What is Solar For All, and how did this program get started? The DC Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE) breaks these questions and more down in “Solar For All,” the first episode of its DC Solar Stories Documentary Series.
The first two episodes of the series premiered in September 2019, at an exclusive screening and featuring panel conversations moderated by DOEE Director Tommy Wells. The documentary was also featured in the 2020 DC Environmental Film Festival, which reached viewers across the country due to the festival’s move to an online event this year.
Through this first video, District residents and Solar For All subscribers hear from the men and women who worked with the community to create one of the most progressive energy programs in the country.
Here, these innovators explain how DC Solar For All got started and discuss challenges — like solar panel placement — that had to be overcome in order to make possible the program’s goal of cutting 100,000 families’ electricity bills in half through the use of locally generated, clean energy.
“In DC, we are acutely aware of the fact that we are becoming an unaffordable city, but we have a history of a city that has been an inclusive city,” Wells said in the video.
This first episode discusses some of the opportunities opened by DC Solar For All, like job training and energy equity within the District, while making marked progress toward clean energy goals.
DC Solar For All is a program run by DOEE and was established by a pioneering law championed by Mayor Muriel Bowser and passed by the DC City Council in July 2016.
To view DC Solar Stories: Episode 1: Solar For All, click here.