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A new study found that majority Black neighborhoods faced higher solar costs.
Higher-income people are more likely to have solar panels on their roofs. This fact has underlined the nature of home solar adoption and is responsible for any number of state, local, and now federal programs to give lower-income people access to solar power, either through subsidizing their own solar panels or letting them “subscribe” to solar power generated elsewhere.
While this seems like an obviously sensible solution — the upfront cost of solar can be around $15,000 to $20,000, and you typically need to own a single family home to get it — it’s not quite as simple as those with more money are more likely to get solar. When the University of Texas economist Jackson Dorsey and Derek Wolfson looked at data provide by the solar marketplace EnergySage, they found that, yes, those with higher incomes are more likely to buy solar — but also that what solar installers offered them and what they paid for it varied depending on the demographics of the surrounding area.
“Econ 101, there’s usually two possible reasons why you might have lower quantities in a market. One would be demand is lower, and the other would be supply is lower,” Dorsey told me when I asked what had motivated his research. While the data about high-income demand for energy transition products like solar panels or electric vehicles is plentiful, there had been less attention paid to supply-side reasons for the disparities.
Dorsey and Wolfson looked at hundreds of thousands of bids for solar installation placed in EnergySage’s 15 largest markets, including much of urban California, New York City, Washington, D.C. and metro areas in Florida, where prospective solar buyers are able to pick among bids from installers. Unsurprisingly, lower-income buyers were less likely to purchase home solar, received fewer bids overall, and, because they were likely seeking smaller systems, paid more per watt than wealthier buyers. (The researchers were able to match data from EnergySage with census data to extract demographic information about potential customers along with their location.)
What did stand out, however, is that Black households in particular got fewer bids and paid notably higher prices, a disparity that could not be explained entirely by differences in income. Low-income households were more likely to be in an area with a lower cost of living, and therefore didn’t necessarily face higher overall project costs because prices for everything tended to be lower.
Black households, on the other hand, received fewer bids and then face higher prices. “If you look at Black vs. white households, Black households get about 8% higher prices,” Dorsey told me. “On a $20,000 system, that would be $1,600.”
The reason, he determined, is not so much that installers don’t want to serve people they know are Black. It’s that they don’t want to serve neighborhoods they know are majority Black.
Dorsey put the difference down to “some kind of perceived higher cost of doing business.” Part of it could be explained by installers setting up shop in areas where they think they’ll find higher demand for their services — high-income ones — and so Black neighborhoods, which are more likely to be low-income, may be literally farther away and more expensive to serve. According to the data Dorsey and Wolfson collected, there are three installers within 10 miles of white households on average, compared to two installers on average for Black households.
There could also, Dorsey said, “be some implicit preference that they don’t want to go to those neighborhoods.” In the paper, Dorsey and Wolfson write that “some sellers may prefer to serve certain households or neighborhoods either because of intolerant views, crime rates, or other variables correlated with household demographic characteristics.”
While the study didn’t get into remediation, fixing the income side of things should be fairly straightforward, Dorsey told me. “Just making prices lower or financing terms more comparable [to high income households] should be fairly effective,” he said.
The sociogeographic side of things will be trickier to address. “That might suggest a supply side policy might be effective,” Dorsey said, “like giving installers incentives to locate in or serve communities that are getting fewer bids and facing higher prices.”
Policymakers and solar advocates are very aware of the income and race disparities in solar adoptions and have come up with a slew of policies to try and narrow them. California, which has long been the epicenter of rooftop solar (with the most attendant controversy over how its incentives are designed), has a program that subsidizes low-income households that want to install solar and incentives for affordable multifamily buildings to install solar.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s $7 billion Solar For All program also supports states, tribes, and non-profits with programs to reach low-income households. “The program will help unlock new markets for residential solar in areas that have never seen this kind of investment before,” an EPA spokesperson told Heatmap in an emailed statement. “Much of the program will fund solar projects to benefit multi-family and affordable housing, as well as community solar projects, bringing the benefits of clean energy to households that may not have had access to it before.”
Another favored solution for getting solar access to those who wouldn’t otherwise have it is community solar, where households “subscribe” to small-scale solar installations and then get credits on their utility bill as if they had physically installed solar in their homes.
The share of community solar capacity that serves low-to-moderate income consumers has grown from 2% in 2022 to 12% this year, according to data from Wood Mackenzie and the Coalition for Community Solar Access, and they project it will continue to grow to 25% in 2025.
The Inflation Reduction Act also includes an “adder” for community solar projects that serve lower income consumers that boosts existing subsidies by 10 to 20 percentage points. These community solar projects are “already seeing impact and projects on the ground,” Molly Knoll, vice president of policy for CCSA, told me.
EnergySage’s chief executive, Charlie Hadlow, said in a statement that the company is “working diligently to ensure every eligible shopper gets three to seven quotes on our platform,” and that “we welcome more installers to sign up on our platform and are actively seeking them out, with a deliberate focus on underserved areas.” He said consumers typically save 20% using EnergySage compared to what they might get on their own, and that the company also has a marketplace for community solar.
All that said, Dorsey is skeptical that “installing panels at individual rooftop” is even the best way to decarbonize. "If you want to cost-effectively reduce emissions, it’s not clear to me rooftop solar is the way to do it as opposed to utility-scale or community solar,” he said.
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Though it might not be as comprehensive or as permanent as renewables advocates have feared, it’s also “just the beginning,” the congressman said.
President-elect Donald Trump’s team is drafting an executive order to “halt offshore wind turbine activities” along the East Coast, working with the office of Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, the congressman said in a press release from his office Monday afternoon.
“This executive order is just the beginning,” Van Drew said in a statement. “We will fight tooth and nail to prevent this offshore wind catastrophe from wreaking havoc on the hardworking people who call our coastal towns home.”
The announcement indicates that some in the anti-wind space are leaving open the possibility that Trump’s much-hyped offshore wind ban may be less sweeping than initially suggested.
In its press release, Van Drew’s office said the executive order would “lay the groundwork for permanent measures against the projects,” leaving the door open to only a temporary pause on permitting new projects. The congressman had recently told New Jersey reporters that he anticipates only a six-month moratorium on offshore wind.
The release also stated that the “proposed order” is “expected to be finalized within the first few months of the administration,” which is a far cry from Trump’s promise to stop projects on Day 1. If enacted, a pause would essentially halt all U.S. offshore wind development because the sought-after stretches of national coastline are entirely within federal waters.
Whether this is just caution from Van Drew’s people or a true moderation of Trump’s ambition we’ll soon find out. Inauguration Day is in less than a week.
Imagine for a moment that you’re an aerial firefighter pilot. You have one of the most dangerous jobs in the country, and now you’ve been called in to fight the devastating fires burning in Los Angeles County’s famously tricky, hilly terrain. You’re working long hours — not as long as your colleagues on the ground due to flight time limitations, but the maximum scheduling allows — not to mention the added external pressures you’re also facing. Even the incoming president recently wondered aloud why the fires aren’t under control yet and insinuated that it’s your and your colleagues’ fault.
You’re on a sortie, getting ready for a particularly white-knuckle drop at a low altitude in poor visibility conditions when an object catches your eye outside the cockpit window: an authorized drone dangerously close to your wing.
Aerial firefighters don’t have to imagine this terrifying scenario; they’ve lived it. Last week, a drone punched a hole in the wing of a Québécois “Super Scooper” plane that had traveled down from Canada to fight the fires, grounding Palisades firefighting operations for an agonizing half-hour. Thirty minutes might not seem like much, but it is precious time lost when the Santa Ana winds have already curtailed aerial operations.
“I am shocked by what happened in Los Angeles with the drone,” Anna Lau, a forestry communication coordinator with the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, told me. The Montana DNRC has also had to contend with unauthorized drones grounding its firefighting planes. “We’re following what’s going on very closely, and it’s shocking to us,” Lau went on. Leaving the skies clear so that firefighters can get on with their work “just seems like a no-brainer, especially when people are actively trying to tackle the situation at hand and fighting to save homes, property, and lives.”
Courtesy of U.S. Forest Service
Although the Super Scooper collision was by far the most egregious case, according to authorities there have been at least 40 “incidents involving drones” in the airspace around L.A. since the fires started. (Notably, the Federal Aviation Administration has not granted any waivers for the air space around Palisades, meaning any drone images you see of the region, including on the news, were “probably shot illegally,” Intelligencer reports.) So far, law enforcement has arrested three people connected to drones flying near the L.A. fires, and the FBI is seeking information regarding the Super Scooper collision.
Such a problem is hardly isolated to these fires, though. The Forest Service reports that drones led to the suspension of or interfered with at least 172 fire responses between 2015 and 2020. Some people, including Mike Fraietta, an FAA-certified drone pilot and the founder of the drone-detection company Gargoyle Systems, believe the true number of interferences is much higher — closer to 400.
Law enforcement likes to say that unauthorized drone use falls into three buckets — clueless, criminal, or careless — and Fraietta was inclined to believe that it’s mostly the former in L.A. Hobbyists and other casual drone operators “don’t know the regulations or that this is a danger,” he said. “There’s a lot of ignorance.” To raise awareness, he suggested law enforcement and the media highlight the steep penalties for flying drones in wildfire no-fly zones, which is punishable by up to 12 months in prison or a fine of $75,000.
“What we’re seeing, particularly in California, is TikTok and Instagram influencers trying to get a shot and get likes,” Fraietta conjectured. In the case of the drone that hit the Super Scooper, it “might have been a case of citizen journalism, like, Well, I have the ability to get this shot and share what’s going on.”
Emergency management teams are waking up, too. Many technologies are on the horizon for drone detection, identification, and deflection, including Wi-Fi jamming, which was used to ground climate activists’ drones at Heathrow Airport in 2019. Jamming is less practical in an emergency situation like the one in L.A., though, where lives could be at stake if people can’t communicate.
Still, the fact of the matter is that firefighters waste precious time dealing with drones when there are far more pressing issues that need their attention. Lau, in Montana, described how even just a 12-minute interruption to firefighting efforts can put a community at risk. “The biggest public awareness message we put out is, ‘If you fly, we can’t,’” she said.
Fraietta, though, noted that drone technology could be used positively in the future, including on wildfire detection and monitoring, prescribed burns, and communicating with firefighters or victims on the ground.
“We don’t want to see this turn into the FAA saying, ‘Hey everyone, no more drones in the United States because of this incident,’” Fraietta said. “You don’t shut down I-95 because a few people are running drugs up and down it, right? Drones are going to be super beneficial to the country long term.”
But critically, in the case of a wildfire, such tools belong in the right hands — not the hands of your neighbor who got a DJI Mini 3 for Christmas. “Their one shot isn’t worth it,” Lau said.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that the Québécois firefighting planes are called Super Scoopers, not super soakers.
Plus 3 more outstanding questions about this ongoing emergency.
As Los Angeles continued to battle multiple big blazes ripping through some of the most beloved (and expensive) areas of the city on Friday, a question lingered in the background: What caused the fires in the first place?
Though fires are less common in California during this time of the year, they aren’t unheard of. In early December 2017, power lines sparked the Thomas Fire near Ventura, California, which burned through to mid-January. At the time it was the largest fire in the state since at least the 1930s. Now it’s the ninth-largest. Although that fire was in a more rural area, it ignited for some of the same reasons we’re seeing fires this week.
Read on for everything we know so far about how the fires started.
Six major fires started during the Santa Ana wind event last week:
Officials are investigating the cause of the fires and have not made any public statements yet. Early eyewitness accounts suggest that the Eaton Fire may have started at the base of a transmission tower owned by Southern California Edison. So far, the company has maintained that an analysis of its equipment showed “no interruptions or electrical or operational anomalies until more than one hour after the reported start time of the fire.” A Washington Post investigation found that the Palisades Fire could have risen from the remnants of a fire that burned on New Year’s Eve and reignited.
On Thursday morning, Edward Nordskog, a retired fire investigator from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, told me it was unlikely they had even begun looking into the root of the biggest and most destructive of the fires in the Pacific Palisades. “They don't start an investigation until it's safe to go into the area where the fire started, and it just hasn't been safe until probably today,” he said.
It can take years to determine the cause of a fire. Investigators did not pinpoint the cause of the Thomas Fire until March 2019, more than two years after it started.
But Nordskog doesn’t think it will take very long this time. It’s easier to narrow down the possibilities for an urban fire because there are typically both witnesses and surveillance footage, he told me. He said the most common causes of wildfires in Los Angeles are power lines and those started by unhoused people. They can also be caused by sparks from vehicles or equipment.
At more than 40,000 acres burned total, these fires are unlikely to make the charts for the largest in California history. But because they are burning in urban, densely populated, and expensive areas, they could be some of the most devastating. With an estimated 9,000 structures damaged as of Friday morning, the Eaton and Palisades fires are likely to make the list for most destructive wildfire events in the state.
And they will certainly be at the top for costliest. The Palisades Fire has already been declared a likely contender for the most expensive wildfire in U.S. history. It has destroyed more than 5,000 structures in some of the most expensive zip codes in the country. Between that and the Eaton Fire, Accuweather estimates the damages could reach $57 billion.
While we don’t know the root causes of the ignitions, several factors came together to create perfect fire conditions in Southern California this week.
First, there’s the Santa Ana winds, an annual phenomenon in Southern California, when very dry, high-pressure air gets trapped in the Great Basin and begins escaping westward through mountain passes to lower-pressure areas along the coast. Most of the time, the wind in Los Angeles blows eastward from the ocean, but during a Santa Ana event, it changes direction, picking up speed as it rushes toward the sea.
Jon Keeley, a research scientist with the US Geological Survey and an adjunct professor at the University of California, Los Angeles told me that Santa Ana winds typically blow at maybe 30 to 40 miles per hour, while the winds this week hit upwards of 60 to 70 miles per hour. “More severe than is normal, but not unique,” he said. “We had similar severe winds in 2017 with the Thomas Fire.”
Second, Southern California is currently in the midst of extreme drought. Winter is typically a rainier season, but Los Angeles has seen less than half an inch of rain since July. That means that all the shrubland vegetation in the area is bone-dry. Again, Keeley said, this was not usual, but not unique. Some years are drier than others.
These fires were also not a question of fuel management, Keeley told me. “The fuels are not really the issue in these big fires. It's the extreme winds,” he said. “You can do prescription burning in chaparral and have essentially no impact on Santa Ana wind-driven fires.” As far as he can tell, based on information from CalFire, the Eaton Fire started on an urban street.
While it’s likely that climate change played a role in amplifying the drought, it’s hard to say how big a factor it was. Patrick Brown, a climate scientist at the Breakthrough Institute and adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, published a long post on X outlining the factors contributing to the fires, including a chart of historic rainfall during the winter in Los Angeles that shows oscillations between wet and dry years over the past eight decades.
But climate change is expected to make dry years drier and wet years wetter, creating a “hydroclimate whiplash,” as Daniel Swain, a pre-eminent expert on climate change and weather in California puts it. In a thread on Bluesky, Swain wrote that “in 2024, Southern California experienced an exceptional episode of wet-to-dry hydroclimate whiplash.” Last year’s rainy winter fostered abundant plant growth, and the proceeding dryness primed the vegetation for fire.
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Editor’s note: This story was last update on Monday, January 13, at 10:00 a.m. ET.