Appalachian Institute for Renewable Energy
Pioneering community-owned renewable energy
Every new year’s ritual involves reflecting on where we’ve been and looking ahead to where we may be headed. Rarely though, is this ritual engaged in any meaningfully critical sense. Instead, it’s the ubiquitous new year’s resolution. This year is no exception but what feels different, or at least more intensely amplified, is a dark
In times of great challenges, anxieties, social and ecological upheaval, may we all have a moment of peace and joy.
AIRE and Co-operate WNC have been in dialogue for several months around the questions of how do we cooperate to incubate a solar cooperative practice that harnesses the power of aggregated purchasing to reduce the cost of solar and how do we nurture a cooperative enterprise that sustains solar adoption and creates livelihoods for underserved
I’m sitting in a parking lot on a cold, gray January morning waiting for my daughter to come out of a doctors appointment. I couldn’t go into the waiting room thanks to coronavirus rules. So here I sit scanning the scene for the vibe. As I tune in, I see a dialysis center straight ahead
It’s “…our garden. I’m just the maintenance man, I just keep it up,” insists DeWayne Barton, the humble visionary behind the Burton Street Community Peace Gardens in West Asheville. The first wave of solar at the peace gardens went up back in August. Two hundred donors came together to fund the project. AIRE developed, coordinated
The solar installation was completed on Monday, August 10th. Now we await only Duke Energy to connect the system to the grid. The advocacy community uses the term “slow walking” to describe how long that may take. Only Duke knows, but hopefully soon. The garden is producing healthy food, ideas, healing vibes, and is ready
This guiding question borrows from the title of a collection of essays, “WHAT ARE people FOR” by agrarian writer, Wendell Berry. It is provocative because it calls our values into question and challenges assumptions. Our conversations and activities at AIRE have recently asked a similar question out of the same vein– What is solar for?
• We now have all of the system components on hand (e.g. solar panels, inverters, racking, etc.). • Required filings have been completed at North Carolina Utilities Commission. • System interconnection request has been filed with Duke Energy Progress. • Installation is scheduled to be July 27th, maybe sooner. Looking back at the crowdfunding campaign
Blue Ridge Public Radio’s Cass Herrington, interviewed Burton Street’s DeWayne Barton for a piece aired on June 30th. Always quotable, the following excerpt from the interview illustrates why Barton is such an inspiring leader and visionary, and why nearly 300 unique individuals came together to crowdfund the solar project that will be installed in the
I saw this image in a coffee shop on 9th Street in Boulder, Colorado back in February. Its meaning has much resonance to me right now. Maybe I’d change the labels some but the idea is to put it all together, which I’d call PRAXIS. The deep dive isn’t the point here though. Sticking to