+ Learn More About Angelica Ramdhari's Clean Energy Journey

In college, Angelica’s friends nicknamed her the ‘light bulb lady’ after she spent hours enticing Floridians to exchange their old light bulbs for high-efficiency compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) along with free ice cream cones. After seeing the impact that even a small change like using CFLs can have, she went to New York City (NYC) to work on a much larger program with ConEd helping small businesses adopt the same technology that homeowners in Florida were eager to install: high-efficiency lights. However, small businesses adopting efficient technologies still struggled to pay electricity bills, so Angelica turned her attention to solar to help low-income residents reduce costs. Unfortunately, many solar technology and programs were largely profit-driven at the time and in conflict with her personal values, so Angelica turned to another passion: sustainable agriculture. She left the solar industry and moved to Vermont to work at an organic vegetable farm. Soon enough, the farm owners found out Angelica understood solar power systems, and she was reviewing and designing systems onsite for their family members while harvesting heirloom tomatoes.

After Superstorm Sandy—the 2012 hurricane with devastating impacts in NYC and surrounding areas—Angelica realized she couldn’t give up on her favorite city and moved back to figure out how to help low-income New Yorkers access affordable renewable energy. She learned to develop solar plans that were both effective and code compliant, but she still grappled with the extraordinary cost of these systems. During this process, Angelica was introduced to Solar One, a non-profit that works to deliver renewable energy education, training, and technical assistance to low-income communities in NYC. Solar One saw that Angelica could be a great asset in expanding adoption of renewables, and she joined the team. She helped craft more affordable systems for building owners and began addressing a problem Sandy brought to light—the need for resilience: solar coupled with batteries. At the time, battery energy storage was limited, expensive, and toxic in NYC. Angelica took on this challenge by learning to design systems, navigate the permitting process, collaborate with manufacturers, and do as much as possible to ensure a turnkey system could be installed and approved. Today, as Solar One’s resilience program director, she is delivering the projects she envisioned when she first came to NYC.

However, the work doesn’t stop once one system is installed. She knows firsthand that there is much more work to do, not only to make solar and battery systems more scalable and affordable, but to make the sector more diverse and inclusive. “The industry is very dynamic, but women are still underrepresented,” according to Angelica. To address this, she launched an Instagram campaign, “Women in Energy Storage” to highlight women in the battery industry. She is also working with Councilmember Shahana Hanif on NYC’s first participatory budgeting initiative focused exclusively on climate change, and this project will bring $1.5 million in investments for sustainability in her local Brooklyn community.