FAQ

Community Voices in Energy was created to advance energy justice and accelerate an equitable clean energy transition by bringing lived experiences to the forefront in energy decisions.

If community members’ experiences are included in the technical proceedings where decisions are made about their energy sources and costs, it will help speed the transition to an equitable, affordable, clean, and healthy energy future for everyone.

Research has shown that some distribution utilities historically invest more in wealthier neighborhoods and underinvest in low income neighborhoods. As a result, low income communities experience more blackouts, slower repairs and less reliable service — even though they pay the same rates as wealthier community members for the gas and electricity they use.

This is a pivotal moment in both the energy industry and in our country’s racial reckoning. Decisions about energy are made in technical, complex forums where only the most sophisticated stakeholders have the resources, capacity, and knowledge to participate. As the energy sector transitions, we must address the high barriers to participation that have excluded all but the most well-resourced and sophisticated participants from past decision-making spaces. Energy decision makers have, historically, relied on a narrow definition of ‘expert’ that silences community voices. This reliance on epistemic authorities alone has resulted in decisions that perpetuate existing disparities. We must listen to different authorities to see different results. The energy transition is at our doorstep, and the future of energy must be just and equitable. What got us here will not get us there.

Energy is a life-essential service, but access to reliable energy is not equitable today. Furthermore, communities located near polluting power plants experience harmful consequences to their health — such as high rates of asthma and lung disease — as well as to their wealth, including lowered property values and spiking energy rates. Additionally, energy is among the largest sources of man-made climate pollution in the world, and energy decisions that harm the climate contribute to extreme weather, heat and other harmful effects. What’s more, the energy industry is an economic driver, employing millions of Americans. Conversely, energy unaffordability that forces households to forego other essentials, keep their homes at unsafe temperatures, or even live without electricity or heat due to disconnections, can be a tipping point for health and wealth. Energy is foundational for our everyday lives.

Energy regulators have a moral — and, increasingly, a legal — obligation to ensure that energy systems are fair, beneficial and healthy to all communities, and that new investments are not only equitable across the entire customer base but also serve to remediate the social, economic, and health burdens placed on marginalized communities by energy systems in the past. With the clean energy transition at our doorstep, now is the time to do things differently.

For the first time, community members’ perspectives are being included in the legal record in energy cases. Their lived experiences are on the same pages as the engineering and financial data. By demystifying public utilities commissions and their processes, Community Voices in Energy hopes to give everyday people the tools they need to overcome participation hurdles, tell their stories and assert their dignity.

This approach is also strategic. We know that stories are influential, and decisionmakers (and all people) are more likely to respond when they can understand and empathize with specific individuals. Individual stories combined with supporting technical data is powerful.

Anyone who is impacted by energy and the climate – which is all of us. You do not need to have a background in clean energy issues. A willingness to learn and to share your perspectives is all the background you need.

In an equitable energy system, communities — including low-income and traditionally marginalized communities — should have a voice in their energy system, a role in shaping energy decisions, and economic participation in the benefits. As we transition to a cleaner energy future, communities’ perspectives must be duly recognized, and communities must receive a just and equitable distribution of benefits.

More than two-thirds of states have given PUCs the authority and the duty to consider environmental justice, climate, and/or equity in their regulation of utilities. As a result of executive orders, lawsuits, and legislation, Commissions now have mandates from “Green Amendments” to cumulative impact assessments and general equity considerations. Regulators and stakeholders are interpreting equity and environmental justice authorities in an evolving landscape.

Clean energy is affordable and widely available and states have set climate targets and other authorities that require regulators and utilities to consider how energy investments affect communities.