Communities Seek To Reclaim Power With Energy Democracy Tools
By Nora Elmarzouky, Emerald Cities Collaborative
Photo credit: Pueblo Planning.
For millions of families across the country, they have no choice but to keep their lights on and warm their homes with fossil fuel-based energy. The case against fossil fuel-based energy is clear: it causes irreparable damage to our environment, fuels our climate crisis, and harms our communities, especially Black, brown, Indigenous, and low-income populations. Yet, it is still extremely hard to break up with this dirty energy for our homes, schools, and community centers.
A major reason is because of how our utility system is designed. Currently, the majority of Americans rely on centralized energy systems, controlled by corporations that have placed short-term profit over environmental and social concerns. Known as investor-owned utilities, they are more accountable to their shareholder profits over the health and well-being of the local communities they provide services to. As of 2017, an estimated 72% of Americans receive electricity from investor-owned utilities. To exemplify this profit model, in Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Energy Company makes $500 million+ a year for their Exelon shareholders headquartered in Chicago.
From Extractive Energy to Energy Democracy
“Energy democracy provides a framework to approach transforming the extractive, harmful, centralized energy system into a decentralized, just, and regenerative system.”
Many grassroots and intermediary organizations are fighting for something better: energy democracy. Energy democracy centers racial and economic justice through an intersectional approach to the climate crisis and current energy systems. Energy democracy provides a framework to approach transforming the extractive, harmful, centralized energy system into a decentralized, just, and regenerative system.
The process is about self-determining community energy systems while fighting systems of racial and economic oppression. The end goal is to provide clean, renewable, and affordable energy for all, but energy democracy is fundamentally focused on how we get there – it’s about transparent and democratic governance practices that redistribute power away from corporations and redress the historic harms inflicted on low-income communities of color by the dirty fossil fuel industry and extractive economy more widely.
Grassroots Organizing for A New Energy Future
The vision for energy democracy and today’s energy inequities has been a motivating force behind the work of the Climate Justice and Jobs (CJJ) team at POWER Interfaith—a multi-faith, multi-racial grassroots organization that has been fighting for racial, economic, and environmental justice in Southeastern Pennsylvania for the past 10 years. In Pennsylvania, 85 percent of power plants are located in areas with more low-income, Black households than the state median. And in Philadelphia, upper-income Black residents are twice as likely to live near a polluting power plant than lower-income white residents.
With a backdrop of long-standing environmental injustices, organizers at POWER Interfaith asked themselves: What would a new energy future, centered on justice, really look like? They knew it was not simply about energy, but rather how energy can intersect with goals of racial, economic, and climate justice and really transform Pennsylvania’s economy. Using tools like the energy democracy scorecard and flipbook, they assessed their community needs and charted co-created strategies and tactics – eventually becoming the People’s Energy Plan.
Caption: Folks at a POWER Energy Justice rally. Photo credit: Nora Elmarzouky.
This work, like all of POWER’s CJJ work, centers energy democracy principles to ensure that affordability, health and safety, fair labor, and renewability are never pitted against each other. For instance, POWER Interfaith’s campaign for a just transition calls for Philadelphia’s municipally-owned gas company to move away from fossil fuel to renewable energy in a way that is affordable for all, sustains jobs, and protects health and safety. In addition, POWER collaborated on a state-wide climate justice platform with the Thriving PA Working Group and the PA Climate Equity Table called People’s Plan for PA Climate Justice. While POWER’s Energy Plan presents specific pathways for utility accountability, this plan focuses on climate justice priorities in state policy. Admirably, it is a product of many groups focused on cross-sectoral issues such as immigration, labor, youth, decarceration, and the environment.
Energy Democracy Tools for Community Energy Advocates
Achieving energy democracy requires coordinated action and intersectional thinking. The Energy Democracy Scorecard created by Emerald Cities Collaborative (ECC) in collaboration with climate and energy justice grassroots organizations across the country, and used by POWER Interfaith, provides a framework for communities to collectively push for radical shifts across energy, economic, and social systems. For POWER, the scorecard shifted folks from asking, “I don’t know a lot about the system that brings electricity to my house,” to asking questions about ownership, control, and benefits. It helped expand the realm of possibility for how we can power our homes and build community power simultaneously.
“It helped expand the realm of possibility for how we can power our homes and build community power simultaneously.”
The scorecard is organized around four pillars: social justice, regenerative energy systems, moral economy, and governance. It aims to create shared language and analysis, support community power-building and frontline leadership, and act as an accountability tool. In addition to POWER in Pennsylvania, groups in Indiana, Puerto Rico, California, Kentucky, and other states have been tapping into the resource to organize their communities and provide a grounding for the work they are doing.
To learn more about how this scorecard and other resources that can help community energy advocates advance the principles of energy democracy on the ground, check out these resources:
Emerald Cities Collaborative recently launched a new pilot program – The Emergent Community Capacity Building Program – to support BIPOC and frontline communities in general operating funds and/or with technical support to utilize and organize around energy democracy.
If interested and eligible, apply by June 1, 2022.
Get the 101 on Energy Democracy:
Book: Energy Democracy Project: Advancing Equity in Clean Energy Solutions
Learn More:
To transform our energy system, we must organize and reclaim our power – in all senses.
You can also view this article at Emerald Cities Collaborative’s Medium page. Any questions or comments can be directed to Emerald Cities Collaborative at energydemocracy@emeraldcities.org.
Nora Elmarzouky is the Senior Energy Democracy Manager at Emerald Cities Collaborative. She is also a climate justice organizer with POWER Interfaith.
