Photo: Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag ![]() Generators power a few buildings in downtown San Juan as Puerto Rico is completely without electricity following Hurricane Maria on Sept. But a campaign called Queremos Sol, or We Want Sun, has faced major barriers in pressuring the commonwealth’s power company to prioritize community solar in its reconstruction plans. The system already proved itself effective when earthquakes on the island knocked out power again in 2020. The idea is that when the grid goes down - which it did for months after Hurricane Maria in 2017 - the people who need electricity most, or who can act as a resource hub, will stay powered. On the island, organizers in the mountaintop community of Adjuntas, led by the environmental justice organization Casa Pueblo, have succeeded in distributing solar panels with storage capacity to dozens of community members with medical needs or who have the capacity to provide resources like refrigeration for neighbors. ![]() Puerto Rico perhaps represents the most powerful testing ground for distributed solar energy in a crisis. Rooftop solar, Mitchell added, also “aids in grid flexibility and resiliency and mitigating peak demand.” “We choose rooftop solar and community solar as an intervention in part to build wealth within communities and have it be something that supports local jobs and results in bill savings and keeps those resources as local as possible,” said Hanna Mitchell, Texas program director of Solar United Neighbors, which is leading the 30 Million Solar Homes plan alongside the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and the Initiative for Energy Justice. ![]() Yet so far, President Joe Biden hasn’t made distributed renewables or rooftop solar a central element of his climate plans, and local efforts have faced major hurdles to scaling up.Īs the Biden administration prepares to unveil a sprawling economic recovery and infrastructure bill, a coalition of energy justice advocates are calling for new federal policies that would add up to 30 million homes powered by rooftop and community solar energy. While right-wing Texas politicians have sought to blame the yet-to-be-enacted Green New Deal - a jobs, energy savings, and clean power initiative - for the outages, aspects of the most progressive versions of the program, like community and rooftop solar energy, are being pushed by leaders from marginalized communities exactly because they will offer better disaster resiliency. In the wake of blackouts driven by extreme weather in Puerto Rico, California, and now Texas, grassroots organizers have repeatedly highlighted the potential for disaster resiliency through community-controlled renewable energy.
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