Energy Democracy at the CommonBound conference

The New Economy Coalition held its CommonBound conference this weekend, highlighting different ways that the solidarity economy is coming to life. I couldn’t make it to St. Louis, though there were interesting sessions.

Today, I watched the live webcast for the “Clean Power to the People” session, which renewable energy and energy democracy, the idea that distributed energy (think solar panels) turns energy consumers into energy citizens who have agency over their “power.” Discussions covered issues like community solar and community choice aggregation programs. and cooperative energy businesses. And while the discussions weren’t particularly deep, they collectively got across how much effort and creativity was being applied across the country.