Climate change
Fight heats up in a lower-income S.F. neighborhood
California and the nation will never be able to beat back the devastating effects of climate change unless everyone, rich and poor, can get involved, state Sen. Kevin de León said in San Francisco on Tuesday.
De León, who is challenging Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein in the November contest for U.S. Senate, spoke outside a Bayview home that was having a solar energy system installed, courtesy of a nonprofit group founded in the city.
“Everyone deserves access to clean air,” said de León, D-Los Angeles. “Unless we can democratize clean energy, only the rich will have access to the benefits.”
The group GRID Alternatives has installed more than 10,000 rooftop solar energy systems in low-income California communities in the last 15 years. On Tuesday, it was putting solar panels on the seventh home in the C Hillside Village development, which was built in the early 1990s to provide moderate-income San Francisco residents with a chance for home ownership.
Since 2008, the organization has run California’s Single-Family Affordable Solar Homes program, the nation’s first solar incentive program designed to cut power bills for low-income families.
“I saw that my neighbor had solar panels on his home, and I asked him about it,” said Mike Aguayo, an office manager who moved into the neighborhood with his wife and 3-year-old daughter last year. “He said I should apply for the program.”
On Tuesday, a crew of workers was in his house and on his roof, putting in the panels and connecting them to the electrical grid. Aguayo was on the scene in a white hardhat and a green “Solar Advocate” T-shirt, happily watching the action.
“We’re so excited. It’s like a dream come true,” he said, looking at the nearby homes with their panels up and working. “I don’t know why more people don’t apply.”
For the people in GRID Alternatives, which got its start doing solar installations in the city’s Visitacion Valley, the job was an example of pushing back against climate change, one house at a time.
As an issue, “climate change can be so overwhelming,” said Erica Mackie, co-founder and CEO of the organization. “But this is getting something done ... and making sure the transition to clean energy is for everyone. Communities like this will be the leaders.”
The work is about more than clean affordable energy. Along with the professional crew were about 10 greenhelmeted trainees, learning the ins and outs of solar installation.
“We want to have a ‘Classroom on the Rooftop’ experience,” Mackie said, giving people the training they need to get jobs in the fast-growing solar industry.
With the solar system installed, Aguayo’s panels will pump energy into the power grid. He will receive a credit from Pacific Gas and Electric Co. against the electricity he and his family use when the sun isn’t shining.
Under the state program, Aguayo pays nothing for the solar power system, which otherwise would cost about $10,000, Mackie said.
The timing of the event was no accident. Gov. Jerry Brown’s Global Climate Action Summit, which will bring 4,500 delegates from around the world to the city to talk about ways to fight climate change, opens Wednesday. And on Monday, Brown signed SB100, written by de León, which commits the state to getting all its electricity from carbonfree sources by 2045.
California now must use at least 35 percent of the money from its carbon cap-and-trade efforts for energy programs benefiting low-income communities, said de León.
For the state senator, the solar event was a welcome chance to see the bills written and passed in Sacramento turned into reality.
“The bills are often so distant and so vague,” de León said. “But here you can see the positive impact they have on real families. That’s why we run for office.”