Climate Solutions That Go Beyond Carbon: Scalable Solar

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and Georgia’s Solar Landscape 

06:31 Michael O’Reilly: Siting Solar Without Sacrificing Habitat 

17:46 Allie Kelly: Solar and EV Charging on The Ray Highway 

33:56 Audience Q&A: Airports, Policy, and Distributed Generation 

36:41 Lenwood Coleman: Making Solar Work for Low- and Moderate-Income Communities 48:02 Audience Q&A: PAYS, Agrivoltaics, and Closing Reflections 

57:11 Closing Wrap-Up

Georgia’s solar future is expanding fast, but how do we scale it without harming sensitive habitats, and who actually gets to benefit? In this Drawdown Georgia webinar, moderator James Marlow brings together three experts working on different pieces of that puzzle, from where solar gets built to who it’s built for.

Michael O’Reilly of The Nature Conservancy, Allie Kelly of The Ray, and Lenwood Coleman of Groundswell each share how their organizations are working to advance community and large-scale solar in Georgia responsibly, equitably, and fast.

Where Should Georgia Put Its Solar?

Michael O’Reilly walks through The Nature Conservancy’s low-impact solar siting tool, built with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the University of Georgia, and NASA, and explains why more than 60% of Georgia’s land turns out to be both solar-suitable and low-impact, along with how major corporate buyers are starting to factor land impact into their clean energy purchasing decisions.

Solar on the Highway: The Ray’s Roadside Revolution

Allie Kelly shares how The Ray turned an eroded stretch of highway right-of-way into the nation’s first pollinator-friendly roadside solar site, and why an estimated 52,000 acres of underused land at highway interchanges nationwide could become a major source of low-impact solar and EV charging infrastructure.

Who Actually Benefits From Solar?

Lenwood Coleman explains how Groundswell defines “scalable solar” not just by megawatts, but by jobs created, families served, and whether low- and moderate-income communities are treated as genuine stakeholders, including a look at Groundswell’s Breaking Barriers project connecting Atlanta’s HBCUs through a shared microgrid and resiliency hub.

Your Questions, Answered

The panel closes with an audience Q&A covering solar potential at Georgia’s airports, pending state legislation on distributed generation and net metering, how pay-as-you-save programs could extend beyond retrofits to bring solar to low-income households, and opportunities for Georgia’s Black farmers in agrivoltaics.

What You’ll Learn

• How Georgia’s largest solar projects compare, and where the state’s solar capacity is headed next.
• How a low-impact siting tool helps developers avoid sensitive habitats and prime farmland.
• Why roadside land at highway interchanges could become a major source of low-impact solar and EV charging.
• What “scalable solar” means when equity, not just capacity, is the measure of success.
• Which Georgia policies and bills to watch if you want to help shape the state’s solar future.

Continue reading in our companion blog for more on these three panelists’ work bringing scalable solar to Georgia.

Download the Interview Transcript

Prefer to read the conversation instead? Download the complete transcript of this webinar to explore the panelists’ full presentations and audience Q&A.