Jasmine Graham was quoted in Solar Power World.

PowerMarket will work with Mid-Hudson Energy Transition (MHET), a Kingston-based non-profit organization who is serving as the city’s CCA Administrator, to oversee community outreach, manage the enrollment process and handle program administration. PowerMarket is hosting a dedicated Kingston Community Solar website that allows residents to learn more and enroll online.
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“We are so grateful for our partnership with PowerMarket. Their technology seamlessly handles the complexities of billing and credit distribution, allowing us to focus on our core mission: empowering local communities and driving equitable access to clean and healthy energy resources in the Hudson Valley,” said Jasmine Graham, executive director of Mid-Hudson Energy Transition.

Jasmine Graham was quoted in the Times Union.

​The Kingston Community Solar program will connect residents to the Moores Hill Community Solar Project, a 3,750-kilowatt solar farm in New Windsor currently being constructed by Lodestar Energy. Community solar credits will be applied directly to participants’ Central Hudson utility bills each month to offset their usage charges. Savings will begin in 2024, once the solar project is operational, and will continue for 20 years, according to the release.

The city projects up to 15 percent savings on monthly electricity bills.

The program is the first phase of Kingston Community Energy, the city’s community choice aggregation initiative. To implement this program, Kingston has partnered with Mid-Hudson Energy Transition, a Kingston-based nonprofit organization, to serve as the community choice aggregation administrator, as well as PowerMarket, a community solar provider. The two companies will oversee community outreach, manage the enrollment process and handle program administration.

“Mid-Hudson Energy Transition is proud to launch the first phase of Kingston Community Energy in collaboration with the city of Kingston. This marks a pivotal step in our mission to provide affordable, renewable energy to everyone, especially underserved communities,” Executive Director Jasmine Graham said in a statement.

Read more here.

Jasmine Graham was quoted in the Daily Freeman.

KINGSTON, N.Y. — City residents living in low-income census tracts will be eligible to receive rebates on 15% of the cost of their energy bill beginning next year, Mayor Steve Noble announced at a press conference outside the Andy Murphy Neighborhood Center on Wednesday.

Noble said that some 6,000 people were eligible for the rebates and the next three months would be spent raising awareness with information sessions and mailer campaigns to get people to sign up. Five hundred spots are available initially, he added.

“Our goal is to ensure that every resident has access to affordable, sustainable energy,” Noble said.

The city’s upcoming community solar energy program will use power sourced from a 3,750-kilowatt New Windsor solar farm to offset the Central Hudson bills of ratepayers in Kingston, in partnership with non-profit Mid-Hudson Energy Transition and solar provider PowerMarket.

Jasmine Graham, executive director of Mid-Hudson Energy Transition, said they were able to negotiate up to a 15% rebate instead of a standard 10%. She said the purpose of the program was”empowering our neighbors to support clean energy and ease the burden of high-energy costs, as we all know too well.”
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She added that the hope was Kingston would eventually run entirely on renewable energy.

Jasmine Graham was quoted on Hudson Valley One regarding Mid-Hudson Energy Transition's pending community choice aggregation program and opt-out community solar advocacy. 

Mid Hudson Energy Transition (MHET), the Kingston-based non-profit which will act as the administrator for Kingston Community Energy (the City of Kingston’s Community Choice Aggregation program) has hired Jasmine Graham as its first full-time executive director.

Graham assumes the role just as a power struggle refereed by the Public Service Commission (PSC) between conventional gas and electric utility companies and a new breed of plucky power-brokering upstarts is taking place. At stake is how energy is produced and delivered across New York State.
To act as administrator for Kingston’s CCA, MHET currently awaits approval by the PSC.

“In order to be approved,” says Graham, “you need to submit a master implementation plan. Once you submit that, the Public Service Commission allows 60 days for public comment. At which point, the Public Service Commission looks at the public comments, and then drafts their response.”

MHET filed its petition with the PSC on February 27. The 60-day period has just wrapped up. What comes next is a waiting game.
“It could be weeks,” notes Graham, “Or months. We would expect and hope to see it within the month, but it’s not required on their part.”
A master implementation plan consists of a mission statement on a timeline, broken down into smaller steps. Municipal officials, Community Choice Aggregation teams and their partners, Nyserda and the PSC need to understand the goals, milestones, and deliverables being promised to the community.

The plan also defines the approach to public engagement, outreach, and education.

“Typically what a CCA does is, they go out for an electricity supply contract,” explains Graham. “They get all these bids from Energy Service Companies (ESCOs), and choose the lowest fixed price. And you get your bill, and you have a fixed rate. But what we’re really hoping to do is provide opt-out community solar.”
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Community solar, a.k.a. Community Distributed Generation (CDG), can be thought of as a project or a purchasing program in which energy generated by solar panels at an off-site array flows to multiple customers within a geographic area. This precludes individually owned and operated rooftop solar.

Read more here.

Jasmine Graham was mentioned in the Daily Freeman's people 'On the move'

Jasmine Graham has been hired as executive director for Mid-Hudson Energy Transition, a community choice aggregation energy program administrator, which is set to include Kingston.

At MHET, Graham “helms an organization poised to be a key leader in helping Hudson Valley communities provide equitable access to clean and healthy energy resources to their residents, especially low-income families and communities of color that disproportionately experience the most harmful effects of air pollution and climate change along with high energy costs,” the company said in an announcement.

Graham comes to the non-profit organization with more than five years of leadership experience working to advance climate and environmental justice in the clean energy transition at the national level as well as in New York City and the state.

Most recently, she worked at the Building Decarbonization Coalition as the senior equity and affordability advisor, and prior to that served as the energy justice policy manager for WE ACT for Environmental Justice. Graham serves on New York City’s Local Law 97 Advisory Board. Graham also worked at Sustainable Westchester, where she managed New York state’s first community choice aggregation program, which is also the state’s largest.
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Founded in 2021, MHET administers the community choice aggregation program for Kingston, called Kingston Community Energy. CCAs are municipal-level clean energy programs that purchase bulk energy supplies on behalf of their customers, allowing them to access renewable energy resources often unavailable through their utility companies.

Jasmine Graham and Mid-Hudson Energy Transition were featured by Cutting Edge Capital in their "Sustainability Goals at Work" series.

Mid-Hudson Energy Transition (MHET) is deeply committed to strengthening the resilience of local communities in the face of climate change through community education and local knowledge. MHET empowers municipalities, their residents, and businesses to own and share renewable energy, create healthier buildings, and join in community wealth-building to ensure that the clean energy transition benefits everyone, especially the low-income communities and communities of color that are being impacted first and worst by climate change.
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“Every decision we make as an organization is in the context of the climate crisis and the intersecting racial and economic inequalities that this problem was borne out of,” said Jasmine Graham, MHET Executive Director. “An equitable transition to local, renewable energy will bolster our community’s resilience and capacity to survive increasingly frequent and severe climate events.”

MHET’s community-centered approach has led to innovative and equitable solutions that reduce emissions while advancing a more inclusive and regenerative economy. 

“With the resources, knowledge, and solutions to contribute to this monumental shift, MHET we’re thrilled at the chance to do so with the communities of the Mid-Hudson region.”

Jasmine Graham was quoted in The Guardian:

“There are already people who are in massive utility debt from the pandemic,” said Jasmine Graham, an energy justice policy manager at We Act for Environmental Justice non-profit.

Graham gave an example of one of the group’s members who is $5,000 in debt, is supplementing her heating with a gas stove, and is pregnant while raising a child under the age of one. “Tell me how a payment plan is going to be enough for her?” Graham said.

Additionally, undocumented residents don’t have access to most federally funded programs that require citizenship, leaving a significant part of New York City’s population without access for help.

Communities of color and low-income people are more likely to live in older, less efficient buildings that result in a higher energy burden, or the percentage of the income spent on cost of heating, cooling and powering a home. In 2016 the state set a target that low-income New Yorkers should pay no more than 6% of their income toward energy bills.

​In New York City, 32% of Black and 33% of Latino households have an energy burden above 6%, and one in four New Yorkers have an energy burden of over 17%.
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Utility companies have a legal duty to hedge, or essentially protect their customers against rapid price increases, by means of accounting for winter-related spikes and locking in a lower price ahead of time. But both Graham and Berkley expect the investigations into Con Edison to reveal potential negligence in the hedging practice on the utility company’s end.

Meanwhile, Con Edison has asked the state for permission to increase its prices.

If passed, the utility company would raise its electric rate by 11% and gas by 18%. According to the company, the roughly $1.7bn in additional revenue they seek would go to upgrading energy delivery systems. Graham said the recent and proposed hikes make a greater case for the importance of public power, or not-for-profit utilities that are community-owned and locally controlled.
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“We need to move away from a model that’s reliant on corporations,” Graham said. “And move toward a democratic, renewable energy system that prioritizes energy affordability for low-income folks.”

Jasmine Graham and Sonal Jessel wrote an op-ed for the NY Daily News:

Crafting and passing laws is one of the most important actions a state legislator can take. But that is easily undermined if they fail to secure the budget needed to fully implement and enforce that law. That’s why shaping our state budget — which funds our schools, health care and climate priorities and a long list of vital other public services — is such a critical part of their job.

Since Gov. Hochul published her proposed budget in January, the Senate and the Assembly have debated for weeks about what to include in the state’s final fiscal framework. During her recent State of the State Address, Hochul committed to support the creation of 2 million electrified or electrification-ready homes by 2030, with 800,000 being allocated for low-to-moderate-income households.

However, these commitments only underscore the need for bigger and bolder action to meet the state’s climate goals outlined in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). Legislation that would get us closer to these goals includes the All-Electric Buildings Act, which aims to replicate NYC’s legislative success and apply it for the entire state and the Gas Transition and Affordable Energy Act, which eliminates subsidies for gas utilities, reducing energy costs; and the $15 billion needed to implement the CLCPA, providing every New Yorker with programs to transition to renewable energy.

New York’s more than 1 million buildings emit more pollution than any other state and according to state climate officials carbon emissions from buildings and homes are now the single largest source of emissions statewide. Building electrification is a practical solution, by eliminating the source of the problem and making heating and cooling affordable and accessible, and supported by state-sponsored funding opportunities.

In December, New York City became the nation’s largest city to enact legislation to end the use of gas heat and stoves in new buildings, joining more than 50 other jurisdictions nationwide. Local Law 154 is a significant first step in decarbonizing New York City’s building sector, which will reduce air pollution as well as greenhouse gas emissions. However, up until now, no state in the country has yet to commit to decarbonize all its new buildings and homes.

We understand that, in our current system, even if we electrify every building, some of our energy will still be powered by fossil fuels. However, with the rapid onboarding of renewable energy sources, soon New York will be able to rid its dependence on fossil fuels that we know to harm our collective public health. Decarbonizing the grid and the infrastructure that depends on it, starting with buildings and homes this session, will be the single most impactful step the state could take on its broader climate and emission goals.

Low-income and Black and Brown households suffer disproportionately from indoor and outdoor air pollution, living in ill-equipped homes with poor ventilation, inadequate insulation, and higher risks of leaks and explosions. By pushing out fossil fuels, we open the door to an equitable transition to replace these appliances with safer, more reliable alternatives.

Air pollution contributes to the early deaths of thousands of New Yorkers. Gas stoves have been linked to cardiovascular illnesses, higher rates of asthma in children, and more recent research suggests they are leaking methane into homes even when turned off.

Working to decarbonize buildings and homes would create thousands of high quality jobs in New York. According to a recent study released by Rewiring America, the United States can create 25 million jobs by substantially transitioning from fossil fuels in the building and industrial sectors by 2035, using only existing technologies.

The push to usher in a new era of cleaner, healthier, all-electric new homes and buildings is gaining momentum. There are only a few weeks before the state budget is negotiated and a few months before the legislative session ends and these bills represent the best chance for all New Yorkers to have access to cleaner, healthier and safer buildings and affordable utility bills.

Our elected officials have voiced their commitment to a just transition to renewable energy. Now is the time — and the state budget is the place — for them to put their money where their mouth is.

Jessel is policy director and Graham is the energy justice policy manager of WE ACT for Environmental Justice.

Jasmine Graham was quoted in PV Magazine, Solar Power World, and Harlem World Magazine:

​​"While residents of ‘disadvantaged’ communities would certainly welcome the 10 percent discount on their utility bill offered in NYSERDA’s Roadmap, that hardly does justice to the CLCPA’s promise of 35-40 percent of the overall benefits of clean energy investments. Nor does it do justice for communities that have long borne the brunt of air pollution and the impacts of climate change resulting from fossil fuel power plants and other environmental hazards that have been forced upon their communities over the years, said Jasmine Graham, Energy Justice Policy Manager at WE ACT for Environmental Justice."

Jasmine Graham was quoted in WE ACT for Environmental Justice's press release:

“Lower utility bills are certainly welcome by the residents of these communities, who spend a greater percentage of their household income on energy bills, and often live in energy inefficient homes that require greater energy use,” said Jasmine Graham, Energy Justice Policy Manager at WE ACT for Environmental Justice. “But that alone does not do them justice, nor does it fulfill the statutory requirements set forth in the CLCPA to provide 35-40 percent of the overall benefits of clean energy investments to disadvantaged communities. We need a more equitable roadmap for this transition.”

...

“These communities have borne the brunt of air pollution and the impacts of climate change resulting from fossil fuel power plants and other environmental hazards that have been forced upon their communities over the years,” added Graham. “Take the South Bronx, for example, which has been home to two ‘temporary’ peaker plants for the past 20 years, contributing to some of the highest rates of childhood asthma in the nation. These communities deserve to be made whole from the disproportionate burdens they have endured for generations. That is why we are calling for these revisions to NYSERDA’s Roadmap, including the creation of a $100 million development fund to assist low-income community members in disadvantaged communities in owning and operating their own solar projects.”

Jasmine Graham was quoted in Public Power NY's press release:

​“Not only do we want to see the New York Build Public Renewables Act in the 2022 Executive Budget, but we also urge New York State Governor Kathy Hochul to prioritize environmental justice communities for the renewable energy projects and 51,000 clean energy jobs the legislation will produce,” said Jasmine Graham, Energy Justice Policy Manager at WE ACT for Environmental Justice. “These communities have disproportionately suffered from the impacts of climate change and other pollution caused by the fossil fuel industry, so they deserve an equitable share of the clean energy and jobs that this transformation will bring.”

Jasmine Graham was awarded the title of "Westchester Wunderkind" by 914Inc.'s Westchester Magazine.

Don’t be fooled by Jasmine Graham’s youthful appearance. As manager of Westchester Power, Graham oversees all aspects of securing clean power for the 28 municipalities that are members of Sustainable Westchester, which administers programs to create economically efficient climate solutions.

At just 25 years old, Jasmine has earned the respect of peers twice her age, through her confidence and poise, says her supervisor, Dan Welsh. “Her mastery of industry-specific knowledge in this new and fast-changing area has ensured both market retention and acquisition for our program,” he says. “Her undeniable passion and dedication have allowed her to become the trusted face of the program.”

Graham’s responsibilities include complex data reporting, preparation of regulatory compliance documentation, and planning and executing outreach communications.

Graham is also working with Yonkers, Mount Vernon, Port Chester, White Plains, Mamaroneck, Ossining, and Peekskill as part of an environmental justice program. She cites things like dilapidated buildings, inefficient heating and cooling systems, and high asthma rates from industrial pollution as problems that need to be addressed.

“These challenges might seem overwhelming, but we are committed to finding the solutions in partnership with those communities,” Graham says. “As a woman of color who has experienced life as an underdog, I’m incredibly proud to fight for the marginalized and the disenfranchised to ensure a resilient future for us all."
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