A volunteer Task Force was established as an outcome of the challenge and committed to a 90-day goal of defining the “worst-performing” circuits with focus on North Lawndale. In 12 months, the Task Force aims to identify tools to measure load growth and impact on worst-performing circuits, and plan for the advocacy process to propose this metric. The North Lawndale community has been a focal point for energy justice initiatives and was identified as a “worst-performing” circuit, which is defined by high numbers of outages.
Regarding these circuits, Jonathan McGee, Senior Consultant of Economic Development for Baker Tilly stated, “It is imperative that we address the worst performing-circuits in the city because many of those circuits dovetail with impoverished transportation and economic deserts in the city, only exacerbating inequity and the racial wealth gap.”
Since the workshop, Task Force members aligned on submitting an application for the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA) Grant which supports industry leaders who are equitably growing the clean energy workforce through energy efficiency projects in low-income communities.
The Task Force also partnered with North Lawndale community members such as The Will Group, North Lawndale Employment Network , and University of Illinois Chicago to ensure that their actions are grounded in community support. Community involvement is critical; Mark Petri, Grid Security and Resilience Lead from Argonne National Labs, emphasized, “If we didn’t have these interactions with AEG and these local communities, we might be working on problems that don’t really need fixing.”
