This article was selected for the April media brief. The article looks at data that shows that more middle and working class households are implementing solar more than was seen a decade ago. "Among households that added solar in 2019, 21 percent had incomes that were below 80 percent of their “area median income,” a threshold often used to define low income, the report said." Still, the income disparity between solar-adopters is still large and has been slow to shrink, despite trends in the right direction. And outside California, which sees more Hispanic and Asian households switching to solar, in the rest of the country the solar adoption continues to be dominated by white households.
Dan Gearino, "Inside Clean Energy: The Rooftop Solar Income Gap Is (Slowly) Shrinking", contributed by Alison Kenner, The Energy Rights Project, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 11 May 2021, accessed 24 November 2024. https://energyrights.info/content/inside-clean-energy-rooftop-solar-income-gap-slowly-shrinking
Critical Commentary
This article was selected for the April media brief. The article looks at data that shows that more middle and working class households are implementing solar more than was seen a decade ago. "Among households that added solar in 2019, 21 percent had incomes that were below 80 percent of their “area median income,” a threshold often used to define low income, the report said." Still, the income disparity between solar-adopters is still large and has been slow to shrink, despite trends in the right direction. And outside California, which sees more Hispanic and Asian households switching to solar, in the rest of the country the solar adoption continues to be dominated by white households.