups, and state governments, as well as CBOs’ experiences with solar work in their communities.

To make the findings more accessible to people who may not have time to read the full reports, CESA has produced two shorter summary documents:

• Key Findings from Two Reports on US Community-Based Organizations and Solar Energy collects some of the most important and interesting findings from the two longer reports.
• Regional Summaries: US Community-Based Organizations and Their Relationship to Solar Energy Development presents two-page profiles of the CBOs in four regions: the Midwest, Northeast, Southeast, and West.

The reports were developed as part of CESA’s Solar with Justice: Connecting States and Communities project. The Solar with Justice project aims to bring together state energy agencies and community-based organizations developing solar for environmental justice communities to create opportunities for dialogue and collaboration.

Video Interview Series:

To accompany the reports and highlight the theme of CBO-state collaboration, CESA is producing a series of short, three-minute video interviews. The first three are available and are with Janelle Knox-Hayes (MIT’s lead researcher for this project and Lister Brothers Associate Professor of Economic Geography and Planning in the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning), Tony Reames (Tishman Professor of Environmental Justice at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability and former U.S. Department of Energy Deputy Director for Energy Justice), and Warren Leon (CESA Executive Director).

The reports and videos are based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) under the Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) Award Number DE-EE0009360.

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