“Politico Pro” Detroit Looks to Recharge Blighted Neighborhoods with Solar Panels

CLIMATEWIRE | Detroit’s mayor wants to make the Motor City into a solar city.

Under an ambitious — and uniquely Detroit-ish — plan announced last week, Mayor Mike Duggan said the city of 620,000 residents will seek to repurpose thousands of blighted home and business lots into solar energy generation sites with the capacity to power all of Detroit’s municipal buildings.

To make it happen, the city must piece together 250 acres of land into 10- to 50-acre parcels that could host thousands of photovoltaic solar panels and converter stations. In most cases, the sites would sit cheek-to-jowl with the … Read More >>

“The Energy Mix Reports” Community Movement Brings Puerto Rico its First Locally-Owned Microgrid

Six years after Hurricane María underscored Puerto Rico’s urgent need for a resilient power supply, a small town in the island’s mountainous interior will switch on its first community-owned solar microgrid, weeks ahead of peak storm season.

Composed of two half-megawatt battery storage systems connected to 700 solar panels, the US$2-million microgrid marks another essential step in Puerto Rico’s accelerating grassroots effort to break the shackles of fossil fuel serfdom via La Insurrección Energética, or Energy Insurrection, reports Next City.

Puerto Rico has endured an unreliable grid for decades, but in 2017 Hurricane María really laid bare the consequences of … Read More >>

“Baltimore Sun” Utilities in Maryland Should Attract More Low-Income Residents to Energy Savings Programs, Report Says

By Lorraine Mirabella

Low-income utility customers in Maryland pay more collectively for energy savings programs offered by utilities than they receive in benefits, according to the Office of People’s Counsel for Maryland, a state agency that advocates for residential utility consumers.

All utility consumers statewide pay a surcharge on their gas and electric bills for EmPOWER, which is a mix of programs rewarding consumers who reduce energy consumption. EmPOWER is run by Baltimore Gas and Electric and five other utilities around the state, as well as by the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development.

But EmPOWER fails to meet … Read More >>

“The Hill”: Biden Administration Allocating $830 Million for Energy Efficiency in Low-Income Housing

BY JARED GANS

The Biden administration announced it is providing more than $830 million to help make low-income housing energy efficient using funds from the Inflation Reduction Act that passed last year. 

The White House said in a release Thursday that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is making the money available through a funding notice for the Inflation Reduction Act’s Green and Resilient Retrofit Program, which makes investments in energy and water efficiency, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, generating clean energy, and implementing climate strategies in multifamily housing. 

The program is designed to simultaneously address climate change and … Read More >>

Energy News Network: Community Grants Help Virginia Small Businesses Trim Energy Costs – Without the Red Tape

When entrepreneur Crystal Napier’s washer and dryer went on the fritz this winter, she feared the dual failure might short-circuit her home-based clothing boutique.

But the mounds of dirty laundry she anticipated never piled up due to quick action from a Charlottesville environmental nonprofit.

Being at the helm of a small, minority-owned business qualified Napier for a $2,400 grant offered by the Community Climate Collaborative (C3) that covered the purchase and installation of an energy-efficient washer and dryer.

“These grants are a tremendous service for a small business owner,” Napier said. “It’s a challenging world and we live in challenging … Read More >>

New Jersey Business Magazine: Celebrating National Black Business Month

by Irene Maslowski

National Black Business Month was initiated in 2004 by John William Templeton, president and executive editor of the scholarly publishing company, eAccess Corp, and engineering executive, Frederick E. Jordan, who was unable to obtain financing for his San Francisco-based business. Together, they shared a goal to drive policy change affecting African American entrepreneurs, seeking greater equity and inclusion.

The history of Black-owned businesses in the United States harkens back to the 1700s, when free – and even enslaved – African Americans opened small businesses, which then grew significantly after emancipation. The period between 1900-1930 was known as the ‘golden age’ when … Read More >>

Hispanic Executive: Ernesto Bautista III Is Not Your Typical CFO

by Zack Baliva

One might assume that managing financial matters for an oil field service company is a competitive, high stress, cutthroat affair requiring thick skin, tenacity, and ruthlessness. The job is certainly both demanding and complex, but Ernesto Bautista III is proving that it can be done with poise and integrity. Bautista is the CFO at BJ Energy Solutions (BJE), and he’s focused on more than just dollars and cents.

Bautista is a different kind of CFO at a different kind of oil field services technology company. While BJ Energy Solutions is an oil and gas fracturing service company, … Read More >>

The Providence Journal: Meet the groups bringing people of color into New England’s energy industry

by Hadley Barndollar

The color of New England’s clean energy landscape is starting to crystalize, and it’s not green.

It’s white. 

A chance to build an industry from the ground up, an equitable and just sector that works to correct wrongs of the past, provides a landmark opportunity. But the energy transition is on the move, and many worry history is about to repeat itself. 

People of color are vastly underrepresented in the industry. 

“My biggest concern is, are we going to be left out again?” said Kerry Bowie, executive director of Browning the Green Space.

An inclusive industry that empowers … Read More >>

E&E News: Biden’s other green promise

by Annie Snider and Sean Reilly

Three of the nation’slargest, dirtiest steel millssit on a roughly 20-mile strip along Lake Michigan. Each year, their stacks belch a cocktail of lead, hydrochloric acid and hundreds of tons of other toxins into skies over neighborhoods that are home to tens of thousands of people, many of them Black or Latino.

When they settle to earth, these pollutants canmix into dirt that is tracked into people’s homes orwash into waterways that feed the lake. And it has been that way for more than 100 years, since the first of the mills began smelting … Read More >>

WVU News: Natural gas is key to WVU engineer’s vision for clean hydrogen energy

by staff

More than 50 years after scientists first coined the term “hydrogen economy,” the movement to make hydrogen a predominant global fuel source could be gaining traction thanks to research led by one West Virginia University engineer.  

Xingbo Liu, professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, will help develop new, cutting-edge coatings for the blades of turbines used in large-scale power generation. These protective layers will be able to withstand the extreme heat and corrosion of hydrogen combustion but work with the principles and technologies of existing natural gas turbines, primarily in power plants.  … Read More >>