Community-Owned Projects
We believe community-based organizations and mission-based partners should have the opportunity to own clean energy assets, including maintaining 100% ownership of their projects if they want. We have a proven track record of co-owning and co-developing projects structured around community needs and preferences in collaboration with trusted frontline organizations.
Our collaborations are grounded in the Jemez Principles and based on community organizations’ needs and preferences. We seek out long-term partnerships with trusted, frontline, mission-based groups like yours to provide the support you need to scale your vision-while ensuring you maintain full ownership over your projects.
Every project and community is different! Our partners are intentionally centered at the start of the projects and through every stage.
Our main objective is to create a long-lasting, working relationship with our community partners that supports their mission, vision, and goals. Whether that means maintaining 100% ownership or no ownership, we are here to work with you to establish the partnership you want.
We assess project viability together and co-develop a partnership agreement, ensuring that your specific goals, challenges, and mission are addressed in writing with a clear path forward.
While shared ownership is the way we most often work with our partners, it isn't the only one. Some of our partner organizations need upfront development support before taking on 100% ownership of a project, and need upfront development support to realize this goal. Others want help designing a project to ensure it meets their community’s needs, but don't want to have an ownership stake for the lifetime of the project. We collaborate with you to establish a partnership approach that fits best with your needs.
Our partner provides input on all aspects of the project development process. This can include finding subscribers for the system, hosting community meetings, and conducting outreach, helping to assess potential project lenders, investors, and contractors, and establishing labor standards or workforce and training guidelines for the project. We finalize the designs, budgets, legal agreements, and financing approach together.
Once the project is complete, energy bill savings flow to subscribers and revenue from the project flows to our partner who can use the returns to reinvest in their community and expand their mission.
“A frontline-led vision that generates community wealth and prioritizes direct benefits to our community is at the heart of a just transition and energy democracy. We are grateful to be working with Working Power on our Sunset Park Solar project. It is rare to find a partner dedicated to true community partnership. Working Power models what is possible.”
Elizabeth Yeampierre, UPROSE
Ready to explore partnering on a clean energy project?
