Communities LEAP

Communities LEAP is a partnership between National Renewable Energy Lab, the Department of Energy, The City of Highland Park, & the Highland Park Community Crisis Coalition. This partnership and program works to advance energy justice within Highland Park by providing technical assistance for climate and energy related actions.

Purpose

Use technical assistance from the Department of Energy to turn the plans, visions, and research of Highland Parkers into real, resourced projects creating resilience, affordability, reliability, and economic opportunity for our community.

The Benefits

The efforts to advance energy justice will come in the form of assistance to develop community-wide clean energy plans. These plans can take actions to: 

  • Reduce local air pollution

  • Increase energy resilience

  • Lower energy utility cost and energy burden

  • Create good paying jobs

  • Find funding for future projects

  • Take steps towards achieving energy sovereignty within Highland Park Michigan

Highland Park Today

Highland Park’s Current State of Infrastructure & Development

Highland Park has a prominent history of facing environmental injustices, along with job & population loss after deindustrialization, when the automotive and fossil fuel industry that built the city, relocated.

Highland Park is a city that now faces disproportionate impacts from climate change, including heat wave intensity and frequency, cold freezes, energy insecurity, degraded air quality, reduced water quality, and increased public health risks. 

Currently over two thirds of Highland Park residents live without streetlights, a reality after 1,000 street lights were removed by DTE. because of municipal city debt The significantly smaller population from the peak has decreased tax revenue, consequently leading to failed municipal services.

The energy burden, insecurity, and poverty within Highland Park significantly impacts the economic and public health of residents.

Residents have experienced consistent increases in residential electricity rates from the local, private utility. According to resident reports, poor energy reliance has left some households with multiple days of outages this past year during heat waves, winter storms, and pandemic conditions.

Highland Park is nestled in the middle of Detroit, a major metropolis, yet it does not always benefit from the transportation and mobility opportunities that exist within Detroit. Highland Park would significantly benefit from enabling a full range of mobility choices, including private automobiles, transit, biking and walking.

Highland Park residents are prone to low wage earning employment that impacts their overall quality of life, even as it relates to energy security. The median annual household income is $18,474. This significantly impacts a family’s ability to be an active participant in the local economy. Therefore, there is much work to be done to stand up a robust workforce development strategy that is in alignment with the city’s overall economic development plans.

Even while being impacted by historical challenges, Highland Park is abundant with bold people-power, frontline action, and innovation. Dedicated community leaders, organizers, and entrepreneurs have been working tirelessly to lay the foundation for sustainable, equitable, and resilient solutions for Highland Park. As the nation once again faces the need for massive, unprecedented transformation of our power systems and infrastructure in response to climate change, Communities LEAP assistance will advance resilient root solutions and advance energy justice, so that all Highland Park residents benefit. Highland Park is overflowing with clean energy work and leadership that will pilot the transformative solutions that we need scaled across our state and country.

Highland Park's Vision 

Due to the city’s bold innovators, organizers, and leaders, Highland Park has the potential to be a leading sustainable city, on how to execute a swift, equitable, and just energy transition.

With the right tools and investments, Highland Park could be powered by local, affordable, resilient community owned 100% clean energy.

By taking strides in the following areas, we can move closer to achieving our collective vision for a self determined equitable energy system in Highland Park:

Energy Efficiency

Reduce energy usage with upgrades by adding insulation, as well as repairing homes & buildings

Rooftop Solar

Install solar panels on homes, businesses, schools, and other buildings

Community Solar

Site larger solar installations in the community allowing residents (and renters) to subscribe to and benefit from solar without having to install solar panels on their roof

Distributed Solar

Creative small scale projects such as solar carports, canopies, and trees

Community Water and Energy Resources

Treat wastewater to produce reusable water and capture methane for heat and power

Technical Assistance

The $500,000 technical assistance will be broken down into 4 different scopes

City Wide Street Lighting

Relighting the streets of Highland Park will be not just an empowering step to self determination, but it will also be a precedent of how Highland Park clean energy is owned and equitably distributed.

By righting the wrongs done to Highland Parkers when thousands of streetlights were repossessed, and having the streetlights solar powered, wi-fi enabled, and belonging to Highland Park, a powerful example of resilience & sustainability will be on every street of the city.

The technical assistance from Communities LEAP will come in the form of understanding best practices for zoning, construction & ordinance codes within electrification. By analyzing the existing codes and recommending changes for new codes, it will allow future solar installation or EV charging within the city. There will also be assistance in demonstrating solar lighting workforce needs, focusing on investing in local workforce opportunities.

There will also be potential workforce development in battery recycling/manufacturing/collection/assembly within Highland Park. 

Recommendations for funding prospects and finance options for solar streetlights in order to achieve city wide street lighting will be vital to bring light back to Highland Park.

Timeline: August 2022 - March 2023 

Grid Limitation Analysis 

Highland Park’s electric grid capacity is currently very limited with just 4.8kv. The technical assistance from Communities LEAP will assist in determining the existing energy capacities, demands, and limitations, as well as analyzing the current value of Highland Park’s infrastructure to develop a baseline to reference.

By predicting and assessing the future electricity needs & demands, a clear idea of what grid capacity is required will be established.

Further analysis of the estimated cost of converting the current 4.8kv grid to a higher 13.2kv capacity, along with the costs of modernizing infrastructure under existing and future 

will allow better predictions of financial needs and funding actions to be taken.

Analyzing pathways to achieve 100% local clean energy goals under:

  1. Present utility regime through advocating & holding the local private utility accountable to distribute affordable, reliable energy.

  2. Municipalization of energy service, transitioning to a community-owned utility determined by the residents

  3. Establishment of a sustainable electric utility

Timeline: August 2022 - March 2023

To be determined by community through engagement

We need your input on our last area of technical assistance!

This focus of assistance is going to be allocated based on what is collectively determined by Highland Park  residents in an intentional community engagement process. 

Community Choice Options:

  • Resources & education on weatherization in homes

  • Investment in jobs and workforce in clean energy

  • Assessment in energy resilience & vulnerability

  • Analysis of funding opportunities  for continued work on pathway development and implementation 

  • Community Solar Projects

  • Revising and updating city ordinances for urban farming, aquaponics, and agrivoltaics

  • Exploration of geothermal technology as a source of renewable energy

Timeline: March 2023- August 2023

Bonus: Transportation & Mobility 

Transportation and Mobility (using resources outside of the $500,000 technical assistance)

A partnership with Clean Cities and National Renewable Energy Laboratory to improve the transportation and mobility options within Highland Park.

Timeline: To be determined

How did we get here with Communities LEAP?

Our multi stakeholder team along with many other committed supporters, applied to the Community's LEAP project in 2020. Highland Park was one of the 23 communities selected to work with the National Renewable Energy Lab and Department of Energy to receive $500,000 in assistance to support an equitable clean energy transition in the city. Highland Park qualified for five of the Pathways to Power including:

  • Clean energy infrastructure planning

  • Energy efficiency & electrification of buildings & homes

  • Microgrids and energy storage

  • New or enhanced manufacturing

  • Transportation and mobility electrification. 

A deep and wide network of support allowed for the application to be successful,  and for the current stage of implementation to be taking place.

This technical assistance will lead us to money that will turn into implementation, and will be a step towards environmentally just investments.

Achieving these pathways of power can make Highland Park a leading model for what a sustainable & equitable transition to clean energy can look like. 

Multi Stakeholder Team

Our multi stakeholder team is full of various expertise and invaluable experience, to ensure that decisions made within Communities LEAP centers the needs and visions of Highland Parkers. With 50 years of combined experience in community development and public service in Highland Park, the stakeholders are embedded community authorities and professional experts with proven success navigating and problem-solving within Highland Park's cultural, political, and civic landscapes and securing improvements from state regulators on the issues we aim to address.

The following are the stakeholders of Communities LEAP:

Highland Park Community Crisis Coalition:

HPC3’s mission is to deliver social, economic, ecological justice to Highland Parkers through moments of crisis and beyond. They have formed initially to provide immediate needs and economic relief to Highland Parkers impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. 

HPC3 is a coalition anchored by Soulardarity, Parker Village, and Avalon Village that partnered with the City of Highland Park City Council to develop a Just Recovery from COVID-19 Action Plan.

They aim to become a long term source of community resilience for Highland Parkers that moves from Crisis to Justice. 

Avalon Village

Avalon Village is a 3-block self sustaining, sustainable eco-village that encompasses about 40 properties along Avalon Street with previous and active construction emphasizing green infrastructure that offers critical community services and serves as an active hub for cultural life.

With economic development initiatives for women, homework houses & activity centers for children, as well as a future greenhouse to cafe, Avalon Village is a beautiful, safe, functional space for the entire community.

Parker Village

Parker Village, LLC is a neighborhood development which includes plans for smart single and multi-family residences, a community resource center, Urban and Aquaponics Farm and a healthy choice food cafe. 

​​As a community gathering space, event location, resource center, business incubator and more. Parker Village will create its own Ecosystem.

Soulardarity 

Soulardarity’s mission is to repower our city and organize for energy justice and democracy in Highland Park through a 100% clean energy transition.  Soulardarity works to install solar-powered street lights, save money on energy bills, and use our collective knowledge to build a just and equitable energy system for all.

City of Highland Park - Engineering/Water Department & Economic Development:

The Water Department is dedicated to achieving the city's water quality goals and operations for drinking water, stormwater, and wastewater. The Engineering Department provides quality civil engineering services that promote public safety and health, related to road networks, bridges and pathways as well as the planning, design, review and implementation of transportation infrastructure, construction programs, traffic engineering and engineering inspection.

Partners of Communities LEAP stakeholders

Partners from NREL & DOE have been vital to Highland Park as they lend their time, assistance & innovations to how Communities LEAP technical assistance can be allocated to the city to ensure the biggest strides for innovation & clean energy are taking place.

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

NREL advances the science and engineering of energy efficiency, sustainable transportation, and renewable power technologies and provides the knowledge to integrate and optimize energy systems.

Department of Energy

The mission of the Energy Department is to ensure America’s security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions.