There’s no shortage of headlines about the challenges facing clean energy right now: federal rollbacks, political polarization, stalled projects, rising energy demand, and growing uncertainty around investment.
But those headlines rarely capture the full picture.
Across the country, local leaders are still organizing. Communities are still building. And projects are still moving forward, often because trusted advocates on the ground are doing the hard, patient work of turning clean energy from an abstract policy conversation into something tangible and community-supported.
That’s why Invest in Our Future, a leading philanthropic organization accelerating clean energy deployment, launched The Builders Network to support local clean energy deployment across the country.
This Substack will help elevate the people, partnerships, and projects driving clean energy deployment at the local level, from coast to coast and everywhere in between.
Each week, this space will feature stories, updates, and perspectives including:
Community-led clean energy success stories
Clean energy project announcements and campaign wins
Reporting and commentary on federal policy impacts
Media highlights and emerging trends shaping deployment nationwide
We’ll cover our partners’ work on residential, commercial, community, and utility-scale projects, from rooftop solar and geothermal to battery storage, resilience hubs, and rural clean energy development. We’ll also document what’s at stake when those efforts are slowed or undermined.
Most importantly, we’ll focus on the local leaders making these projects real. We’ll spotlight organizers, faith leaders, nonprofits, developers, local officials, workers, farmers, educators, advocates and other local leaders working to make clean energy more affordable, accessible, and durable.
Because while national narratives may shift, the work of building a cleaner, more affordable, and more resilient energy future is already happening, community by community, project by project.
To kick things off, we’re sharing an excerpt from a recent oped from Invest in Our Future’s Executive Director Peter Colavito, first published last week in Heatmap News, that captures both the urgency of this moment and the opportunity ahead.
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Heatmap: Philanthropy Needs a New Grassroots Strategy for Clean Energy
Up until last September, Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission had gone 14 years without approving a large-scale wind project. But when they met to review the 456 public comments submitted for Badger Hollow, a 118-megawatt project that would straddle Iowa and Grant counties, they found overwhelming support for the proposal. Approval followed.
This wasn’t by chance. For months, groups like the Rural Climate Partnership, Greenlight America, Farm-to-Power, Clean Wisconsin, CivicIQ, and Healthy Climate Wisconsin worked together to build support. They held roundtables with farmers and shot digital ads with testimonials from residents that ran online and at gas stations. They emphasized the nearly $600,000 the project would generate for cash-strapped towns and counties every year to fund things like roads, bridges, and emergency services. And they empowered trusted local voices to make a case grounded in their communities’ values.
The breakthrough in Wisconsin shows how investing in local interventions can accelerate the energy transition — and points the way forward for clean energy advocates trying to navigate federal headwinds.
As skyrocketing electricity demand and soaring costs draw attention to our power systems, clean energy offers a formidable solution. Wind, solar, and storage technologies have matured enough that they can be built quickly and cheaply virtually anywhere, for anyone, at any scale. And now, as the world contends with yet another conflict roiling fossil fuel markets, these energy sources offer a shield from volatility.
Given these clear advantages, it’s worth asking, “Why aren’t clean energy projects moving forward faster in more places?”
Our team at Invest in Our Future has learned a lot in the past three years about the answer.
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