February 16, 2023
Community Housing Partners (CHP), which provides affordable and sustainable housing throughout the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, is pleased to announce that Sol Systems has provided a $350,000 grant to fund critical home repairs and energy efficient upgrades at CHP’s S.A. Robinson Apartments in Pembroke, Virginia.
“Not only will this investment help to reduce resident electric bills through increased energy efficiency and improve resident comfort, but it also demonstrates that we value and listen to our residents’ feedback,” said Shaun Rai, Senior Vice President of Multifamily Housing at CHP. “CHP is committed to providing high-quality, affordable, and sustainable housing.”
S.A. Robinson Apartments is a low-income senior living community that, in 1986, became the first adaptive reuse project ever approved in Virginia. Recently, CHP conducted a survey of the residents at the 27-unit building to determine their needs and identified window replacements, among other measures, as a top priority. Funding restrictions previously made window replacements out of reach for the residents, but the Sol Systems investment, along with funding from other sources, has made this key improvement possible.
CHP estimates that the window replacements will result in a 4-6% reduction of total electricity consumption for residents. This will not only lower their electricity bills and improve comfort but also allow CHP to evaluate its decarbonization efforts through utility monitoring and benchmarking. (Read more about CHP’s sustainability efforts.)
CHP was one of several community organizations that received a total of $1.2 million to fund environmental justice, workforce training, and climate resiliency initiatives in Appalachia, Southern Virginia, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. This investment is the initial phase of a partnership with Microsoft, which combines a 500 MW framework power purchase agreement (PPA) with a strategy to invest over $50 million in communities disproportionately impacted by environmental issues. (Read the Sol Systems funding announcement.)
“At Sol we aim to build critical sustainable infrastructure for the future and also ensure that local communities benefit. We are proud to expand our collaboration and investment with these community partner organizations and Microsoft and look forward to building on this foundation moving forward,” said Yuri Horwitz, Chief Executive Officer of Sol Systems.
“Microsoft has made commitments to environmental sustainability, diversity and inclusion, and racial equity, and an important point of intersection for these commitments is environmental justice,” said Danielle Decatur, Director of Environmental Justice at Microsoft. “For us, the foundation of pursuing environmental justice is to center communities and those who have been impacted most by industrial pollution and are more vulnerable to climate change. We believe it is important to fund community-serving organizations like these to implement solutions with partners like Sol Systems.”
About Sol Systems:
Sol Systems is a leading national solar energy firm with an established reputation for integrity and reliability across its development, infrastructure, and environmental commodity businesses. Sol is operating and building over 1.5 GW of solar projects valued at more than $1 billion for Fortune 100 companies, municipalities, counties, utilities, universities, and schools and provides environmental commodity portfolio management services to more than 20,000 customers across the US. The company was founded in 2008, is based in Washington, D.C., and is led by its founder. Sol Systems works with institutional clients, corporate partners, and foundations to create a more sustainable future we can all believe in. For more information, visit www.solsystems.com.