Clean Energy Spotlight: Yesenia Rivera

Our latest #cleanenergyspotlight combines her love of science and community development by bringing community-led solar to more middle- and low-income neighborhoods. But first, do you know someone who should be celebrated for their #cleanenergy leadership? Add them to the comments below.

Today, we’re celebrating Yesenia Rivera, the new executive director of the Solstice Initiative. The nonprofit helps expand affordable, accessible community solar projects to lower-income areas. With community solar, people can subscribe to solar power instead of installing solar panels. And, at Solstice, they make sure the planning is actually community-led and for community benefit. In a pilot project in Boston, for example, they’re “facilitating a process with stakeholders from Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan, and Hyde Park to develop plans for a community solar project. That plan covers “everything from workforce development and job training to community ownership and financial savings.” 

To the role of executive director for the Solstice Initiative, Yesenia brings a policy focus, a justice lens and a fire for “energy democracy.” A community organizer with a passion for democratizing clean energy, Yesenia saw energy insecurity firsthand while growing up in Puerto Rico.

“Communities of color have paid a higher energy burden…They've been historically deprived of control of where their energy comes from. This is a challenge to that,” she told Positive Change Purchasing Co-operative in 2020.

A law school graduate from the University of the District of Columbia, she began serving middle and low-income communities as a student in the school’s Community Development Clinic. Later, she joined Solar United Neighbors, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting both national solar action and inclusive, community-led solar co-ops in states across the U.S. There, she served as program director and director of energy diversity and inclusion. 

For Yesenia, the U.S. cannot accelerate the clean energy transition unless the country includes everyone. To exclude underserved communities is unjust, inequitable, and leaves the fight incomplete. 

“This transition's not going to happen unless we bring everybody along. If we keep leaving folks out, we're never going to achieve real equity and address climate change,” she told the audience of a VoteSolar webinar in 2021. 

Congratulations on the new role, Yesenia, and keep going.