Editor’s note: Miles Braxton’s company is Okovate Sustainable Energy. A previous version of this post misspelled the company’s name.

Agrivoltaics — co-locating solar arrays with farming operations — is generating enthusiasm among both farmers and clean energy advocates as a way to promote sustainability in agriculture. 

When implemented correctly, agrivoltaics provides a vital dual income stream for farmers — in solar energy generation, but also as a means of providing an optimal growing environment for compatible crops and herds. The added revenue may allow more farmers to retain their land for themselves and future generations. 

While pilot projects around the country are identifying best practices, not all have been successful, and practitioners say that advancing the technology will require an equitable approach that centers farmers’ needs first.

A discussion during the recent Solar Farm Summit in Rosemont, Illinois, directly addressed the issue, featuring a majority-Black panel of practitioners and service providers. Three major themes emerged during the discussion: maximizing compatibility of solar arrays with existing land use, demonstrating the financial benefits of agrivoltaics, and addressing how solar power can help BIPOC farmers hold on to their land.

“I think one thing that, through our work in this technical assistance, has become very, very clear [is] that people don’t just want to build an agrivoltaics project for the sake of building an agrivoltaics project,” said Jordan Macknick of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), who also served as moderator for the discussion. “How does agrivoltaics enable you to take that next step and focus on things like succession planning or farmer training?”

Benefits for farmers

Miles Braxton started his company, Okovate Sustainable Energy, to work exclusively on “farmer-focused” solar development.

Braxton said after several years of developing community solar projects, he “really saw the inefficiencies” of taking farmland out of production for solar projects. “That’s a problem that is just going to keep piling on top of itself until it gets to the point where we can’t develop anything.

“We target crop farmers who are growing a very specific suite of crops that we know works well with our design,” Braxton said.

Cetta Barnhart, owner of Seed Time Harvest Farms in Florida, also cultivates her own plot of fruits and vegetables, and cited her background in food and wellness in promoting the compatibility of solar and agriculture to benefit the bottom line for farmers.

“This is more hands-on of what a farmer can really do in their current practices. If they’re raising cattle, there’s a way that they implement solar with that. If they are having bare land, the pollinator is another way that they can benefit from that,” she said. “So how these solar projects are developed and created for real farmers is still a big conversation to be had.“ 

Ena Jones, owner of Roots & Vine Produce and Café, and president of Community Partners for Black Farmers, cited her dual role as a working farmer and an advocate as an advantage in promoting the potential compatibility of agrivoltaics and cultivation — especially for Black farmers.

“We advocate and we also lobby for farmers at the state level for the state of Illinois and the state of Georgia. And I’m here to kind of segue to help farmers understand … how different solar opportunities can help them with production on their farms, and be an asset to the production on their farms. And also, to help solar developers understand farm[ing],” Jones said.

Noting that solar projects can help cut energy costs, Jones said “Energy use is one of the farmer’s [major] expenses outside of diesel, and of course seed. So, if they can reduce that cost dramatically, even by a third, that would impact their bottom line in revenue extensively. It is very important, especially for BIPOC farmers, to be ushered into this technology so that they won’t be left behind in the process.”

Making connections

Agrivoltaics can be a valuable tool to reduce overall costs, expand potential revenue – or both – as a means of promoting optimal use of farmland. A both-and approach can work to address what is often an inherent tension between the best use of large, flat plots of land for large solar arrays – parcels that also frequently comprise some of the richest soil for cultivation. 

For example, the 180 MW Madison Fields project in Ohio represents a test ground for large-scale agrivoltaics – farming on 1,900 acres between the rows of a utility-scale solar array. One of the project’s focuses is determining which crops and herds are the best prospects to coexist with large-scale solar developments.

“People have a lot of questions with regard to energy development going forward in this state … Finding a balance where you can do a number of things on the same ground — in this case energy production as well as agricultural production — is obviously huge,” Dale Arnold, director of energy policy for the Ohio Farm Bureau told the Energy News Network in July.

Macknick highlighted another project where NREL and Clean Energy to Communities (C2C), along with the Black Farmers Collaborative, worked on a proof of concept project which incorporated solar panels on a demonstration farm cultivated by Barnhart that features citrus trees, leafy greens, and other produce.

“I had already looked into doing solar on my property and was just looking at it to have solar as the backup,” Barnhart said. “But when we started talking as a team and then we found out about the agrivoltaics portion [and] how that can be incorporated into farming, it really brought forth a bigger and better opportunity to not just benefit by having it but also sharing that with other farmers,” Barnhart told NREL in 2023.

Mike DellaGala of Solar Collective said taking a farmer-centered approach can also be beneficial to product and service providers.

“I think a lot of the conversation … has been the difference between farmers and developers, and how we are or [are] not communicating and getting projects over the finish line or not. And I think… if you’re farmer-first or farmer-centric, I think that’s the way to success for everybody… allowing [farmers] to dictate a lot of the project details has been really successful for us. And it makes our job easier, frankly,” DellaGala said.

A farmer-centric and collaborative approach is especially vital in ensuring equitable access to the benefits of agrivoltaics for BIPOC farmers, Barnhart said.

“I stand in the gap somewhat between having conversations with [BIPOC] farmers and having conversations with project developers because you need someone in the middle. I’m a community advocate. I hope there are more of us in the room than not. They have to be in place in order to bridge the conversation as to how this really works well in real-life time,” Barnhart said.

Braxton cited the need to rein in the power of utilities, which he says frequently raise roadblocks to community-level projects to protect their own interests. 

“Utilities have too much power. They have too much money to lobby. They don’t want you to sell power back to your community because [of the impact to] their own rates that they can control. So that’s a risk. The root of those problems is that here in the U.S. … we have 50 little countries [states] that make up their own policies and do their own thing… I think there needs to be a policy to incentivize solar to be developed innovatively. I don’t think policy makers at the state level understand the importance of that,” Braxton said.

Jones noted that policy change will likely be driven by farmer demand, which by extension benefits the larger community.

“In my opinion, once the farmers understand [how solar can] help them on their farms, I can’t say this enough, they will force politicians to comply. The money will be there; the funding will be there. But the engagement needs to happen. It desperately needs to happen,” she said.

Land retention for BIPOC farmers

Loss of land –through racism and other factors, has long been a contentious topic among BIPOC farmers – and Black farmers in particular. According to a 2022 study, discriminatory federal policies contributed to Black farmers losing roughly $326 billion worth of acreage during the 20th century. In July, the Biden-Harris administration announced a distribution of $2 billion to thousands of Black and other minority farmers, created through the Inflation Reduction Act as a means to begin to address this inequity.

Agrivoltaics may not intuitively track as a relevant strategy for land retention; but Barnhart touted its value, especially for Black farmers. 

“[Black farmers] have lost a lot of land because we just couldn’t afford to keep it… We didn’t just lose land because it was confiscated… What solar does is add an income stream or a reduction in your expenses so that there’s more you can do on your farm and create an opportunity for the next generation. 

“It gives us a reason to keep the land going, and it gives us, in our community, resiliency we are experiencing through our climate change storms. For the families that can have that piece of land, that builds a resiliency to protect them in their neighborhoods, protect their own backyard, and protect the future generations, give the future generations something they can look forward to that makes sense to them. Then we build into something that takes care of our wealth building opportunities, our succession planning, and our look into the future to make a change,” Barnhart said.

How a ‘farmer-first’ approach could lead to more successful agrivoltaics projects is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Annamaria Leon was initially enchanted by the lush greenery of Douglass Park and the handsome greystone homes of North Lawndale, located on Chicago’s West Side. But it wasn’t until after she moved into the greystone she first rented and would eventually purchase that she realized what lay beneath the surface of the stunning architecture of the neighborhood and its showplace park: the ravages of decades of redlining, disinvestment and racial unrest. 

“I got off the highway and I ended up in North Lawndale. I thought it was the most beautiful place in the world. Douglass Park, you know, and being a feng shui practitioner, you had the curved streets and the old houses with the big doors. I said, ‘oh my gosh, I want to live here,’” Leon said.

She also discovered that her new neighborhood had transformed from a predominantly Jewish enclave to an almost all Black area. This transformation is reflected in the naming of Douglass Park, visualized by architect William LeBaron Jenney and reimagined by world-renowned landscape architect Jens Jensen. 

The park was originally Douglas Park, with one “s,” named for Stephen A. Douglas, who was instrumental in bringing the Illinois Central Railway to Chicago and famed for his debates with Abraham Lincoln. Due to his pro-slavery stance, the park was renamed in honor of abolitionists Anna and Frederick Douglass in 2020.

Leon, whose family origins are Filipino, dug in, and committed herself to applying her extensive knowledge in sustainable urban agriculture and permaculture to cultivating much-needed green spaces, enhancing resiliency against the effects of climate change, and improving the overall quality of life in the place she now considers her home.

Digging in

As the co-founder of both Permaculture Chicago Teaching Institute and Homan Grown, L3C, Leon applies her experience and expertise as a certified permaculture designer and dynamic educator. She also draws on years of experience with her former employer, Christy Webber Landscapes, where she developed a reputation for creating community gardens, including work on high profile commissions for garden installations in downtown Chicago’s Millennium Park. 

Leon has forged a number of collaborative relationships and built a deep reservoir of trust, establishing herself as a resource for enacting social change. She is recognized as a leader, and respected for her willingness to engage with other community stakeholders.

Her determination to grow roots in North Lawndale is consistent with that overall world view.

“When I look at the condition of the groups in my community, if they’re in need, if they’re hurting, I need to do something about that. Because my life is the groups that make up my community. I’m a connector…If you don’t share your ideas with the people in your community, it doesn’t work; it’s only like you talking into the mirror. Those bonds of trust are what makes a community happen,” Leon said.

For Leon, environmental elements such as abundant green spaces are essential to the overall health of any community, including to provide a cooling effect as climate-fueled heat waves threaten urban areas. North Lawndale, she believes, is not and should not be an exception. 

She is outspoken about calling out bad actors as opportunists seeking to exploit the community for their own political or financial gain — or both.

“If I see that all you’re doing is using the community, and to use a phrase, being a ‘poverty pimp,’ no, I’m not going to be with you. I’m not going to help you. Because unless you alter and transform how you see my community, why would I engage with you?” Leon said.

At the same time, she also looks to allies to facilitate acceptance among community members who trust them, but who do not yet know her. 

“Even though I’ve been there [for years], I haven’t been there [for] generations. And I’m also not African American. If I can’t be effective in [communication with stakeholders], I want somebody else who can be effective in that, and I want to make sure that we’re all on the same page. But I am also not going to dictate how they express that.

“I need to find somebody who can break down those barriers for me… My commitment is to have North Lawndale thrive, to have people find beauty wherever they are, and for them to be self-expressed. That’s what guides me in my work. If it’s about architecture, if it’s about biking, if it’s about healthcare, is that providing beauty? Is it having people be self-expressed in their life? Then I’m for that,” Leon said.

Frustration and municipal red tape

Like many Black, Brown and Indigenous communities, North Lawndale suffers from disinvestment, including a paucity of green spaces. But the community’s reception of Chicago Department of Planning and Development proposals was initially lukewarm, Leon said. Leon persuaded community members to attend subsequent meetings and take an active role in executing various green space initiatives.

“We had a lot of people come because they trusted me. Like, if Annamaria is asking us to do something, let’s go,” Leon said.

But Leon also expressed frustration with dealing with the territorialism that often occurs with municipal politics.

“If our federal government, our local government, our city government, our alderpeople, when they say ‘Hey, I’m going to assist you with this project’ and they actually assist you with the project, and [if] they created it in a way that it is planned to succeed versus planned to fail, then this becomes stronger and stronger and stronger,” Leon said. “But there’s so many agendas out there. We can’t work like that anymore.” 

For instance, a number of proposed greening projects in North Lawndale have run into significant hurdles, some of which Leon suspects were integrated by design. She highlighted one instance where a contract for green space maintenance in various lots was given to an organization with no experience doing that work.

“Why does the city then put it on the community? And then the community fails. Then they say, see, ‘we tried and they couldn’t take care of it.’” 

Another project, Leon says, was a plot that featured pollinator-friendly plants that instead have simply been mowed, defeating the purpose of the original design.

“I’m part of the tree equity collaborative. I’m part of the urban heat island watch. And trees are great. But if you look at the heat index, it’s still high. And so, you have to have deep roots in the soil to bring up that water up. And [the greenery] becomes like an air conditioner.” 

Making an impact

Despite dealing with red tape and other hurdles, Leon and her allies have made significant headway with adding green spaces, both for recreation and as a vehicle for facilitating community and economic development in North Lawndale.

For example, the North Lawndale Greening Committee recently expanded their portfolio of edible community gardens from 14 to 20, utilizing a city program to develop vacant lots while providing paid employment to residents of the community, Leon said.

During a recent presentation at the Morton Arboretum, located in the Chicago suburb of Lisle, Leon also described several projects administered by Stone Temple Baptist Church, a former Jewish synagogue located in North Lawndale, including a vacant lot that has been converted to a community garden and performance space. The church has also created a free community store stocked with donated furniture, Leon said.

A new cafe and flower shop is also scheduled to open in the near future, operating on a donation basis to avoid paying hefty zoning fees, Leon explained during her presentation.

And while grants have been a significant source of funding for various green space projects in North Lawndale, Leon and her collaborators are working toward greater community autonomy in furthering their mission of improving the neighborhood and its green spaces.

“We’ve received almost $2 million in grants, but we’re weaning ourselves off of the grants. I don’t think we can fully, but you know grants are fickle and you have to fulfill what the grantor wants. Sometimes it takes people off of their mission.”

For Leon,  good management of green spaces provides a potentially useful blueprint for improving the overall quality of life — for North Lawndale, for the city and beyond.

“It’s land tenure. It’s the way you manage your resources. It’s also societal, how you create your society. Is it hierarchical? Is it linear? You could just look at the soil. What makes a soil fertile is there’s a lot of the little organic microorganisms in there,” Leon said. “But those microorganisms live because they have air and they have good shelter that’s not poison, which is the soil. And it has good maintenance, and they respect each other’s boundaries and they collaborate.

“So that’s what makes a good society as well.”

A Chicago advocate builds climate resilience, one green space at a time is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

As a mother and former truck driver, Ticole Smith, better known as Colah B Tawkin, has experienced both being unhoused and receiving international recognition through her popular podcast Black in the Garden. 

From her home base in Atlanta and through her collaboration with Atlanta public radio station WABE, Atlanta Botanical Garden, and speaking engagements across the country, Tawkin works to (re)connect Black and Brown people in primarily — but not exclusively — urban environmental justice communities with their innate connection to the natural world as a means of resilience against disinvestment and climate change. 

It’s well established that BIPOC communities disproportionately bear the dual burden of disinvestment and adverse environmental impacts from the effects of climate change. At the same time, the climate movement lacks diversity — specifically, leadership remains overwhelmingly White, and to a somewhat lesser extent, male. Added to the mix is a persistent and inaccurate perception that people of color, and especially Black folks, don’t care about environmental issues, and are fundamentally disconnected from nature. 

“There is no relationship more sacred than that between Black folks and the natural world. Within the roots and branches of trees, Black folks find mirrors to their deep ancestral strength and resilience. These earthly wonders narrate our lives, weather our storms and bear witness to histories untold. They remind us of who we once were, and who we are meant to be,” said Tawkin during a recent virtual interactive presentation with the Morton Arboretum, located in the Chicago suburb of Lisle, Illinois. 

Events like these are par for the course for Tawkin, who represents one of a handful of Black female advocates in the environmental realm.

“There’s not a lot of Black people doing the kind of stuff that I do. So naturally, when the word gets around where [environmental organizations] are trying to figure out, ‘How do we diversify our programming?’, my name tends to come up at the top of the list,” Tawkin said during an interview.

Tawkin also views herself as a pioneer — her very presence a challenge not only to the predominantly White composition of the environmental movement, but also active resistance among White people who refuse to embrace change.

“Being a Black woman in a world that I know does not really represent me in a very robust way makes me feel like a pioneer, and pioneers are revered when we’re looking in hindsight at history and people who started something. But we don’t so closely consider what the experience of a pioneer is like, and how they had to be the first person to venture into a territory that very well could have been hostile.

“I don’t feel like there is a lot of hostility on a frequent basis, but I do know, at the very least [there are] people who see what I’m doing and know what I’m capable of and they’re not okay with that … [but] I do not think about those people. I think about who does want to support me,” Tawkin said.

Black in the Garden

Tawkin’s work with the Black in the Garden podcast and related endeavors reflect not only a deep and longstanding love of nature, but a recognition of a need for greater Black, Brown and Indigenous presence in the green movement. 

“I’ve always had a vision for this from the start, so failure was never an option,” she said. ‘That’s precisely why I chose the name Colah B Tawkin — because I’m always talking. It’s a stage name that reflects my readiness to start the podcast. When you hear my name, you know exactly what I do.”

She also aimed high, targeting her podcast for the national public broadcasting market and structuring the format and the length of her show accordingly. That has paid off with a newly announced partnership with Atlanta-based WABE, which will distribute the show online as part of the NPR Podcast Network.

“When I started Black in the Garden, I knew 1000% that it would be a successful platform,” she said. “I knew that it would resonate with those who it resonated with.” 

“There was no gardening programming that I felt spoke to me, and I recognized that there’s an opportunity for me to start one … there are so many of these stories that are specifically related to our relationship with the land and agriculture and horticulture that really are so just grossly undertold,” Tawkin said.

“I remember in the beginning … people don’t ask me this no more, but in the beginning, Black people would ask me, well, ‘Why Black in the Garden? Like, don’t you want to be relatable to everybody?’ And that put me straight into Toni Morrison mode, and I was just like, we get to tell our stories about us because it’s us and we want to make sure that it’s reaching us. And so, I was intentional from the beginning and including ‘Black’ in the title,” Tawkin said.

And while her audience of “soil cousins” enthusiastically bridges racial and other categories, her focus remains firmly on embracing Black people and overcoming decades of generational hurt from slavery, Jim Crow, redlining and other manifestations of racism — including, she says, “some darker aspects to our relationship with nature.” 

“That was why I discussed lynchings in the in the talk that I did … What am I going to talk about if I’m going to emphasize Black people’s relationships with trees?” Tawkin said. “The good, the bad, and the ugly was literally the first thought that came up … and then when I thought about the bad, I was just like, oh no, it gets real bad. 

“But it cannot be overstated that nature is just what it is. It’s a very neutral thing.”

Disinvestment in environmental justice communities represents a significant driver of generational pain among Black, Brown and Indigenous communities. The work of stakeholder-based organizations is essential in working toward healing this generational hurt, Tawkin said.

At the same time, she said, nonprofit organizations — as well as government at all levels — also bear a level of responsibility in providing financial and other resources to address these challenges. 

“So in order to be able to cope with all of the challenges that come with attaining liberation, and just get through it to actually enjoy liberation, resilience is kind of like the fuel, or it’s the fuel,” Tawkin said. “What other choice do we have besides to be resilient?”

Resiliency and ‘witness trees’

During her presentation for the Morton Arboretum, Tawkin explained that witness trees, such as The Survivor Tree in Oklahoma City, serve as living reminders of significant points in history. 

“They are often found near sites of historical significance, and serve as living witnesses to events, such as slavery, civil rights, struggles, and African American settlements, and so much more when you consider the age of trees,” Tawkin said. 

The survivor tree sits near the site of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and was almost chopped down to recover evidence of the deadly terrorist attack.

“We may be able to identify or not identify, but rather find, like blast shards, bullets, or something that could penetrate a tree, could actually be lodged in that tree,” Tawkin explained.

For Tawkin, trees — and specifically witness trees — also bear a vital role in promoting resiliency, especially among people of color, who often create and maintain spiritual rituals in green spaces.

“There are trees that are connected to different cultures across the diaspora and different parts of the world that have deep spiritual meaning. People of color and Indigenous people in particular have these spiritual kinds of practices that are connected to trees,” she said. 

“The ritual literally takes place with the tree being a physical … Basically, it’s a sanctuary,” Tawkin said.

The Oklahoma survivor tree “absorbed some physical evidence” of the explosion, not only “witnessing the events that it was there for, but the spirits around it, like people are dying around it,” Tawkin said during a subsequent interview. “It’s easy to believe that these spirits are able to connect with or merge into the tree.”

As an example, she cited a particular tree located at the Fairchild Botanic Garden in Miami, whose presence and its network of thick sprawling roots swirling along the ground around its trunk draws many visitors who come specifically to conduct spiritual rituals. 

“When we were talking about that particular tree, [people] were telling me how it has a lot of spiritual significance to many people just around that physical area. And so people would come into the garden, but they would be coming for that tree in order to engage in certain spiritual rituals,” Tawkin said.

“What better example do we have of what resilience looks like than an ancient tree, a witness tree?” 

Relating to the next generation 

For Tawkin, her appearance is also an essential element to appealing to young people, and to providing representation in the green space for people who look like her.

“I’m showing up the way that I show up … for those who need to see someone who looks as much like either themselves or someone who they know, someone who they can relate to doing the thing,” Tawkin said.

“I’m youngish, so I like to show up with like my hairstyle in a certain way and have my nails done in a certain way and show up with a sense of style that resonates with young people, because they’re just not going to pay as much attention to the person with the washed up polo shirt and the khakis on and some busted up shoes. 

”Young people really are very instrumental in how our culture moves. And they are not respected enough for that. I get that. And so there’s a way to relate to kids, ‘cause like they just have a sixth sense about knowing when someone’s being real with them or not,” Tawkin said.

That connection is a key part of Tawkin’s broader vision.

“Not only is it necessary to have Black people of color, Black people, Black youth involved, not only is it necessary to have them interested in nature and involved with it, and taking up the reins and being the future keepers of the Earth, but it’s also important to understand how to connect with them,” she said. 

“Because if we’re not connecting with them in a real way, then they’re not going to be interested in it.”

What a popular gardening podcast can teach us about equity in the climate movement is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Thanks to a new infusion of state funding, three projects benefiting traditionally under-resourced Black, Brown and Indigenous communities in the greater Chicago area have taken one important step closer to fruition. 

Last week, the Illinois Climate Bank unanimously passed a resolution to authorize loan funds of up to $1.6 million for three community-based solar projects owned by Green Energy Justice Cooperative, launched in 2022 by Blacks in Green (BIG). This increases the total funding to $2.9 million for GEJC’s community solar projects, a portion of which is privately funded. 

The money will be devoted to the pre-development phase of the project, including public outreach, an interconnection study, and a deposit for renewable energy credits awarded through the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA), said Naomi Davis, founder and CEO of Blacks in Green.

“Our $2.9 million in predevelopment costs include payments to our electric utility, ComEd — fees to connect our solar system to their grid and a 5% down payment for our renewable energy credits — like buying a house, you have the financing and the down payment,” Davis said.

“The sweet spot of this pre-development funding is what we invest in building relationships, educating them about the power of cooperative ownership and management, and collaborating with them to build a clean energy economy right where they live,” she said. “We’ve got two years before we flip the switch and start monthly savings and clean energy comfort… and between now and then we’ll be enrolling thousands of community subscribers in conversations for organizing, training and hopefully inspiring them.”

‘A community stake in clean energy’

Energy self-sufficiency is one of the eight key principles of BIG’s Sustainable Square Mile concept, which the organization aims to replicate around the country. 

“We say communities should own, develop, and manage their land and energy, and with our $10 million EPA Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center (TCTAC) award, BIG is offering free/open source access to our energy justice portfolio, which includes this 9 MW solar project and community geothermal and wind,” said Davis in a news release. 

“With our energy affordability bill before the Illinois General Assembly, and our energy auditing workforce launching this summer, we aim to connect the dots of community-driven, community-scale energy solutions for low and moderate-income communities across America.”

In December 2023, the Illinois Power Agency recommended awarding the three solar projects, valued at $25.7 million, with $12.5 million in renewable energy credits. The three projects, located in Aurora, Naperville, and Romeoville, Illinois, would each generate 3 megawatts. Once completed, they will provide the dual benefit of lowering the disproportionate energy burden in BIPOC and low-income households, while providing a community stake in clean energy generation. 

“When this project is completed over the next couple of years, it will be the largest non-governmental, non-utility, minority-community-owned solar project in Illinois. And as such, it will be the fulfillment of years of dreams and work by our Green Energy Justice Cooperative, to share middle-class jobs and wealth-building with historically deprived and distressed individuals and families throughout this area.” said Rev. Tony Pierce, GEJC board member and CEO of Sun Bright Energy, in a news release. 

“In doing so, it will be the beginning of lifting these kinds of individuals and families from the bottom of our economic pyramid into the middle class,” Pierce said. “And it will therefore be the beginning of bringing some closure to the Black and White wealth gap that exists in metro Chicago; in addition to reducing the carbon footprint in our area, to reduce climate change.”

For Davis, this level of recognition and financial support reflects more than a decade of advocacy and effort to ensure energy independence for her community of West Woodlawn on Chicago’s South Side – and beyond.

“The cooperative (GEJC) that we organized and funded fits in with our overall mission because we have, as a stated pillar of our work [intend] to increase the rate at which neighbor-owned businesses are created and sustained,” Davis told the Energy News Network in December.

“We understand that the number one employer of Black folks in America is Black folks in America. And we are very committed in our understanding of the whole-system problem common to Black communities everywhere, that we are committed to being a solution.”

Illinois gives $1.6 million boost to justice-focused community solar projects is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

As an economically struggling Midwestern city of approximately 60,000, Youngstown, Ohio, doesn’t exactly fit the prototype for a micro-mobility hotspot. 

But after a soft launch of four docking stations near Youngstown State University last fall, YoGo Bikeshare is set for a ribbon cutting in downtown Youngstown on March 23, boasting 30 e-bikes and 45 docking stations in various locations in and around downtown, just south of the university. 

And while many big-name players in the bikeshare space traditionally don’t view mid-sized cities like Youngstown as viable markets, YoGo Bikeshare president and co-founder Ronnell Elkins is determined to ensure that this Black-owned, family-run and community-oriented operation succeeds. 

As a privately owned business, YoGo Bikeshare received funding from Valley Economic Development Partners to purchase bicycles and related equipment needed to run the bikeshare operation. Elkins and company also won $5,000 in seed funding through audience votes during a Youngstown Business Incubator event in 2022. 

Participating in the incubator also facilitated the process of securing an insurer for the operation, along with a $174,000 loan to supplement the $5,000 prize and out-of-pocket investments. Obtaining local support and buy-in is essential to the bikeshare’s success, along with securing ongoing sufficient funding to establish and maintain the operation, Elkins said.

“When we talk about fostering a healthy community, we’re going to rely on those same people to help us keep this thing going and keep it viable,” Elkins said. “It’s about scale. We know how expensive it is to run a bike[share] operation. We’re kind of an anomaly in this field because of the way we’re doing it from a business structure. So, on our business plan, we see that it can be profitable if you scale it right. And our margins may not be big as with Lyft and Bird and Lime, but it’s going to be enough to sustain the business.” 

But while he recognizes generating a reasonable return on investment is essential, profit has not been the overriding motivator for Elkins.

“We wanted to create an ecosystem for rideshare within our city because we understood the lay of the land. We are more equipped to provide real insight for what’s important to our people than some outsider looking at our city merely as a profit model,” Elkins said. “We weren’t coming in trying to make this about profit, but more about community engagement and fostering a healthy community. We didn’t have those types of motives.”

The number of bikes and docking stations at each location will vary, but the general rule of thumb is to provide one and a half open docking stations per bike, to allow docking bikes from alternate locations, according to Elkins.

Riders can purchase annual memberships or daily passes, and can reserve bikes at bike station kiosks or via a smartphone app. 

When mapping out docking stations, Elkins and his crew used a 2019 study of bikeshare viability commissioned by the city as a point of reference before beginning their own research. 

YoGo Bikeshare also obtained key approval from the city, which had turned away other proposals, in no small part because YoGo Bikeshare opted for an all e-bike fleet secured at fixed docking stations.

“It was a combination of the major players not thinking Youngstown was profitable, and the government of the city not wanting to have scooters and bikes littered everywhere,” as has happened in cities like Dallas and Chicago, Elkins said.

“There was some pushback early on because it was a combination of those different city organizations wondering why theirs didn’t go through versus ours and you know, who are we? ‘Who are these Black guys?,’ for a lack of better word. ‘Who are these people coming in, being able to do this, and why weren’t we accepted?’” Elkins said. 

Going all-in on e-bikes was always the plan, given the trend in the bikeshare space toward e-bikes. The hilly terrain of the region also pushed YoGo to expand bike access to a broader cross-section of potential riders, Elkins said. 

“From a business mindset, we didn’t want to have to change out bikes within a year or two. And so, I just said, you know what? We’ll just invest the money now on e-bikes. 

“Because again not only do we see the trends in the industry, but also it’s a lot more inclusive in terms of the demographic. If you have any older riders that are looking to ride, Youngstown has quite a few hills. And the e-bikes will help assist them with the pedal assist to get up those hills without putting a strain on their joints,” Elkins said. 

Long-term viability is never far from Elkins’ mind. At the same time, YoGo Bikeshare is more than an entrepreneurial enterprise for Elkins.

“You have to keep the lights on … It does us no good to roll out a bikeshare, get all this attention, and it isn’t sustainable and it closes in two years or next year. It doesn’t do anyone any good. 

“We’re just going to be renting the bikes, but we’ve become embedded in political conversations. We’ve become embedded with the regional government in terms of how they’re trying to repopulate areas. We come up in the sector of transportation, we come up in a lot of different things. It’s not about the bikes, it’s about diversity, equity, inclusion. It’s about so much more than the bike itself. I didn’t realize that when we first started it, but as I, as we go along, it is, it’s bigger than the bike,” Elkins said.

As bikeshare struggles elsewhere, promoters hope Youngstown, Ohio, can make it work is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.