Uptown Chats · Jaron Burke, Lonnie Portis, WE ACT for Environmental Justice

Solar Energy

·35 min·3 clips

Stephen explains how turning off solar panels for a few hours a year could unlock massive new capacity across New York.

This episode of Uptown Chats focuses on solar energy's role in a just transition, featuring co-hosts Jaren and Lonnie alongside guest Stephen Roundtree from the nonprofit Vote Solar. Stephen works to advance a fair solar economy across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. The conversation examines solar technology, its deployment in New York, and its connection to environmental justice and affordability. Solar photovoltaics are described as a mature technology, with newer developments including bifacial panels, thin-film panels, and perovskite panels. Deployment innovations include floating solar on water bodies, known as "photovoltaics," and combining solar fields with agriculture in "agrovoltaics." New York State's Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act set a target of six gigawatts of local solar by 2025, a goal expected to be met this year. The state leads in community solar, with about two gigawatts allowing multiple subscribers to share a solar farm's output. However, an energy modeling study indicates New York needs approximately 80 gigawatts of solar to meet its climate goals cost-effectively. Major barriers to expansion include complex grid interconnection processes and restrictive local land-use laws or moratoria. In dense urban areas like New York City, additional challenges involve limited space, roof age, and project economics. A proposed policy package called "20 by 35" aims for 20 gigawatts of local solar by 2035, featuring the ASAP Act for interconnection reform and incentive extensions. Flexible interconnection, a concept allowing temporary curtailment of solar output, could dramatically increase buildable capacity. Advocates are also pushing to renew and expand a New York City solar tax credit to include storage and make it more accessible. Stephen Roundtree argues the decarbonization path with high solar adoption could save New York about $28 billion by 2050 compared to alternatives, not counting hard-to-quantify public health benefits. He emphasizes solar's modular nature enables direct community benefits, like through rooftop installations or community solar subscriptions. This proximity allows for alternative business models, such as worker cooperatives, and can help direct investment to disadvantaged communities as mandated by state law. The episode also references WE ACT's local initiatives, like Solar Uptown Now and training 63 people in solar installation since 2023. The tone is conversational, educational, and advocacy-oriented, blending policy explanations with practical examples. Listeners interested in renewable energy policy, urban sustainability, and environmental justice will find this episode valuable. Those seeking highly technical details on solar engineering or critics of state-led climate initiatives might find it less engaging.

As heard by us

A grounded look at how solar buildout runs into land-use rules, grid limits, and roof readiness.

This episode treats solar energy as a practical environmental justice issue, not a slogan. Stephen Roundtree lays out the friction points with care: grid effects, local land-use rules, restrictive siting limits, and the way some towns can still block solar altogether.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want the real bottlenecks behind solar: grid limits, local land-use fights, and the practical roof-and-space issues behind the clean-energy story.

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