Richmond’s Solar Renaissance

RICHMOND, CALIFORNIA is a city nestled among five oil refineries, eight superfund sites, a web of highways and dozens of chemical factories and toxic waste sites. It’s also a solar pioneer. Since 2007, GRID Alternatives has partnered with the city to bring both financial and environmental relief from solar power to its largely minority residents, nearly one-fifth of whom live under the Federal poverty line. In collaboration with two local job training groups, community volunteers and a groundbreaking local rebate program, we’ve installed solar power on 141 Richmond rooftops to-date, the clean air equivalent of planting 211,000 trees.