Kristal Hansley grew up surrounded by community. After school and in between piano lessons, Hansley would tag along with her grandmother, Avellar, to all types of neighborhood meetings in Bushwick, New York, where they lived. “I hated it at first,” says Hansley, 31, “but then it was already entrenched in my life.”
Avellar was a local icon. She founded a community garden that was eventually named after her. Here, neighbors would gather regularly to share meals and music. Hansley didn’t know it then, but her grandma was planting a special seed within her: a love for community, and a love for the earth. Avellar looked to the soil and the plants. Decades later, Kristal is looking up to the sun.
She’s the CEO of WeSolar, a community solar company providing affordable energy to low- and moderate-income families. Hansley became the first Black woman to launch a solar company when she founded WeSolar, already leaving her mark on an industry that is notoriously dominated by white people or, well, white men. Among senior executives, 88% are white and 80% are men, according to the 2019 U.S. Solar Industry Diversity Study.
Hansley didn’t let that hold her back. In fact, she’s celebrating her Blackness through WeSolar. Just look at when she launched it: Juneteenth, a holiday marking the end of slavery in the U.S. “I was sending a message out the gate for the equity,” Hansley says. She didn’t let the pandemic slow her down, either; her community was in need.
In Maryland, customers owe about $300 million in unpaid gas and electric bills. Black households across the U.S. pay more for their energy than white households, according to a June 2020 working paper. WeSolar promises to reduce its low- to moderate-income customers’ bills by at least 25%. The company also skips fees and allows customers to cancel without penalty. On average, their customers stand to save about $300 a year by going solar.
That’s its power: Community solar can be more accessible than the rooftop solar many people know. Instead of purchasing the panels themselves to install on a roof, customers can purchase or lease panels that sit on a solar farm nearby. These panels send energy back into the greater grid, which powers customers’ homes. They receive credits on their energy bills as a result. This breaks down the barriers many residents face to accessing renewable energy, especially those who rent or whose roofs can’t support this technology.
But another key barrier is trust, says Tony Reames, an assistant professor of environmental justice at the University of Michigan, where he researched solar adoption among low- to moderate-income households as part of his project with the National Renewable Energy Lab.