Discuss How to Effectively Build Solar in Frontline Communities

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Left to right: United States Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm talks with our Sonal Jessel, Charles Callaway, and Peggy Shepard about how to effectively build solar power in environmental justice communities.
Secretary of Energy Visits WE ACT's First Affordable Housing Solar Installation in Harlem

United States Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm visited 128 West 138th Street, a multi-family Housing Development Fund Corporation affordable housing cooperative in Harlem, to meet with WE ACT, Solar One, and the building’s residents yesterday. It is the site of the first solar installation in our Solar Uptown Now program, which serves as an example of the kind of renewable energy project the Biden administration seeks to invest in to equitably address climate change while creating green jobs.

During the site visit, Peggy and our staff – along with the team from Solar One ([link removed]) , our partners in Solar Uptown Now ([link removed]) and Community Power ([link removed]) – explained the challenges of doing solar installations in multi-family affordable housing and how we’ve managed to overcome them. We offered Secretary Granholm and her team field-tested recommendations that will help ensure that the administration’s investments in renewable energy projects can succeed in low-income communities and communities of color.

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Left to right: Charles Callaway, who leads our solar work, and Kate Schell, resident and former Board Member of the 128 West 138th Street co-op, look at the Solar Uptown Now installation on the building’s roof.
Solar Uptown Now has installed 415 kilowatts of solar panels on the roofs of 11 affordable housing co-ops across Northern Manhattan, including the building at 128 West 138th Street in Harlem. It saved the more than 1,000 residents of these buildings $61.7K collectively on their electric bills in the first year. And it will eliminate 4,474 tons of greenhouse gases over the lifetime of the project.

To do the actual installations, WE ACT and Solar One trained unemployed and underemployed members of the community as certified solar installers through WE ACT’s free Worker Training program. Six green jobs were created as part of Solar Uptown Now, but that was far too few for the more than 100 solar installers trained.

In response to the difficulty of finding long-term work for certified solar installers of color, 10 of those community members trained for Solar Uptown Now formed their own solar cooperative, SUNS Solar Workers Cooperative ([link removed]) , under the guidance of Charles Callaway. SUNS recently helped complete a 9-acre, 4-megawatt solar farm in Westchester County and is currently prospecting for jobs here in the city.

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Left to right: 128 West 138th Street co-op resident & former Board Member Kate Schell and resident & Board Member Samuel Man; WE ACT's Director of Policy Sonal Jessel and Co-Founder & Executive Director Peggy Shepard; United States Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm; WE ACT’s Director of Organizing Charles Callaway; and Solar One’s Director of Here Comes Solar Noah Ginsburg and Director of Community Solar Juan Parra.

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