Founded by a former public-housing resident, the 548 Foundation provides training, stipends, and support to build Black generational wealth through clean energy.

CHICAGO — On a beautiful fall Saturday morning on the South Side of Chicago, the Life Center Church of God in Christ thrummed with excitement. The pews were packed with over a thousand people dressed in their best — including more than a hundred in black graduation caps and gowns.

CHICAGO — On a beautiful fall Saturday morning on the South Side of Chicago, the Life Center Church of God in Christ thrummed with excitement. The pews were packed with over a thousand people dressed in their best — including more than a hundred in black graduation caps and gowns.

Before praying, Pastor Torrey L. Barrett invited the crowd to ​“turn it up,” so people cheered, danced, and waved hats in the air.

Though the sun streaming in the stained-glass windows was bright, the scene was not what might typically come to mind when one thinks about a solar industry gathering.

Instead of discussions of policy and technology, this was all celebration, music, and joy. And the people in the church were overwhelmingly African American, whereas the solar industry workforce is predominantly white.

But solar was the reason for the celebration. The 548 Foundation was commemorating the fact that its solar industry training program has now served more people than the number in its name, and is on track to reach 700 graduates by the end of the year. Participants are largely from the South and West sides of Chicago, disproportionately lower-income and African American communities whose residents have largely been left out of the clean energy economy.

The foundation was the brainchild of A.J. Patton, who grew up in a public-housing unit numbered 548 in Terre Haute, Indiana. Patton said his commitment to community empowerment and energy justice was sparked by the year — 1999 — that his family spent boiling water on an electric stove for baths, since his mother couldn’t afford a $400 gas bill.

I first met Patton in 2019, soon after he cofounded the startup 548 Capital LLC with his childhood friend from that same housing development, Erica Johnson, who was by then working in construction risk management for New York City’s housing authority. Their goal was to leverage renewable and energy-efficiency incentives to create affordable housing in marginalized Chicago neighborhoods, without contributing to the gentrification and displacement that often coincides with outside investment.

I was struck by Patton’s bold confidence and the large scale of their plans. He had quit a promising career in investment banking to focus on 548, entering a Chicago affordable-housing scene notorious for bureaucracy, cronyism, and challenges like the dilapidated state of buildings in low-income communities.

At the graduation, Patton described his path after launching the startup.

Their company acquired and renovated a six-flat apartment building, and soon more properties followed. They were ​“cutting folks’ bills,” Patton explained, but the people ​“swinging the hammers” on the building upgrades and solar panel installations did not reflect the local residents. When he pressed contractors to hire a more diverse workforce, he said he heard things like, ​“You know your people, they ain’t on time, they ain’t safe.”

That, Patton said, was the genesis of the 548 Foundation, a nonprofit that has now hosted 51 three-month training sessions in solar installation and related electrical and carpentry work, as well as basic life and job skills.

In 2021 Illinois passed a law focused on driving equity in the clean energy workforce as well as in the deployment of solar arrays. It provided funding for workforce training programs and incentives for solar developers to hire employees meeting equity criteria, including those from low-income neighborhoods and people with histories in foster care or the criminal justice system.

The 548 Foundation began offering trainings through the state workforce-development program in 2023, said Patton, and now the foundation holds multiple sessions each year in Chicago and the suburbs of Aurora, Elgin, and Waukegan, home to large Latino immigrant and African American populations. Another Chicago session will begin this month.

Under the state program, students get a stipend along with support to help them overcome barriers like child care and car trouble. The programs feature not only technical instruction but basic skills from math to resume-writing. Wraparound services help trainees with mental health, housing, and other needs. Across Illinois, these offerings have been crucial to helping people not only acquire skills and certifications but get and keep jobs, according to Patton and other workforce-development leaders.

In August 2024, I attended a job fair that 548 put on for their graduates. There, multiple solar employers did interviews that they said would promptly result in job offers, and instructors revealed some of the secrets to their success. They noted that the supportive services continue after graduation — trainees can keep coming back to 548 staff and affiliates for aid and advice. And the instructors work hard to prepare their charges for all the nuances of the job. For example, they role-play conflict mediation and start hands-on classes at 6 a.m., when work in the field often begins — so the participants can build routines around early-morning child care and other family responsibilities.

At the graduation, Patton touted the program’s results, and how it has dispelled stereotypes about Chicago’s Black communities.

“They said we didn’t want to work. Somehow, we have a 500-person waiting list to get in this program. Then they said we weren’t smart enough to learn this stuff. We have a 70% graduation rate, 700 graduates. Then they said the market wasn’t ready for us. Meanwhile, we have a 68% placement rate. Our students get jobs within 33 days of graduation. They’re averaging $68,000 a year. So while others are talking, we work. That’s what we do.”

He warned graduates to stay focused on their goals and careers despite such prejudice, as well as potential ​“distractions,” like friends who just want to party or long-lost relatives who suddenly appear to borrow money.

The cautionary notes soon dissolved into applause and music, as it was time for the diplomas. Instructors from different cohorts came to the pulpit to read the names of their trainees. Each graduate shook hands in a long receiving line including Patton and various elected officials, while people cheered loudly from the pews.

“I’m super proud of her!” enthused Natane Brown after dashing into the aisle to embrace her sister, Asia Bell.

After the ceremony the crowd spilled onto the sidewalk, where graduates were showered with flowers and balloons and posed for photos with family and friends.

Graduate Anthony Legorreta hoisted his young nephew in his arms as his relatives crowded. ​“This was most definitely a life-changing experience,” he said.

Fellow graduate Kelvin Davis said he loved the hands-on installation training, but sees himself ​“doing something toward desk work” in the solar industry – ​“not so much the physicality.”

“They were very open to whoever wants to learn. It’s an open door for the community,” said Davis of the program.

Graduate Mikah Allen doesn’t necessarily see himself working in solar at all. He prefers iron work and construction, and the links with trade union apprenticeships embedded in the training should help with that too. The state recently revamped the clean energy curriculum to prepare workers for a wider range of careers, given the current volatility of some clean energy industries.

At the graduation, Pastor Barrett described 548’s classes as part of the quest to build generational wealth in disenfranchised Black communities. He shared how his grandfather came to Chicago from the cotton fields of Mississippi with a third-grade education, and through a labor union job was able to buy a home and raise a family, including Barrett’s father, a renowned gospel singer, pastor, and civil rights activist.

“We come from neighborhoods that people write off,” Barrett said. ​“But you all have changed the trajectory not only of yourselves but of the community.” He predicted that ​“the next generation of contractors, the next generation of developers, the next generation of millionaires is sitting right in this room.”

At a time when discussion of the American solar industry often revolves around slashed federal incentives, troubled supply chains, and projects blocked by community opposition, the scene in the church that morning provided an inspiring and refreshing antidote. It was a reminder that even in the face of great challenges, clean energy can help improve not only the climate but individuals’ lives.

“You have people here who have just come home from prison, who have been left off to the side in society,” Patton told me outside the church, between congratulating graduates with caps and diplomas in hand. ​“Now they’re crossing the threshold. What you saw today was hope. That gets you a long way.”

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Before replacing gas service lines, utilities will need to offer customers a financial incentive to electrify instead, thanks to a new law.

When one of the nation’s biggest investor-owned utilities, Pacific Gas and Electric, wanted to replace Merrian Borgeson’s aging gas service line in Berkeley, California, she asked the company not to do it.

Borgeson, who is the California policy director for climate and energy at the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, explained that the repair wasn’t necessary: She was in the process of fully electrifying her home and would be replacing her stove — the only gas appliance left in the house — with an induction version during an upcoming kitchen remodel. At that point, she planned to request that the gas line be shut off.

But PG&E told her it couldn’t wait. That week, the utility dug up her yard and swapped in a new pipe to send gas from the distribution main line to her home.

Borgeson wasn’t charged for the service — at least not directly. The upgrade, which in PG&E’s service area typically costs $20,000 to $30,000, plus interest and operation and maintenance costs, gets paid for by all gas customers over the life of the infrastructure.

A few years later, the new pipe sits unused in the ground.

“Now, I have no gas in my house,” Borgeson said. ​“But the customers all around me are paying for that pipeline for the next 50 years.”

Soon, Californians will have the choice that Borgeson did not.

A new law, the Home Energy Choice Act (Assembly Bill 2313), will require utilities to give households scheduled for a service line replacement the option of getting the new line or taking a financial incentive potentially worth several thousand dollars to get off gas instead. Crucially, the incentive to switch to all-electric equipment such as a heat pump, induction range, and heat-pump water heater, will be less than the cost to replace the line, resulting in savings that will be shared among all gas customers.

The law ​“sends a very clear message that California is no longer going to invest millions of dollars in gas infrastructure without considering the future,” said Borgeson, who advocated for the bill. ​“It’s this huge signal of where the state is headed.”

The Natural Resources Defense Council has calculated that PG&E’s gas customers could save a total of $20 million if the utility gave 1,000 households a $17,500 incentive apiece rather than replacing their service lines. For context, PG&E replaces about 15,000 service lines annually.

If similar programs were instituted across the country, the savings could rival Biden-era investments in home electrification. Utilities spend upward of $7 billion per year on service line replacements, according to clean energy nonprofit RMI.

The policy will help push the state closer to its goal of a carbon-neutral economy by 2045; however, the version that passed was less ambitious than what was introduced, according to Brandon García, California director at industry association Advanced Energy United. Revisions included programs being capped at 1% of a utility’s customers and the law expiring Jan. 1, 2035, though it could be renewed before then.

“AB 2313 was a very difficult bill to get through the Legislature, so I’m very excited that it will soon give Californians the opportunity to decide what energy is powering their home and provide financial support if they choose to transition away from natural gas,” Assemblymember Marc Berman, who authored the bill, said by email. ​“When homeowners opt to electrify, the utility avoids additional investments in fossil fuel infrastructure that will eventually become a stranded asset, and this saves all ratepayers money long-term.”

Utilities San Diego Gas and Electric and SoCalGas opposed the bill, arguing that it would result in an unfair cost shift: As some customers stop using gas, those remaining could be left bearing outsized costs to maintain the system. While that is an issue writ large for the transition off of fossil fuels, and one the state needs to address, this law ​“is instead about trying to encourage people to leave at the exact time when they are saving money for everyone else by leaving,” said Kiki Velez, equitable gas transition lead at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

With the new legislation, California becomes the third jurisdiction to authorize the pipeline replacement alternative approach — and the first to do so statewide. In 2024, New York utility Con Edison launched its initiative, the Energy Exchange Program, which offers eligible households up to $20,000 to electrify. Other New York utilities are following suit, Velez said. And in July, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission authorized Xcel Energy to create a similar program, which she expects could launch within a few months.

In California, the next step is for the Public Utilities Commission to create a detailed framework for utilities to follow, including incentive levels, with larger amounts for customers in disadvantaged communities. Then utilities will have until Jan. 1, 2028, for their individual proposed programs to be approved.

One yet-to-be-determined detail is how much notice utilities will give residents whose pipes they want to replace. ​“I think the worst case is you don’t hear about [the incentive] until the last minute,” Borgeson said. RMI recommends utilities alert residents one to five years ahead — at the point when it is scheduling the service line replacements.

Other states are looking to emulate California with bills of their own, Velez said, pointing to Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington. ​“Folks are already reaching out a lot about how they can bring it to their state,” she said.

In California, the bigger electrification incentives for disadvantaged communities will provide a much-needed boost to clean energy equity, García noted. ​“As someone who grew up in those kinds of neighborhoods as a low-income person, I want to make sure that everyone has access to [all-electric] technology.”

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Demand for the climate-friendly HVAC tech has persisted even after Republicans killed incentives, with 2026 set to be another good year for the sector.

America’s demand for heat pumps isn’t going away just because federal incentives did.

Shipments of heat pumps stayed strong in the first half of 2026, and the tech is on track to match or exceed its best year, according to a recent report from the Building Decarbonization Coalition. The nonprofit relies on data from the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute, a trade group that represents most of the U.S. market.

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America’s demand for heat pumps isn’t going away just because federal incentives did.

Shipments of heat pumps stayed strong in the first half of 2026, and the tech is on track to match or exceed its best year, according to a recent report from the Building Decarbonization Coalition. The nonprofit relies on data from the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute, a trade group that represents most of the U.S. market.

This is in spite of the fact that President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress ripped away tax credits that helped households afford heat pumps — which can both cool and warm homes and wean buildings off polluting gas furnaces — as well as rooftop solar, batteries, and other clean energy tech. The 25C tax credit for heat pumps, which shaved up to $2,000 off the price tag, expired at the end of 2025 — seven years earlier than the Biden administration’s deadline.

So what gives? It could be that the tax credit was never a determining factor for most people getting heat pumps — a hypothesis put forth by Lucas Davis, a business professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

“I suspect most households adopted heat pumps without ever knowing anything about the credit, or didn’t learn about the tax credit until months later when filing their taxes,” he wrote in a blog post earlier this year, noting that previous research shows heat pump adoption in the U.S. is driven by geography, climate, and electricity prices. ​“It may simply be that these factors are much more important than subsidies for driving adoption behavior.” Contractors repeatedly told ACHR News, an industry publication, that they were usually the ones bringing up the tax credit to customers, not vice versa.

Meanwhile, households in some parts of the U.S. can still access state and utility incentives for heat pumps, and many local governments continue to plow ahead with ordinances that encourage households to ditch fossil fuels. Plus, contractors have gotten more familiar with heat pumps in recent years.

Unfortunately, other technologies haven’t been as resilient: The rooftop solar sector has shown signs of struggle in the post-tax-credit era, as has the electric vehicle market.

So, heat pumps are a bright spot. Barring a dramatic shift in consumer behavior, 2026 is set to be a very good year for the tech. Keep an eye out for the final tally.

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