Alliance For Energy Equity Empowers Communities With Clean Power

The Alliance for Energy Equity was born out of a simple but pressing reality: despite Mexico’s near-universal electricity coverage, more than a third of households still live in energy poverty. For millions of families, basic needs such as refrigeration, internet access, or thermal comfort remain unaffordable luxuries. Against this backdrop, the Alliance seeks to reshape the national energy system by fostering renewable sources, building resilience and, above all, putting equity at the center of Mexico’s energy transition.

At its core, the initiative promotes decentralized solutions such as distributed generation, microgrids, and isolated self-supply systems, technologies that allow communities to generate and manage their own electricity. But the Alliance’s ambition extends further. It emphasizes a circular economy that recycles valuable materials from solar panels and a solidarity-based economy in which companies, civil society, and local communities collaborate through innovation and shared learning.

Isabel Studer, President, Sostenibilidad Global, one of the founding members of the alliance, says it as a space “where ideas become real actions to transform the energy system in Mexico.” For her, the challenge goes beyond deploying technology. “More than one third of Mexican families cannot afford their basic services,” she noted. “In a world moving rapidly toward electrification, we believe social innovation and solidarity must be the true engines of change.” The Alliance, she explained, is built on four pillars: clean energy as a shared right, communities as co-producers of energy, collaborative ecosystems that bring together different sectors, and sustainable, circular solutions.

Despite barriers such as a lack of battery energy storage adoption within the projects, this vision is materializing in concrete projects across the country, each tailored to local needs and opportunities.

Women Leading the Energy Transition

In Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Quintana Roo, the cooperative Túumben K'óoben has been training Maya women as solar technicians and community promoters. The initiative, according to Studer, not only provides clean electricity but also strengthens female leadership in a sector traditionally dominated by men.

Dulce Magaña, one of the Maya solar promoters, recalled that her group’s first encounter with renewable energy came 15 years ago, when they experimented with solar cookers. By 2019, they had launched a training program that allowed women to speak about energy, its gender impacts, and their role in shaping solutions. “We were not trained as solar engineers,” she said. “We learned through practice, by handling cables, making mistakes, even burning equipment. But today we are installers, and we travel in community caravans to bring solar systems to other women who had never before seen a water pump or a photovoltaic panel.”

For Magaña, the program is about more than technology, it is about justice. “There is no energy justice if communities never get access to the equipment,” she stressed. Today, Maya women are installing systems for public lighting and water access, while passing on their knowledge to younger generations. “We can do it,” she said. “We may not start out prepared, but we can prepare ourselves, and now I am ready to teach other women how easy it really is.”

Sustainable Forests, Sustainable Energy

In the mountains of Oaxaca, the Pueblos Mancomunados, a group of eight communities managing 24,000ha of communal forests, are modernizing their timber drying process with solar energy. The project, backed by the United Nations Development Program, aims to feed two large drying chambers with photovoltaic power, boosting monthly production of kiln-dried wood while reducing reliance on costly biomass.

The community’s history is rooted in resistance. “Decades ago, our forests were indiscriminately exploited by private concessions,” said Israel Santiago, who works in certified furniture production. “That experience taught us to value what we have, and for more than 40 years we have organized to manage our forests sustainably.”

Today, the communities promote FSC forest certification as the best guarantee of long-term conservation. But as Santiago pointed out, the economics remain challenging. Energy costs are high, threatening their competitiveness. “Renewable energy is essential,” he said. “It gives us the power to stay in the market. We have faced very difficult times, but when things get tough, that is when we show what we are made of.”

Cleaning Water, Growing Food, Generating Power

In Xochimilco, Mexico City, Red Agrovoltaica Mexicana is piloting an innovative agrovoltaic system that combines solar generation with agriculture and water treatment. The project uses electricity from solar panels to power an electroflocculation process that cleans saline-contaminated water, helping restore chinampa soils while simultaneously producing food under the shade of the panels.

For Valeria Amezcua, president of the network, the approach offers multiple benefits at once. Agrovoltaics, she explained, is about dual land use: generating clean energy while supporting farming or ecosystem restoration. “Electricity is now the most important resource for all our activities, and it must become a universal right,” she said. “What better way to access it than from the sun, which shines on every corner of this country?”

In Xochimilco, the goal is to reduce farmers’ dependence on costly diesel-powered treatment plants, improve irrigation efficiency and even exploring which crops thrive under partial shading. Beyond water security, the project points to broader opportunities. “We want farmers not only to grow their produce but also to transform it locally, adding value with the help of renewable energy,” Amezcua said.

A Shared Path Forward

Taken together, these projects reflect the Alliance for Energy Equity’s belief that energy transition is not just a technical challenge but a social one. By empowering women, protecting forests, and integrating clean energy into traditional farming, Studer states that Alliance demonstrates how renewable energy can create prosperity from the ground up.

What unites these efforts is a sense of agency within communities that are too often excluded from Mexico’s energy debates. As Magaña put it, “Indigenous communities need to be present in the spaces where energy issues are discussed.” For Studer, that presence is no longer optional, it is essential to building a more equitable, resilient, and sustainable energy future.