Issue: Solar

Our quarterly Clean Energy Deep Dive will explore organizing strategies and winning impactful clean energy solutions, with guests from Ohio Organizing Collaborative and Illinois Environmental Council.

In Crockett County, the turbines generate more than just electricity. Money from NextEra supports the meals and events at senior center center, among other benefits. It all comes down to clever utilization of a section of the Texas tax code. As a way of attracting large projects like wind farms, the state offers companies a temporary property tax break — up to 10 years — in exchange for local investment. This Texas Abatement Act (also known as Section 312) means less tax revenue in the short term, but more dollars immediately flowing to community projects and programs like the senior center in Crockett.

A guide for local solar energy siting projects. Includes recommendations for developing your playbook, including advice for Before you pitch, Stories to pitch, Ads, and Neutralizing the opposition. Plus case studies and other resources.

To support grid reliability and affordability communications in the Iran war or broader
geopolitical context, the Reliable Grid Project (RGP) offers messaging research,
resources, and guidance.

Electricity bills have joined groceries, housing, and health care as a top tier issue in the affordability crisis. Voters broadly support clean energy and view it as one of the few solutions to help lower energy costs.

Extreme weather events like winter storm Fern offer a short window of opportunity when people are seeking information related to climate change. But while most Americans believe we are experiencing more extreme weather, many still don’t see it as driven by climate change. Climate communicators need to help people connect the dots.

Lessons from Two Years of Storytelling in Rural America shares what happens when rigorous research meets relationship-based storytelling rooted in rural communities. Produced by Resource Rural in collaboration with the Climate Advocacy Lab, this report distills insights from more than 200 people-first stories across 41 states and two large-scale message tests with over 7,500 rural participants. Together, these learnings offer practical guidance for anyone working to build trust, understanding, and durable support for public investment in rural America.

Recommendations on how to talk about community power, including the opportunity because voters are fed up with skyrocketing bills and. for-profit utility greed and want solution, and a recommended message that “community power” is cheaper, faster, more efficient.

A toolkit for advocates and implementers on advancing neighborhood-scale building decarbonization strategies that shift the unit of building decarbonization from the building to the block, from the individual to the community.