In a move that combines California environmentalism with aid to communities in need, the state has taken $3.2 billion from the California Solar Initiative (CSI) to fund solar panels on low-income housing.
Through a program called MASH, for Multifamily Affordable Solar Housing, the city of San Diego aims to make solar
In California, low-income households often spend more money on electricity than more affluent residents and produce greenhouse gasses in the process.
But through the California Solar Initiative’s Single Family Affordable Solar Homes (SASH) program, and an Oakland-based nonprofit firm called GRID Alternatives, the state’s low-income homeowners finally have the change to reduce their monthly electricity bills and decrease electricity usage.
Longtime friends and engineers, Erica Mackie and Tim Sears, founded GRID during the 2001 energy crisis. While developing renewable energy systems for the private sector, Sears and Mackie decided to try and make the technology available to low-income communities. Their model became GRID Alternatives’ first Solar Affordable Housing Program.