DC's Green New Deal
On December 2nd, we celebrated a multi-year solar installation effort at Fairfax Village in the District’s Ward 7 with a ribbon-cutting. Representatives from the Mayor’s office, the DC Green Bank, the DC Sustainable Energy Utility, and the Fairfax Village Community joined us in celebrating the progress we’ve realized: by the end of 2021, Flywheel will have installed over 4,000 solar panels in the Fairfax Village community, nearing 2 megawatts of distributed, community-scale solar including rooftops, ground mount, and carport solar ranging over the 35-acre neighborhood. A benefit of the Solar for All effort for the community includes significant reinvestment in this diverse community – new roofs, structural repairs, and refilling of condo reserves during the COVID-19 pandemic.
From left: John Miller, Felix Tezoh, Mary Jane Gilliland, Jessica Pitts
This effort has been possible because of an extraordinary commitment by the District government to create environmental markets that value solar energy (as well as other markets such as stormwater management). In many ways, these environmental markets - alongside financing support from our partners - create what advocates of the Green New Deal have imagined on the national stage: simultaneous reinvestment in our communities, growth of green businesses, and tackling climate change. From our vantage, we can tell you that this can work.
There’s great potential to reinvest in our country using green infrastructure through the establishment of robust environmental markets that adequately value the externalities of avoided gray solutions. At Fairfax Village, we figured out together, with the community, how to put the markets to work in such a way that gives a substantial amount of the value -- the wealth creation -- back to the community. Not everyone does that and we hope that’s the way a Green New Deal will emerge on the national stage. Fairfax Village is a model for not only how communities can benefit and participate in the green economy, but for how other cities can make these types of transformations happen across the country.
Cutting the Green Ribbon
As the old adage goes, a lot of people made this possible. The DC Green Bank jumped into this project with both feet, and made a huge difference for us, providing construction and permanent financing. The DCSEU and DOEE as the managers of the Solar for All program helped fund these ambitious projects and kept them on track. Also, a big thanks our friends at the Latino Economic Development Corporation (LEDC) who helped our company, our subcontractors, and our partners pivot back in 2019 to expand our work in solar.
Each Village in the Fairfax Village Community Association has its own story to tell, but we want to recognize all the community leaders who put time into creating this success: Lem Walker and Loretta Browner in Village II and Village III, respectively, were our initial partners and advocates for the effort. Denise Valentine in Village V and Sharlene Mobley and Herbert Robinson in Village VII were also early adopters. We also want to thank Cedric Kinlow in Village I, Cortez Johnson in Village VI, and Clarence Strain and Sanford Booth in Village VIII.
Our team also put in a lot of long hours and hard work, and there are many small business owners and incredibly skilled and tireless tradespeople who helped us realize these projects. We count ourselves to have such talented people on our team: Ruben, Nelson, Jose, Beto, Marcos, Manuel, Carlos, Arnol, Pablo, Romeo, and a few dozen others. We’re looking forward to many more solar projects, and widening our unique model of partnership to more communities.