Just Energy Transitions Initiative
Enhancing access to renewable energy through community-based organizations and innovative forms of public participation
This initiative originates in RCL’s work on community access to renewable energy, and how this can be mediated and enhanced through the work of Community Based Organizations (CBOs). Recognizing that CBOs extend the reach of policy across different scales, RCL is exploring how these organizations operate under different social, political and economic conditions. This research sheds light on region-specific processes that can enhance dissemination of solar energy across the country, especially as new sources of funding are opened through federal infrastructure initiatives.
Other projects in the Just Energy Transitions initiative include:
- Understanding how technological innovation can be coupled with community co-design to make more efficient and effective the development and implementation of off-shore wind integrated with storage. (Partners: Professor Don Sadoway / MIT, Eric Loth / University of Virginia)
- Developing a multi-disciplinary Science and Technology Center dedicated to transforming energy engineering research, teaching, and practice to integrate considerations of community values and needs for more effective and equitable energy transitions.
- Understanding how finance and policy for resource development (energy, agriculture, forestry and water) can operate more effectively using an integrated systems approach. (Partners: MIT Portugal Program, MIT Climate Consortium)
Funding
The report “US Community-Based Organizations and Their Relationship to Solar Energy Development” is based on 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.Publications
Chun, J., Ortiz, D., Jin, B., Hart, S., Kulkarni, N., and Knox-Hayes, J. (2025) “Energy Burden in the United States: an Analysis Using Decision Trees.” Energies. (link)
Knox-Hayes, J., Chun, J. Gowda, S., Karmakar, I., and Winer, R. (2023) “The geographies, typologies, and trends of community-based organizations for solar energy in the United States.” Energy Research and Social Science. 2023 Dec 1. (link)
Aziz, M. J., Gayme, D., Hogan W., Johnson K., Knox-Hayes, J., Li P. Loth E., Pao L., Sadoway D., Smith J., and J. Trancik. (2022). “Socio-Technical-Economic Co-Design of Wind Knox-Hayes 3 Energy Integrated with Storage: Needs, Challenges, and Future Pathways.” Joule, 6(9): 1995-2015. (link)
Ortiz, D., Migueis, V., Leal, V., Knox-Hayes, J., & Chun, J. (2022) “Analysis of Renewable Energy Policies through Decision Trees.” Sustainability, 14(13), 7720. (link)
In, S. Y., Monk, A. H., & Knox-Hayes, J. (2020) “Financing Energy Innovation: The Need for New Intermediaries in Clean Energy.” Sustainability, 12(24), 10440. (link)
