From energy access and community owned solar to workers’ rights, people across the world are taking back power over the energy sector, re-imagining how energy might be produced, distributed and used. Join us to learn from leaders across the state on approaches to make our energy system renewable, equitable, accountable and local.
This two hour, interactive workshop will cover the basics of the traditional energy system, who has benefited from our system and who has been harmed, an introduction to community solar and an overview of on the ground, real world examples of how communities have shifted renewable projects to be more equitable and democratic.
Thursday, February 22nd from 6-8pm
The American Legion Brounshidle Post
3354 Delaware Ave. in Kenmore
Light refreshments will be provided.
Trainers include:
Adam Flint currently serves as Southern Tier (NY) Solar Works Program Manager for the Binghamton Regional Sustainability Coalition, which he co-founded in 2008. From 2011-2013 he ran the Energy Leadership Program at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Broome County, where Adam also coordinated the Southern Tier Regional Green Jobs Green New York Outreach effort which led the state in home audits and retrofits. He has worked as an educator in the Southern Tier for more than twenty years, including more than a decade in higher education, serving on the faculty as Assistant Professor of Sociology at Hartwick College and as a lecturer in Environmental Studies at Binghamton University. Adam is a founding member of the NY Energy Democracy Alliance, currently serving on the steering committee. He works on NY State energy policy, particularly in relation to the ‘Reforming the Energy Vision (REV)’ and related proceedings, and coordinates COSHARE, the Community Owned Shared Renewables Group on behalf of the Alliance. He is also a founding member of the Tier Energy Network of the Southern Tier.
Shiva Prakash is an Equal Justice Works fellow sponsored by Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld at the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI) where her work centers on addressing the legal barriers to community-owned renewable energy and other climate justice and energy democracy oriented campaigns in New York City and State. Before joining NYLPI, Shiva completed legal internships at the Natural Resources Defense Council, New York State Office of the Attorney General, Conservation Law Foundation, and a judicial internship with the Honorable Judge Thompson on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Prior to her legal career, Shiva worked at New Ecology Inc., a Boston-based non-profit, where she was a project manager on affordable and public housing projects incorporating energy efficiency, renewable energy systems, and other aspects of environmentally sustainable and socially conscious design. Shiva received her J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law where she was a Public Interest Law Scholar, a Master’s in City Planning (MCP) specializing in Housing, Community, and Economic Development from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and a B.S. in Economics also from MIT.
Kelly Roache currently works as Senior Program Manager, Solstice. Kelly has years of experience working as an organizer and advocate for social justice and human rights in the U.S. and abroad. Formerly with the US State Department, she helped achieve a humanitarian evacuation in Syria, advanced the U.S.-India bilateral relationship, and led an Ambassador-level review and overhaul of the goals and objectives of the U.S. Embassy to the UAE. Kelly spearheaded a campaign to divest Princeton University’s endowment from corporations complicit in human rights violations in the Middle East, which won majority support among the student body. She has likewise organized for LGBTQ+ rights in New Jersey for over a decade. At Solstice, Kelly harnesses this same passion for equity to expand community solar energy access and affordability, in particular to low-income and environmental justice communities. She also serves on the Steering Committee and chairs the Policy and Intersectionality Working Group and of the NY Energy Democracy Alliance. Kelly is a Co-Founder of Symbiosis, a confederation of grassroots groups building a direct democratic, ecological society from the ground up. She also sits on Solstice’s Board of Directors. Kelly earned her BA cum laude and an MPA, both from Princeton University.
