Who Powers Communities?
We are teachers, parents, farmers, coaches, and union electricians.
All of us have a role to play in helping our communities thrive while preserving the things that make them great. Renewable energy is a way to bring needed investment to our towns while putting people to work with good-paying jobs and benefits.
Power Your Community
About Power Your Community
Renewable energy is rapidly expanding across the U.S., powering homes, businesses, and communities. Ensuring this growth is successful and benefits local economies requires a highly skilled, well-trained local workforce.
Power Your Community is a national, high-impact initiative led by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) in partnership with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) that champions large-scale renewable energy projects built by skilled union workers. These projects empower communities, drive economic growth, and advance the transition to a modern energy economy.
The Power Your Community model is unique: it focuses on building union leadership to advocate for and advance projects in local communities. Through active engagement and strategic collaboration with developers and community leaders, Power Your Community partners with developers to ensure renewable projects are built safely and on time with local skilled union labor, showcasing the benefits of expanding renewable energy nationwide.
Meet Us
“I want solar projects in my community because it puts our members to work locally where they get to go home and go to their kids’ ball games, have long-term jobs to keep ’em earning, make a decent living.”
Greg B. IBEW Local Campaign Organizer
“My grandpa and my dad are both gone. So this ground means a lot to me. But what I can do with this is turn this same ground into a cashflow that will allow me to leave a legacy for my kids, my grandkids, our kids, our grandkids, and also preserve this farm, the farm that they cleared to be a farm, to continue being a farm.”
Mark T. 3rd Generation Farmer
“Rural communities have always powered this country from agriculture to manufacturing. Solar helps us keep doing that.”
Pat H. IBEW Business Manager
“For me, solar is also about healing some of the struggles I have seen growing up—generational poverty, economic instability, and the feeling that opportunity was always somewhere else. Projects like these help change that.”
Ashley L. IBEW Business Development Liaison
“Farming taught me the importance of reliability. When we lost power in a storm, it brought everything on the farm to a standstill. That is why energy matters to me today—not just as an electrician, but as someone who understands how much rural communities depend on stability.”
Erik H. IBEW Business Manager
