Anna Adamsson is a RE-volv Solar Ambassador Alumni who was involved in the Solar Ambassador Program throughout her undergraduate career at Purdue University. After graduation, Anna went on to work on equitable solar and energy storage policy at Clean Energy States Alliance. Read on to learn more about Anna’s time as a Solar Ambassador and her career in the energy industry.
What encouraged you to become a RE-volv Solar Ambassador?
Coming to college I knew I wanted to study the environment and find a career path where I could be fighting the climate crisis, but I never really connected renewable energy with that. I majored in global studies and environmental policy - not engineering. I heard about the Solar Ambassador Fellowship program during my freshman year. The Fellowship part really interested me. A big motivation for me was being able to do something material and have an impact in my community.
What was your role on the team and what did you work on in that role?
My role has evolved a lot through the time that I was involved. I’ve always focused on contacting nonprofits and planning events for the community about solar. During my second year in the program, we led a fundraising campaign and I took on the role of Campaign Coordinator. We prepped for the campaign kick-off by creating visual media, reaching out to our local student newspaper, and setting up a raffle for those that donated. During my last year on the team, I served as team lead for my group. We met with nonprofits remotely and applied for grants to create ‘sustainable wellness kits’ for students and host a book club.
Anna and Hannah, a Purdue Solar Ambassador Team member, passed out ‘sustainable wellness kits’ to students.
What was your experience as one of the founding members of the Solar Ambassador Team at Purdue University?
We applied to become a Solar Ambassador team during my freshman year. We had gotten together as a group through a different environmental organization on campus, created a subcommittee to bring the Solar Ambassador team to Purdue, and decided to apply for the Fellowship. Through that first year, we learned about solar energy, got our nonprofit outreach email drafts together, began reaching out to nonprofits, and attended the monthly webinars to learn more about the solar industry so we were ready to take off and do more the next year.
What types of projects and initiatives did you and the team work on during the program?
During our first year, we applied for money from RE-volv and bought reusable aluminum straws to give away to students to expand our email list. That was our first introduction to event planning, which led the way for the future projects that we did. One of my favorite projects was when we applied for grant funding to start a book club for the book Youth to Power: Your Voice and How to Use It by Jamie Margolin. We bought the books from a Black-owned independent bookstore in Indiana and gave out the books for free to the students in the book club. We also applied for grant funding from Purdue to purchase ‘sustainable swaps’, which were unpackaged products that were alternatives to everyday products. Our goal was to expose students to different kinds of products that may reduce our collective impact on the environment.
What skills did you gain or things you learned during your time as a Solar Ambassador?
First and foremost, I gained communication skills and being confident communicating and reaching out to folks, especially individuals outside of the school atmosphere. I reached out to community members and nonprofit executives by emailing, cold calling, and giving a presentation to them. It was an invaluable experience and I learned many invaluable skills that I was able to work on and develop through the Fellowship and that now I've been able to translate into my current role. Also, the Fellowship provided me with the introductory knowledge of solar energy and industry terms. In my opinion, you can walk into the energy industry without having much introductory knowledge of solar, but it's much harder, even in entry-level roles.
Anna with the Purdue Solar Ambassador Team.
Where are you working now and what is your role?
I am working at Clean Energy States Alliance as a Project Assistant. We’re a pretty small company and we have less than 20 employees, so everyone wears a lot of hats, including within my position as well. A lot of my work so far has been behind the scenes with research, sitting in on project planning meetings, logistics. I’m looking forward to publishing a few case studies this spring and I’m just starting to work on state-level energy storage policy.
Can you tell us more about your work in the Solar with Justice project?
The Solar with Justice project is closely aligned with the work that I was doing as a Solar Ambassador. My main task is researching and finding different community-based organizations across the country, and creating a database of those community-based organizations. This project is funded by the Department of Energy (DOE) to identify barriers in communication and project implementation between community-based organizations and state energy agencies in equitable solar development and deployment. The three-year project is focused on energy justice for marginalized communities and low and middle-income communities. Based on our results and what barriers exist, we'll also be giving technical assistance to hopefully overcome some of those barriers to help the energy agencies and community organizations make those connections and get more solar on the ground within marginalized communities across the United States.
Can you tell us more about your work in the Energy Storage Technology Advancement Partnership?
Through the Energy Storage Technology Advancement Partnership (ESTAP), we’re a subcontractor of Sandia National Laboratories and the Department of Energy, Office of Electricity (DOE-OE). ESTAP funds innovative projects to deploy energy storage. Our goal is to get energy storage added to the grid in ways that will have a bigger impact and be replicable. One of the projects is an electric cooperative in Alaska that is developing a Grid Bridging System (GBS), for small communities that have very low energy loads. By having wind turbines, paired with energy storage, they're able to efficiently and reliably meet their entire electric load and rely on their diesel systems less.
What is one of your favorite projects that you’ve worked on at Clean Energy States Alliance?
DOE-OE is funding several projects focused on the social equity components of energy storage. In May, we’ll be hosting a webinar where we’ll gather folks working on those different energy storage projects and highlight how they will benefit their communities. This webinar will be hosted by ESTAP and I’ll be planning and moderating the webinar, which I’m excited about.
For the Solar with Justice project, the whole project is really exciting and I see so much potential for being able to identify systemic barriers to collaboration and getting more access for those frontline communities to build solar. Within that project, I am running a case study on one project in Michigan between the state’s energy agency, local electric utilities, and community action agencies. I'm excited to be able to highlight that work and give it a platform so that other state agencies can read about this example and build off of it. I just feel really lucky to be in this space and given the responsibility from my supervisors to work on projects like this and to grow my skills and knowledge in this area.
What advice would you give to someone interested in pursuing a career in the renewable energy space?
There’s so much growth that is predicted for this space. We need to deploy so much solar, energy storage, offshore wind, onshore wind, etc, to reach our climate goals, so there's a lot of funding and growth in this area. To get involved in the field, I’d recommend getting a base knowledge of the energy space, especially in the specific field that you're interested in. I will say energy storage is definitely on the uptick because that is a relatively new field compared to wind and solar, and it’s really important to make sure our grid is reliable, resilient, and can meet our energy demand even when the sun is not out or the wind isn't blowing.
As for advice, I’d suggest reaching out to Solar Ambassador alumni who work in the field and sending cold emails and asking to meet with them, hear about their experiences and learn from them or ask a specific question about the field. Don't ask for a job right away but just get those intro connections. Also, ask for informational interviews with folks in the field. Reach out to Solar Ambassador alumni, even if they are working in policy and you’re an engineer. The energy space is a small, interconnected world. They may still be able to help you navigate it and connect you with more relevant connections. My final piece of advice is to subscribe to an energy related daily newsletter. I have to plug Clean Energy States Alliance’s newsletters, including the Solar Equity Digest, which I co-author. Besides those, my favorite one is Energy News Network. Even if you don’t have time to read each newsletter, looking at the headlines can help you learn a lot about the industry.
