Despite challenges from the current administration in Washington, the head of the Center for Energy Education said renewable energy initiatives will continue moving forward.
“This year has been challenging for many of us,” C4EE Executive Director Mozine Lowe said at today's EnergyFEST. “Many of the good projects that we have planned to do for our communities are now on pause because of funding cuts and executive orders. All kinds of things have happened this year that have caused us to pause and think about how we move forward.”
Lowe spoke about a trip she made to Washington earlier this week where she and other nonprofit organizations strategized about how they would move forward. “We are going to move forward — there’s no doubt about that.”
Lowe said staff at C4EE had dreams of having a workforce lab on their campus “that would offer tremendous workforce opportunities in eastern North Carolina. That is somewhat on pause. We’re doing it differently, but we’re still moving forward.”
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The organization had plans to look at homes in the community to find ways of making them more energy-efficient. “We had great plans. We’re moving a little slower, but the work will continue.”
She spoke about a renewable energy project in Enfield being led by Mayor Mondale Robinson which involves numerous partners. “There’s just an array of people and we’re all coming together under his leadership to determine how to move Enfield forward — how to make Enfield a green town.”
Lowe said the power outage the town had in July "shouldn't have happened." “At this time we shouldn’t have counties with infrastructure that has been neglected. It’s not because of the town — it’s because of a lack of funding.”
People in rural communities, Lowe said, "carry a very heavy burden. Folks in these communities pay up to $1,600 a month in their utility bills, and that’s an incredible amount. That’s about not having the funds to update appliances in their homes to make them more energy-efficient.”
Lowe said: “We cannot stop because there’s so much work to be done in our communities. We will need all of your help to make that happen, but in terms of all that is happening, we’re just going to have to go forward.”
Robinson told the audience, “I think it’s important that we remember Enfield is not a story of a town that’s just poor and just suffering because none of it is by accident. It’s by grand design that we see Enfield in the position it finds itself in this morning.”
The mayor explained that without Enfield there would be no Rocky Mount. “Enfield’s farmers created what is Rocky Mount right now. Enfield is the blackest town in Halifax County and is actually the oldest in Halifax County.”
Robinson said the town’s infrastructure is not failing because its people are lazy or there’s no commitment from its elected officials, “It is because decisions made outside of our town affect us.”
He said “as we work through not just the energy problems we have in Enfield, the infrastructure problems — it’s all connected in how we demand that our government be civil. We swear we care about the rural voters, but as we look at towns like Enfield, we see that’s just on paper.”
