Giving Compass' Take:

• The Renewable Energy Transition Initiative is a nonprofit that helps low-income residents learn about renewable energy sources to make their utility bills more affordable.

• The nonprofit also works on advocating for more inclusive sustainable energy policies for low-income communities. How would policy changes directly impact their lives?

• Read about how landlords and water bills contribute to the affordable housing crisis.

An energy bill more than 6% of a household’s income is considered unaffordable. In parts of the U.S., many of the poorest families pay as much as 20%. DeAndrea Salvador wants to change that by advocating for inclusive renewable-energy initiatives.

Still living in Charlotte, in 2014 she founded the Renewable Energy Transition Initiative, a nonprofit that educates lower-income people about renewable energy strategies to lower their bills, and advocates for more inclusive sustainable energy policies. This year, Salvador joins the 2018 class of TED Fellows, a group of 20 young innovators working on scalable solutions to global problems.

The reasons for energy poverty, Salvador says, is that the buildings where lower-income people live are often very inefficient: they leak air, are poorly insulated, and as such, can often require up to three times as much energy to heat and cool. Furthermore, “there’s essentially a barrier for lower-income folks to access solar energy and renewable technologies to lower their bills.” Especially in the southeast, Salvador says, there’s less political support for renewable energy, and there are also fewer policies in place than say, a state like California, that mandate certain building standards that would increase energy efficiency.

Through RETI, Salvador is beginning to push to fix the problem. Ultimately, she intends to use the nonprofit as a vehicle for setting up shared solar installations in low-income communities; she imagines large solar arrays that can connect to houses in a neighborhood, and provide supplemental power to offset families’ usual charges through the utility (a pilot project for an initiative like this, she says, is underway in South Carolina, in partnership with the regional utility, Duke Energy).

Read the full article about the activist helping low-income people lower their energy bills by Eillie Anzilotti at Fast Company.