This panel is part of the Georgia Solar Summit 2023. Ticket fees will be waived for the first 20 students to register.

Clean energy leader and the primary sponsor for this year's event, Regents' and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy, Marilyn Brown, has assembled an all-female all-star research and solar advocacy panel to discuss the important role that solar energy plays in the quest for a fair and equitable transition. 

Marilyn will introduce the National Academies report on net energy metering, the chapter she led on equity, and the debate about "cost shifts" from rooftop solar owners to others. 

Carys Behnke, ORISE Science & Technology Policy Fellow at the U.S. Department of Energy, will review her research from her graduate thesis at Georgia State University on rooftop solar uptake in the City of Atlanta, which concludes that the uptake of rooftop solar in Black neighborhoods in Atlanta is not a depiction of equity, but a display of ongoing gentrification and the pushing out of Atlanta's black population overall. 

Laura Taylor, Interim Director of the Energy, Policy, and Innovation Center at Georgia Tech, will lead an in-depth discussion about utility-scale solar, land values, and the impact of solar on land values and vice versa. A discussion will follow this segment and open to the audience for a robust Q&A session. 

The transition to a clean energy future will only happen once, and it is incumbent upon all of us in this space to ensure the transition is inclusive and that the benefits go to the whole rather than the few. This is your chance to engage in that effort.