Community Based Organizations (CBOs) and Solar Energy
MIT and the Clean Energy States Alliance are working with state and nonprofit partners to understand and improve how state energy agencies and community-based organizations collaborate on solar.
Learn more about the Solar with Justice collaboration:
https://www.cesa.org/projects/solar-with-justice
Report
RCL developed a report based on a national survey of Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) engaged or interested in solar development in low- and moderate-income communities, entitled “US Community-Based Organizations and Their Relationship to Solar Energy Development.” 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. Download the report here.
Additional insights are presented in a companion report “Understanding the Relationships and Solar Experiences of US Community-Based Organizations” available here.
Watch a video on “Perspectives on Solar with Justice: A Report on US CBOs and Solar Energy with Dr. Janelle Knox-Hayes”
Information from the reports is further summarized by CESA here:
- “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.
Webinar
Watch a webinar on the project where CESA Executive Director Warren Leon, MIT lead researcher Janelle Knox-Hayes, and Project Manager Bayo Ware on the Renewables Team at the Energy Trust of Oregon, discuss the project’s findings and lessons for how to structure effective collaboration going forward.
Funding
This work is 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.