We post our news and reflections on energy, and we also like to repost pieces that we find relevant to community-owned renewable energy. Topics touch on policy, finance, energy politics, case studies, breakthroughs, trends, electric vehicles, as well as the broader social, economic, and maybe even metaphysical dimensions of energy.


Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change circles the year 2030 on our calendar


With the wave of recent hurricanes, floods and wildfires as real reminders of what we value in the face of climate-related loss, yet another climate report was just released. This one, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) bears special mention because of the worldwide stature of the IPCC and it’s decades-long work on


Why we do what we do: The moral action of community solar by and for people


AIRE’s core mission is to help nonprofit organizations and community-minded people develop solar projects at their schools, shelters, food systems, houses of worship, and other important public places. And, not just put solar up for show, mind you; our design principle is to push the benefits of ownership and control to that “community” and not


Solar Power, the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics & What My Economics Degree Left Out


Two economists were just awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics. Of course that isn’t a newsflash, because it happens every year, but the work for which they were recognized is both newsworthy and urgent. The dwindling window of opportunity to decarbonize the global economy and literally save the biosphere, combined with the fact that


Making Community Energy Together in the Pluriverse: Thoughts on an important new book


AIRE has spent a solid decade now experimenting with ways to develop community-based renewable energy projects. We consider honesty to be a virtue and if we walk that talk we’d have to say that we haven’t made a much of a dent in the dominant, dirty, deadly energy system we set out to help change.


The Sun Crosses the Line: Autumn arrives 9:54 PM Sept. 22nd


Nowadays most folks can’t get from point A to point B without their GPS. There’s no sense of geography or direction. Who can intuitively point to north let alone describe the difference between “true north” and “magnetic north?” Add to that the likely fact that many folks can’t name the 50 states or identify them


Resource Innovation Design Group (RIDG, pronounced ‘ridge’)


AIRE is very happy to welcome RIDG as a new project and creative partner, bringing with it some new thinking and important perspectives about energy. Bucky Black is the chief instigator, dreamer, and doer behind RIDG. Although AIRE has always focused on energy generation, we know that conservation is foundational to everything. In fact, we


Repost from Virginia: Shining light on rural electric cooperatives


We encourage folks to check out Seth Heald’s piece on Power for the People VA, where he opines that “Electric co-ops are supposed to operate democratically, but do they really? And what happens when they don’t?” Check out what he has to report on a petition he and fellow members filed at the state’s utility


Are rural electric cooperatives cooperative and democratic?


In a sense, community-owned renewable energy and democracy are somewhat synonymous terms. Some may assume that electric “cooperatives” are democratic, but that would be an assumption worth testing once in awhile. A decade ago, two colleagues and I, attended a particularly interesting annual meeting of our electric utility, Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation, or BREMCO