Aaron talks with Sean Garren DeKrey, Chief Program Officer at Vote Solar, who leads the state-level solar policy and advocacy work in more than two dozen states.
If you feel powerless when you think about clean energy and how much needs to be done, this is the episode for you.
Listen to this episode here, or on:
Connect with Sean on LinkedIn here.
Learn more about Vote Solar at votesolar.org.
Why roughly 70% of this century’s carbon reduction came from state and local policy (not the federal policies we’re so busy arguing about)
How ordinary people can actually sway state legislators and energy regulators (and why it’s a smaller pond than you think)
Why the solar transition is already past the tipping point, and how we’re going to have a “two-way relationship” with electricity in the future.
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“The clean energy economy isn’t a tiny seed we’re still watering. We’re one of the big trees in the forest now, and we’ve got to start playing like that.”
— Sean Garren DeKrey
Aaron Nichols: Sean, at a conference I went to last summer, I heard a stat I haven’t been able to get out of my head since. Someone told me that 70%, give or take, of the locked-in carbon reduction we’ve seen since the turn of the century has been a direct result of state and local policy. Yet most people are only aware of, and only talk about, federal policy. So why do you think people feel so powerless, when we clearly have so much more power in our communities than we think?
Sean Garren DeKrey: That’s a great question, and one we spend a lot of time thinking about at Vote Solar. I think the reality is that our relationship to our electric utilities leaves us feeling powerless. We don’t have a choice about who provides our power, and that name is a big one — it’s handed to us. We see it on trucks as they drive by, we see it in the news. So we feel like there’s this massive entity making all these choices, and our bills keep going up — that seems to be the choice they’re making on a regular basis. That’s the biggest piece. And one of the most exciting things about solar is giving people a chance — a choice — to take some of that power back for themselves.
Aaron Nichols: Literally and figuratively.
Sean Garren DeKrey: Exactly. The other piece is people’s misconceptions of what gets decided in Washington, DC, versus what gets decided by their state capital, their city council, or their town meeting. The reality is, for energy in particular, most of the decisions that impact your electric bill, where your power comes from, and the quality of the lines that lead to your house — whether they can stay strong through a storm — are decided at the state level, very locally, by state legislators who probably don’t live too many blocks from you. So there’s a lot of need to empower and educate people about the role of state government in energy decisions, and how much they can actually sway state legislators and decision makers. It’s a smaller playing field, and there are a lot bigger fish in it.
Aaron Nichols: Now, for everyone listening, welcome back to This Week in Solar. I’m your host, Aaron Nichols, the research and policy specialist here at Exact Solar in Newtown, Pennsylvania. And today’s guest is — I hope I say this right — Sean Garren DeKrey.
Sean Garren DeKrey: Perfect.
Aaron Nichols: Sean, will you go ahead and introduce yourself and talk a little about what you do at Vote Solar?
Sean Garren DeKrey: Sure. I’m the Chief Program Officer here at Vote Solar, so I oversee most of our folks pursuing our mission across the country. We do state-level policy and regulation around unlocking solar markets and making sure everybody has access to the affordability, the jobs, and the benefits of solar power. We work in state capitals across the country to make sure there’s a runway for solar. I’m based in Boston — I got my start doing our Northeast work, so I cut my teeth in Boston, Hartford, and Albany, building out those solar markets, and moved from there into this national role.
Aaron Nichols: And I think I read on the Vote Solar website that y’all are active in 25 states, something like that.
Sean Garren DeKrey: Yeah, it shifts a little year to year, but around there — somewhere between 20 and 25 or 26.
Aaron Nichols: So across that large of a map, how do you all decide which battleground states get the most attention — where you’re putting your resources, and when?
Sean Garren DeKrey: That’s a great question. A lot of it has to do with what the politics and economics of the state make in terms of an opportunity for solar. We’re looking to use solar to solve climate change, to make our energy bills as affordable as possible, and to grow our economy in smart ways with solar to power it. So we look for places where solar is the right tool to solve those problems and there’s a political path forward — with our help — to unlocking that. That’s fundamentally the decision-making we’re making year in, year out. Now, the reality is you also can’t just walk away from a state and come back five years later and expect to still have influence and make a difference. So we try to stay consistently in a lot of our states, so that year in, year out we’re in front of those legislators, energy commissions, and regulators making the case for solar — so they’re getting educated, building their championship, and those markets continue to grow healthily over time.
Aaron Nichols: What’s one of your favorite stories of a high-impact project you’ve worked on? There are so many benefits to solar — everything from reducing a high-income household’s energy bill to actually lifting people out of poverty. And I’ve been very fortunate that at Exact Solar, we’re a company that really loves working with schools and nonprofits, and we’ve done some incredible projects. I’m curious what some of your favorites are.
Sean Garren DeKrey: Yeah, I love when we get to see the diversity of benefits that can flow from solar. Some of my favorites actually have to do with meeting solar workers — folks who have found a career and a way to earn their livelihood in this space. We were lucky enough to work on building out community solar in New Jersey. Pretty early on, one of the very first projects was by a company, Landscape, and they built a couple of projects in Northern New Jersey and had hired folks who had never been in the solar space. We got to interview a couple of the workers and hear both the difference that a high-quality job and a career with a lot of runway made for them and their vision of their future, and also the pride they had in working in solar — the benefits that were going to flow from this project, making the world a better place. I love hearing those stories and feeling like we’re building a movement that’s having a profound impact on people in a lot of different ways. That’s one of my favorites. Although — our local food shelf here in Boston has a solar project on their roof, and it’s right off the highway, so I get to see it whenever I’m driving to and from my house. That one, on a personal level, feels pretty good.
Aaron Nichols: That is so awesome. If y’all ever want to interview some installers on our team, we love doing that kind of stuff. We have several people who can tell stories like the ones you just described.
Sean Garren DeKrey: I would love that. Pennsylvania is a huge priority for us and a place where we see a ton of potential. But as you well know, it’s not the biggest solar market in the world — there aren’t a million companies there doing good work. So having some local stories to tell would be really powerful, especially in a state where natural gas jobs have been a lot of the discussion for years — whether they’re real or not, who has them, where they are. It would be great to be telling the story about the role solar can play in Pennsylvania’s economy.
Aaron Nichols: Yeah, we would love that. I had no idea until I started working there that Pennsylvania is basically the original fossil fuel state. It’s deeply, deeply entrenched. And Pennsylvania is 49th out of 50 states — second only to Alaska in terms of solar deployment. So we’d love to work with you guys. We do a lot of our own work in that way, and we lobby a lot on our own. We’d love to have you all as a partner.
Sean Garren DeKrey: Absolutely. I’ll make sure you get connected to our Pennsylvania lead after this.
Aaron Nichols: Perfect. Now, you mentioned in your bio on the Vote Solar website that you worked on campaigns specifically for low-income communities and communities of color. What is the meaningful benefit households like that get from installing solar?
Sean Garren DeKrey: Well, first and foremost, for folks who are low-income or low-wealth, it’s about affordability — the bill savings you can see on your electric bill. As we know, folks are paying a huge percentage of their wages to keep the lights on, and that often comes down to a decision between food, paying rent, or paying your electric bill. Every cent you can save someone is tremendously impactful when you’re facing a severe energy burden. So energy affordability and bill savings — that’s number one, two, and three for a lot of folks. And I think that’s true for most people you’re selling solar to. That’s often one, two, and three.
Aaron Nichols: Certainly. And what’s fun about selling it is that the utilities have spent decades not cultivating relationships. So they’re fun to sell against — they’re a good villain.
Sean Garren DeKrey: Exactly. And that gets at the other major benefit, which is a sense of empowerment — the ability to take some of this crazy energy landscape into your own hands, to have it on your own roof or in your neighborhood. That’s really powerful for folks who are routinely left out of decision-making, routinely ignored by legislators and the powers that be. So there’s a really exciting opportunity for community and self-empowerment here, and the ability to make a choice. We work to not just have that be one customer’s experience, but to build it into momentum — where you’re seeing communities as a whole take greater control over their energy system, and weighing in at the state level on energy regulation and legislation. How do we build momentum to get more people on board and continue this transition to clean energy that we’re going through as a country?
Aaron Nichols: Yeah, we’re starting to see more homes built solar-ready, and a lot of low-income housing projects built with solar included. We got to work on one for Habitat for Humanity, where they built five row homes, and the people who were going to live in them put in the sweat equity — which is part of the Habitat for Humanity model, as you know — and then our crews installed on them. So these were energy-efficient homes that people get to live in that now don’t have utility bills. They can put that money toward something that matters a lot more, rather than the same product every month that just costs more.
Sean Garren DeKrey: I love that. It’s so powerful. I got to work with a low-income housing developer in New York City who had put solar on one of their buildings, and just seeing the pride and excitement that brought to the community members there — but also what it means for them to save on their electric bills, and the other things they can spend that money on — it’s pretty transformative. It’s a really powerful accelerant to change.
Aaron Nichols: It’s just cool, isn’t it? I’m obviously biased — I work for a solar company — but I’m so all in on it because it’s just so freaking cool. I love camping and I can work remotely, and I bought a solar panel off Facebook Marketplace that someone had ripped off a construction site for like a hundred bucks. I have a battery bank and a Starlink, and I can just drive my Tacoma with my rooftop tent into the woods and have power and internet. It’s crazy.
Sean Garren DeKrey: That is amazing. Well done. It is so cool. I saw a billboard the other day — this is about transit, but I think it’s true for solar too. I think it was in Chicago, and it said no child has ever seen a car share and screamed at the top of their lungs — and it had a picture of a train or a trolley. It’s so true that these technologies are just cooler. They’re so exciting. My two-and-a-half-year-old sees the projects along the side of the highway here in Massachusetts and he’s excited to find out what they are. There’s something we in the solar world need to not forget: we may not be new anymore, but we’re still really exciting and really cool.
Aaron Nichols: And that’s the drum I keep beating — my own mission is that I want solar to be sexier. I think we get caught up in the megawatts and gigawatts and the number of jobs that’ll be lost if this legislation passes, and we miss the forest for the trees — when really it’s like, Jim just bought an off-grid property and now has energy in the middle of the Nevada desert. We miss those stories in the larger conversation.
Sean Garren DeKrey: I think that’s totally true. Vote Solar isn’t focused on solar because we think it’s the only way to make a difference in the world, or the single most important thing in the universe. We’re doing it because we think it has a real keystone role to play — to steal Pennsylvania’s name —
Aaron Nichols: Nice.
Sean Garren DeKrey: — a real keystone role to play in our energy future, and because it’s a brand that works. People love solar. When they hear that solar is part of the solution, they’re more likely to buy in. We lead with that because it’s a powerful brand, if you will.
Aaron Nichols: Now, what’s one myth about solar that you have to fight over and over that you’re so tired of debunking?
Sean Garren DeKrey: I think it’s that the solar transition is in the future — that it’s this thing we’re still trying to get started in the country. We’re seeing that get debunked in real time now, especially with this administration’s attacks on clean energy and the continued success of solar. People are grappling with and understanding that the solar transition is well underway. At this point I think we’re beyond the tipping point at which we could ever turn it back. The future is powered by the sun, and it’s coming every single day. We’re the largest-growing resource in the country, and I think we’ll continue to be for years and years until we’re the dominant source of energy. So it’s really just the idea that this is all a future thing. The clean energy economy isn’t a tiny seed we’re still watering — we’re one of the big trees in the forest now, and we’ve got to start playing like that.
Aaron Nichols: I heard somebody describe it almost like rain buckets the other day. Rather than putting in anything new, it’s basically just putting buckets out to catch rain so you have water. It’s already falling from the sky. It’s already coming.
Sean Garren DeKrey: Right. Exactly.
Aaron Nichols: It’s already a resource that’s not going to run out for — I don’t know how many years the sun has left, like a couple billion?
Sean Garren DeKrey: Let’s call it plenty. Yeah, it’s so true. And it’s also a technology, not just a resource. We’re getting more and more able to use it efficiently, it’s cheaper, and I don’t think we’ll see that slow anytime soon. We’re only going to become more competitive tomorrow than we were today, once we grapple with some of the attacks from this administration.
Aaron Nichols: Yeah. It’s unfortunate, but every action creates an equal and opposite reaction. And it’s basically just plot — life would be boring without plot is what I keep telling myself.
Sean Garren DeKrey: There you go. That’s a good way to motivate yourself to go back to work every day.
Aaron Nichols: If there was no conflict, we wouldn’t have good stories.
Sean Garren DeKrey: It’s true. And I love that even though we’re working on powering the world with the sun, there are still people who find some way to oppose that.
Aaron Nichols: Yeah — again, plot. Every good story needs villains.
Sean Garren DeKrey: Exactly.
Aaron Nichols: So, speaking of where the world is going, I ask everyone who comes on this show the same closing question, and it has to do with the fact that last September I spoke at my grandma’s 80th birthday party. When I spoke, I realized that her being 80 years old — actually, this was more than a year ago now; my god, this show is more than a year old — means she was born into a world where what we call renewable energy did not exist. She was born back when windmills basically pumped water. We knew about the photovoltaic effect, but we hadn’t invented photovoltaic cells yet. The only way we knew how to generate energy was to go find things, dig them up, move them to a central location, burn them, and send the energy outwards. Everything that’s happened with renewable energy — figuring out how to generate energy in different ways — all of that has happened within my grandma’s lifetime, all the way to solar now becoming the cheapest power source in the world. So if you’re going to moonshot to take us out here — and I figure 80 years from now, unless science advances, we’ll both be gone, so no one can hold you to your answer — what do you think energy is going to look like 80 years from now?
Sean Garren DeKrey: Well, I plan on being there, so I’ll say that. But it’s a stretch, and who knows what kind of shape I’ll be in at that point. I think 80 years from now, the most important thing is that everything is going to be electrified. The reality — and most of what I’m saying won’t even take that long — is that we’re going to be driving only electric cars, and probably most of them will be shared by lots of other people and autonomous. We’re going to power and heat our homes with electricity, and more and more, everything we interact with is going to have some electric component. With the advent of AI and technologies like that, it’s getting incorporated into everything. So we’ll be more and more oriented around electricity and where it comes from. And I think one of the key transformative components is that everybody’s going to have a two-way relationship with electricity. They won’t just be passive consumers — they’re going to contribute back to our energy system, whether it’s through their roof and a rooftop solar system, their balcony or backyard with a plug-in solar system, or just through time-varying pricing on their electric bills, where they get better at not running their dryer during the peak evening hours when electricity prices are highest. We’re all going to have a much more interactive relationship, and software will probably manage a lot of that for us. But we’re going to be prosumers, if you will, of the energy we relate to — rather than just pure consumers.
Aaron Nichols: Yeah, I wonder what role utilities will even have in that world.
Sean Garren DeKrey: Yeah — we’re still going to be wired to each other, and someone’s going to have to go out and upgrade, replace, and fix those things every once in a while. So the CEO of my utility, he’ll still be climbing poles — or maybe by then his whole job will be climbing poles and replacing wires. One can hope.
Aaron Nichols: Well, Sean, if you do like to be found online or otherwise, where would you like to be found?
Sean Garren DeKrey: I do — thank you for asking. You can find us at votesolar.org, and we’re on Instagram, LinkedIn, Bluesky, you name it — Facebook. You can also find me on LinkedIn, Sean Garren DeKrey. I love to connect there, so I’m happy to talk to anybody about their policy challenges or questions. And we’ll certainly be connecting with you to talk about telling good stories in Pennsylvania.
Aaron Nichols: Amazing. Thank you so much for coming on today. And for everyone who tuned in, that’s been This Week in Solar — we’ll see you next week.
Sean Garren DeKrey: Thanks, Aaron.
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