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Equitable Access to Transition Technologies, Infrastructure, and Programs
As more investments are allocated for energy-related projects, equity—as in sharing the benefits, as well as the burdens of policy outcomes—will become an important subject that we need to address in the coming years.
—Pjoy Chua, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power1
The third session of the workshop focused on equitable access to transition technologies, infrastructure, and programs. Paty Romero-Lankao, NREL, served as moderator. She opened the session by underscoring the importance of learning from past experience. Studying methods that have succeeded or failed during previous times of transition can help overcome challenges and identify opportunities for effective community involvement, program design, and just implementation. The session focused on uncovering what Romero-Lankao referred to as “the deep infrastructural elements of the transition: How do we reach out to communities? How do we meet them where they are? What kind of programs and policies need to be designed and implemented to really shape the way we do business?” Speakers Pjoy Chua, LADWP; Leslie Aguayo, Greenlining Institute; Darnell Grisby, Beneficial State Foundation; and James Wilcox, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) offered principles, case studies, and lessons learned relevant to ensuring equitable access in the energy transition, including the following:
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1 Pjoy Chua, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, presentation to the workshop on July 26, 2022.
- Equity is foundational to ensuring that the clean energy transition is truly transformative. Communities do not benefit from clean energy technologies when they cannot access them.
- City and state-level initiatives are making progress and offering valuable lessons learned for efforts to create a just energy transition in which all communities share the benefits and burdens.2
- Listening to community voices, working to heal past injustices, and engaging communities with effective co-design approaches can inform solutions that are equitable and attentive to community needs and priorities.
ADDRESSING EQUITY IN TRANSITION PLANNING
As Heath discussed in the workshop’s first session, the LA100 study provides a comprehensive understanding of the complex requirements, trade-offs, and benefits of different pathways to meet ambitious clean energy goals for the city of Los Angeles. The study concluded that it is possible to achieve 100 percent renewable energy even earlier than the target date of 2045 but that the effort will require significant investments (on the order of $50 billion to $80 billion) and job creation. However, it did not directly address equity as part of the analysis of pathways to achieving the city’s target. Chua described how a follow-up study now under way, LA100 Equity Strategies, is addressing equity with a focus on ensuring the disadvantaged communities that make up 47 percent of the city’s residents are not overburdened or left behind in the city’s energy transition. By addressing questions around affordability, who benefits from the transition, and effects on frontline communities, the overarching goal of this effort is to chart a path for all Los Angeles communities to share the equitable distribution of the benefits and burdens of a clean energy transition.
In accordance with the effort’s core principles, the project aims to create a process and outcomes that are inclusive, community-driven, collaborative, accessible, affordable, measurable, and meaningful, prioritizing equity outcomes such as reducing energy burdens, expanding access to clean energy jobs, increasing access to clean mobility, assessing impacts to housing, improving reliability and resiliency, and improving access to rooftop solar. Chua stressed the importance of acknowledging past injustices while shaping the future, underscoring the principle of energy justice, which refers to the goal of achieving equity in both the social and economic participation in the energy system while also remediating social, economic, and health burdens on those historically harmed by the energy system.
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2 National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 2022, “LA100: The Los Angeles 100% Renewable Energy Study and Equity Strategies,” https://maps.nrel.gov/la100/equity-strategies#home.
Thoughtful governance structures with meaningful community participation, complemented by inclusive community meetings and listening sessions, will play a crucial role in building the community support needed to overcome challenges, such as securing funding through voter approval or rate adjustments. Chua suggested that the project can help to inform equitable energy transitions in other communities and at every level of government. “As more investments are allocated for energy-related projects, equity—as in sharing the benefits, as well as the burdens of policy outcomes—will become an important subject that we need to address in the coming years,” Chua said.
OPERATIONALIZING EQUITY
Highlighting lessons learned from efforts to expand access to electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure, Aguayo outlined four key actions to advancing equitable access to clean energy: defining and operationalizing equity; bringing benefits to people, not places; removing barriers; and integrating climate resilience.
The Greenlining Institute defines equity as the practice of transforming behaviors, institutions, and systems that disproportionately harm people of color by increasing access to power, redistributing resources, and eliminating opportunity barriers. Aguayo stressed that equity is not an obstacle to progress—it is the foundation needed to meet climate goals and ensure that all communities have access to clean energy and a high-quality life. Operationalizing equity requires a multistep process that starts with defining equitable goals and ends with creating measurable progress.
Bringing benefits to people, not places, means targeting funding and investment for frontline communities and avoiding displacement for vulnerable residents. Without specific attention to the needs of these communities, they can be left out of the benefits of clean energy investments. For example, charging stations that are only available to employees of a particular office building do not actually help increase access in nearby communities, even though it may appear these residents are close to charging infrastructure when looking at a map.
Removing barriers is critical to helping communities of color recover from historical injustices (such as redlining), capitalize on new investments, and build intergenerational wealth, Aguayo said. For example, a California program, Green Raiteros, received funds from the California Air Resources Board to turn an informal ride-sharing service into an “indigenous Uber.”3
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3 M.G. Ortiz-Briones, 2021, “LEAP’s Green Raiteros Electric Vehicle Ridesharing Program Gets Loaners to Expand Services,” Fresno Bee, September 16, https://www.fresnobee.com/vida-en-el-valle/noticias/california-es/fresno/article253432099.html#storylink=cpy.
Finally, Aguayo stressed that integrating climate resilience into siting energy infrastructure requires consideration not only of climate impacts and disaster scenarios, but also consideration of the services provisioned by and support needed for the broader transportation and energy infrastructure and workforce. Spending on pre-disaster mitigation has been proven to lower disaster recovery costs, Aguayo noted, pointing as an example to a California school district that was able to find creative uses for its fleet of electric school buses, unneeded when schools were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, to deliver food and Wi-Fi to those in need.4
A FOCUS ON FINANCE
Grisby described how the Beneficial State Foundation’s Clean Vehicle Assistance Program (CVAP) is tackling energy transition equity by addressing financial barriers to EV ownership. With its own bank, the program offers low-interest loans to help people, especially low earners or those with bad credit, buy EVs. Because charging is also important for EV access, CVAP also offers grants for home chargers and credit for public chargers and is working to incentivize multi-family home builders to include chargers for new construction. An initial pilot program, in partnership with several community organizations, helped more than 4,500 households purchase EVs and demonstrated broad interest in EV adoption.
In the future, Grisby said the program aims to grow further by reaching more buyers, especially in disadvantaged communities and areas with low public transit access, offering personal finance coaching, and optimizing participation incentives for low-income communities. Finally, Grisby noted that while expanding EV ownership is one important way to create a more equitable energy transition, transportation equity must include a full panoply of clean transit options, including making it easier and safer for people in all communities to get around by walking or biking.
CO-DESIGNING SOLUTIONS
Wilcox described NYSERDA’s efforts to build capacity for a just transition in the context of advancing the overall energy and climate plans for the state of New York. In 2019, New York State passed landmark climate legislation supporting a just, equitable, and inclusive transition to
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4 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 2018, “Natural Hazard Mitigation Saves Interim Report,” https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-07/fema_mitsaves-factsheet_2018.pdf.
net-zero energy while distributing 40 percent of climate investments to disadvantaged communities.5 Key elements of these efforts include outreach to empower every New Yorker, engagement with researchers and innovators, and a community-focused and intentional co-design process to capitalize on diverse expertise. Several community-based initiatives have already begun. For example, the Equity and Climate Transformation Research Program is a scientifically rigorous inquiry combining social sciences and humanities-based, interdisciplinary approaches with quantitative, traditional energy systems research to materially advance transformative, inclusive solutions in underserved or overburdened communities. In addition, the Disadvantaged Communities Barriers and Opportunities Report6 supports and informs community co-design processes.
To facilitate an effective and equitable co-design process, NYSERDA is also establishing a system to ensure that engaged communities can be appropriately compensated for their contributions. “One of the key barriers [to engagement] is that the labor of community-based organizations is not often recognized as expertise and ability to be compensated in the co-design process,” Wilcox said. “So, we’ve initiated a process to make it easy and streamlined to actually be able to compensate community-based organizations substantially for the expertise that they provide the state.” Prioritizing innovative, community-driven approaches is grounded in partnerships between academia, communities, and government and often requires breaking through institutional silos and formalizing a vision for true collaboration.
DISCUSSION
Romero-Lankao noted that large-scale transitions are messy and must address past injustices, include community voices, overcome cultural and institutional resistance, and embrace non-technical solutions. A participant asked if it is possible to support supply-chain development in disadvantaged communities or other peripheral areas. Wilcox replied that NYSERDA has a mandate to “think upstream” when considering suppliers, and the collaborative, coalition-based nature of the organization’s work makes it easier for them to engage, share dialogue, and create
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5 New York State Senate, 2019, “Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act,” S.B. S6599, 2019–2020 Legislative Session, https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2019/S6599.
6 New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC), and New York Power Authority (NYPA), 2021, “New York State Disadvantaged Communities Barriers and Opportunities Report,” Report Number 21-35, https://climate.ny.gov/-/media/Project/Climate/Files/21-35-NY-Disadvantaged-Communities-Barriers-and-Opportunities-Report.pdf.
solidarity with communities. Chua added that LA100 Equity Strategies is addressing equity by listening to community feedback to the report’s recommended pathways, which include “Buy American” provisions and other means to bring equity to peripheral communities.
A participant asked Grisby and Aguayo what other clean energy areas their organizations are prioritizing. Grisby replied that while distributional impacts are often examined within a given sector or technology area, such as public transportation, more work is needed to understand and prioritize equity across technology areas. Aguayo agreed, noting that holistic, cross-sector solutions should start with a community needs assessment and seek technologies that offer multiple benefits, such as a community center’s solar panels generating electricity for residents during a blackout. Chua added that studying previous investments and incentives with an equity lens can provide ideas for improving or expanding them to better reach disadvantaged communities.
