Last week GRID participated in the Global Climate Action Summit!
While hundreds of world leaders, experts and NGOs gathered in San Francisco, we showed off the positive impact California’s low-income solar policy is having close to home in a GCAS affiliate event.
On a beautiful, and appropriately sunny, Tuesday morning, State Senator Kevin de León, Dr. Dan Kammen of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at U.C. Berkeley and Dr. Mitchell Smith of Young Community Developers with partners and visitors joined GRID at the home of Michael Aguayo and family as we installed their new 2.6 kW PV solar system.
The Aguayos moved into their Bayview home last year. Michael told the San Francisco Chronicle, “I saw that my neighbor had solar panels on his home, and I asked him about it.” They’re now the seventh household on the block to get a GRID-installed solar system and are spreading word of the program to the rest of the neighborhood. The installation was completed by GRID Bay Area with the help of a handful of trainees who completed the Young Community Developers job training program.
California has been leading the way to make clean energy accessible to low-income communities through programs like CA’s Single-Family Affordable Solar Homes program, which helped the Aguayo family access solar power. We were thrilled to shine a light on the path forward for other states and countries while so many clean energy leaders were in town. We’ll keep working to make sure all communities are included in and benefit from our clean energy transition!
Special thanks to our top funders in California and the Bay Area who help make these projects possible, including SunPower, Enphase, Sunrun, Wells Fargo, Tesla, Bank of America, The JPB Foundation, GoSolarSF, Elemental Accelerator, Facebook, and the California Public Utilities Commission and the California Department of Community Services and Development.