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.

An effort led by Chicago’s Blacks in Green has been recommended for $12.5 million in renewable energy credits to help develop three community solar projects to benefit underresourced communities.

The three projects totaling 9 MW are valued at $25.7 million and will be developed by the Green Energy Justice Cooperative, a project launched by Blacks in Green and other partners, to benefit Black, Brown and low and moderate-income subscribers in and around Aurora, Naperville, and Romeoville, Illinois. The Illinois Power Agency ranked the projects first, second and fourth among proposals vying for renewable energy credits in the Illinois Shines competition.

Naomi Davis, founder and CEO of Blacks in Green, says the recognition is the culmination of a long effort to ensure energy independence for her community.  

“The importance of the industry was made very, very clear to me and others right from the start,” she said. “The opportunity was presenting itself with renewable energy credits that Blacks in Green and others had fought for, for over a decade to really build out the toolkit for the renewable energy industry in Illinois.”  

“We’re delighted to partner with Blacks in Green to help create new sources of renewable energy in Aurora and Romeoville through the Green Energy Justice Co-op,” said Vibhu Kaushik, senior vice president and global head of energy, utilities, and storage at Prologis in a news release. “As a member of the local business community, Prologis is focused on working with our customers, local governments, and local partners like Blacks in Green to help create a vibrant and sustainable economy.”

Launched in 2022, the Green Energy Justice Cooperative, or GEJC, strives to provide low-income communities of color with the economic and political power of owning energy generation. It coordinates the efforts of organizations that have been working toward economically and racially just ownership of local clean energy and related energy justice issues in the Chicago area for decades. 

Davis founded the Green Energy Justice Cooperative along with these board members:

• Anton Seals, Grow Greater Englewood
• Cheryl Johnson, People for Community Recovery
• Olga Bautista, Southeast Environmental Task Force
• Patricia Eggleston – Treasurer, Imani Village
• Tony Pierce – Vice President, Community Transformation Ministries, Sun Bright Energy LLC and Community Transformation Partnership Power (CTP-Power)
• Kendrick Hall – Secretary and alternate for Cheryl Johnson, People for Community Recovery 

The co-op also receives support and advice from Claretian Associates, North Lawndale Employment Network, Chicago Environmental Justice Network, Urban Juncture and Greenleaf Advisors.  

“This is a tremendous win for Chicago and further highlights why collective action works,” said Anton Seals, Jr., GEJC board member and Lead Steward (executive director) of Grow Greater Englewood, in a news release. “Our communities need work and opportunities to support the brilliance and creativity to build a new economy that centers new concepts for commerce and energy in Black communities across the globe.”

Co-op member organizations, both individually and collectively, have sought to implement community-based solar since the passage of Illinois’ Climate and Equitable Jobs Act in 2021 that set ambitious goals for the equitable transformation of the state’s energy portfolio by 2050. Davis deliberately chose and invited members of the co-op to work alongside Blacks in Green to ensure maximum collaboration and productivity. 

“A cooperative is a democratically operated business entity. So, I was looking for people, number one, who I knew to be highly productive organizations; number two, whom I enjoyed being with and around and communicating with; [and] number three, that I trusted in a business context,” Davis said. 

“I was not going to go shopping for a headache,” Davis continued. “I was going to go shopping for the very most collegial, effective, enjoyable people to be a part of the founding board.” 

Renters, condominium owners, and homeowners unable to install solar will be co-owners of the solar co-op and accompanying profit sharing, and will have a voice in management. The co-op will also provide workforce training and capacity development, and present residents with a hands-on opportunity to help create an equitable clean energy transition that protects the environment in their own communities.  

“This will ensure that the projects are completed and thereby demonstrate the power of solar sovereignty for ownership and wealth building by Blacks in distressed Black communities,” said Rev. Tony Pierce, GEJC board member and CEO of Sun Bright Energy, in a news release. 

The co-op’s success in the Illinois Shines competition brings it one step closer to delivering the benefits of the burgeoning clean energy transition in Illinois to underserved and marginalized communities, which have suffered the double whammy of disinvestment and disproportionate detrimental impact of the effects of climate change.  

“Given that many environmental justice communities like mine, in the far Southeast Side of Chicago, bear the brunt of climate change, this is a great opportunity to begin to undo and heal our communities from that harm,” said Olga Bautista, GEJC board member and co-executive director of the Southeast Environmental Task Force, in a news release. 

GEJC is also supported by partners at Cooperative Energy Futures, a Minnesota-based member-owned clean energy cooperative that has developed similar models of equitable community ownership of solar projects. 

“We’re really excited to be supporting GEJC in bringing community-owned solar to GEJC’s local communities in Illinois,” said Cooperative Energy Futures General Manager Timothy DenHerder-Thomas in a news release. “Through our co-op in Minnesota, we’ve seen the power of this model in uniting communities around a clean energy future that works for renters and low-income households and makes sure local residents own and get the benefits too.” 

The three GEJC community solar projects selected by the Illinois Power Agency will be presented to the Illinois Commerce Commission, the Illinois public utility regulatory body, in January 2024 for final approval for renewable energy credit contracts. 

While this award represents a substantial win, it only represents one piece of ongoing work for Blacks in Green, whose mission Davis sums up as the establishment of a “walk to work, walk to shop, walk to learn, walk to play village, where African Americans own the businesses, own the land, and live the conservation lifestyle.”  

“We are determined to expand our clean energy businesses.” Davis said. “That means we’re working to get funding so that we can work closely with our neighbors to educate, engage, train, mobilize, finance, and otherwise support ourselves in the design and implementation of local living economies in energy, horticulture, housing, tourism, and waste. 

“We are here to, for example, decarbonize all of the buildings in our Sustainable Square Mile of West Woodlawn. And that’s no small feat to decarbonize the walkable village at scale,” Davis continued, saying that residents need to undertake weatherization measures and other costs before taking full advantage of clean energy technology. 

Blacks in Green’s mission also includes work on a virtual power plant and clean energy microgrid, affordable energy legislation, and geothermal power.

“So, we’re on the ground taking all of the access points to, along the way to creating a triumph for ourselves in the tradition of our great migration ancestors,” Davis said. 

And while she recognizes the importance and even necessity of philanthropy, Davis has no intention of relying solely on donors. 

“We are looking to be our own emergency management system. At the end of the day when the ‘you know what’ hits the fan, we want our communities, our walkable villages to be ready not only because they have greater health and wealth, but because they have been in the process of creating an oasis of resilience against the harms of the climate crisis” Davis said. “That’s what we’re here to do.”

Community solar projects seen as key step toward energy justice in Illinois 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 the founder and CEO of Blacks in Green, Naomi Davis has always focused on developing a whole-system approach to empowering her community of West Woodlawn on Chicago’s South Side. 

And with the award of a five-year, $10 million grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Blacks in Green is positioned to extend and expand its community-focused approach to sustainability and climate resilience throughout the Midwest. 

“Only a whole-system solution can transform the whole-system problem common to Black communities everywhere,” Davis said. “We are about — in our core founding vision and mission — self-sustaining Black communities everywhere. And the mission being to reinvent the walk to work, walk to shop, walk to learn, walk to play village, where African Americans own the businesses, own the land, and live the conservation lifestyle.” 

‘Front-door access’

Blacks in Green was one of 17 organizations selected to receive a portion of $177 million to form Environmental Justice Technical Assistance Centers. The program is administered through the Federal Interagency Communities Technical Assistance Network as part of the Biden-Harris Administration Justice 40 Initiative designed to ensure that 40% of relevant federal investments are administered in environmental justice communities. 

Each technical assistance center will provide training and capacity building, as well as guidance on community engagement for disadvantaged and disinvested communities, along with translation and interpretation services for participants with limited English-speaking skills. The centers will support relevant communities and their partners with environmental justice concerns and help them access federal funding to help fight climate change.

“For far too long, overburdened, underserved, and rural communities have lacked the resources and technical assistance they need from the federal government to overcome barriers critical to their energy needs and create new, long-lasting economic opportunities,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm in a news release. “DOE now has historic levels of new funding to pull from to help revitalize disadvantaged communities across the nation and ensure they’re not left behind in our transition to a clean energy future.”

Blacks in Green has been designated as the lead for EPA’s Region 5 territory, which includes 35 tribal lands and the states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin. The organization will provide “front-door access” for a collaboration of five frontline, community-based and community serving organizations: the Midwest Tribal Energy Resources Association, Black Environmental Leaders Association, Environmental Health Watch, the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois Chicago, and the Smart Energy Design Assistance Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

A collaborative process

The process of assembling the collaboration was interactive and participatory — with the final set of organizations reflecting participants who recognized the sense of urgency in sorting out a complex process with tight deadlines, Davis said.

“It was an open call and an iterative open call. We published the times of our conversational meetings multiple times. Anybody who was interested was welcomed. And as we had a very short time to pull it together, we had created by mutual consent when the deadline [was] for deciding, ‘Do you want to move to the next phase of this planning together?’ And those who did, did, and those who didn’t, didn’t,” Davis said. 

In administering its grant funds, Davis intends to continue what she calls a “flip the script” approach — with Blacks in Green serving as the lead, rather than the more common model of acting as a subcontractor to one or more larger majority-White organizations.

“We are — as we say at Blacks in Green — our own emergency management system. And it’s good that we are cultivating that muscle, because if you know anything about emergency management systems and the African American community, there’s not a real loving and effective relationship there,” Davis said.

Besides providing a financial shot in the arm, funds from the grant are aligned with the holistic community-building approach Davis has set out to accomplish — including locally grown food, energy resilience, sustainable economic development and cultural resources. 

For example, the Green Living Room serves as a hub for Blacks in Green to gather community stakeholders and thought leaders. The BIG Green Homestead development and the recently launched BIG Guest House, located next door to the Green Living Room, each reflect the entrepreneurial and community development approach that Davis champions.

“We are anchored in increasing the rate at which neighbor-owned businesses are created and sustained. We are anchored in building the capacity of neighbors to own, develop, and manage the property in their community. And we’re anchored in this idea that we are Great Migration people. It’s an important tool as a narrative to define this aspect of triumph that is so important for us to remember as a people that we have triumphed against impossible odds and continue to do that to this day.

“There’s so much to be proud of. The genius, the courage, the work ethic, the creativity and the love of the Great Migration comers is our ancestor. And we are the living legacy of their work and spirit. And so, we are people working on how to bring that pride and that confidence into the center of our hearts [and] in our communities. And we are doing all of that,” Davis said.

Chicago’s Blacks in Green gets a major boost from a $10 million EPA grant 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.