Chloe Taurel
Research Mentor(s): Justin Schott
Mentor Department:
Authors: Chloe Taurel, Rahul Agrawal Bejarano
Session: Session 3 (11:00am – 11:50am)
Presentation Type: Poster 53
Abstract
As the transition to clean energy becomes increasingly pressing, there is a prime opportunity to create systems that have equity built in from the start. The Energy Equity Project (EEP) works to create these robust systems and inform policy and public opinion through accessible data. This project used R to analyze data from the 2018 Census, Low-Income Energy Affordability Data (LEAD) from the Department of Energy, and geographic redlining data from Mapping Inequality. The case study investigated historically redlined cities in Michigan, including Detroit, Flint, Lansing, and Grand Rapids in an attempt to understand the relationship between Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) categorization, energy burden, and federal poverty levels (FPL). This emphasized that federal poverty level is strongly connected to one’s energy burden, and that more people in lower-ranked HOLC areas also fall into lower FPLs, even to this day. These conclusions contribute primarily to the recognition pillar of environmental justice, but exemplify the need for a future of distributive and restorative energy justice for historically disadvantaged and marginalized communities. The case study was written with the intention of being comprehensible for all audiences with the goal to further research and activism related to energy justice in historically redlined areas. The results of the study also prompted more questions about how redlining is connected to other energy justice issues including affordability enrollment programs and disconnections. The current state of energy data and reporting is inadequate for a complete evaluation of energy equity; the EEP will conduct further research on energy data reporting in U.S. regulatory agencies such as Public Utility and Service commissions, to ultimately create a template for better reporting.
