Solar companies bring renewable energy to disadvantaged communities

Solar providers Renewable America and Clearloop are bringing their infrastructure to states where there’s no shortage of sunshine, aiming to benefit disadvantaged communities.

Earlier this month, Renewable America announced that its nearly 3 megawatt solar project in Livingston, California, is operating commercially. And at the end of February, Clearloop shared that it would partner with Microsoft to build “up to 100 megawatts of renewable energy projects over the next three years in historically underinvested communities” in Arkansas and Louisiana.

“We applaud Microsoft for using its purchasing power to pilot and scale innovative structures that accelerate grid decarbonization in a way that ensures all American communities can see themselves represented as we transform our economy with clean, innovative technologies,” Clearloop CEO Laura Zapata said in a press release.

The upcoming Arkansas and Louisiana project with Microsoft is the two companies’ second collaboration. Microsoft funded a Clearloop solar farm in Panola County, Mississippi, which Clearloop says has prevented the addition of more than 4.5 million pounds of carbon in total to the atmosphere. The incoming solar farms in Arkansas and Louisiana have the potential to block 5 million metric tons of carbon from entering the atmosphere “over the next four decades.”

In addition to bringing clean energy to low-income households in Livingston, Renewable America’s West Tambo Clean Power II project also provides jobs and “economic growth” for the area. Renewable Energy also said in a press release that it worked with a local labor union in Livingston to develop the project and ensure that local workers and apprentices were hired for it.

“The WEST-II site combines environmentally disadvantaged and low-income communities in one project, creating a powerful cycle of shared benefits—jobs, cleaner air, and economic growth for one,” Renewable America CEO Ardi Arian said in a press release, “while delivering affordable renewable power to the other.”