Women in Solar, Pay Equity, and Building a Clean Energy Future with Noelle Paige | EP270

Women make up only 10-20% of the solar workforce despite being 50% of the population, highlighting a significant gender gap in the renewable energy industry. Today on the Clean Power Hour, Tim Montague sits down with Noelle Paige, Vice President of Development at Aspen Power, to explore the evolving landscape of women's leadership in solar energy. Recorded at RE+ Northeast in Boston, we explore Noelle's unique journey from ballet dancer to solar executive and her eight-year trajectory through the solar industry before landing at Aspen Power.

Noelle provides valuable insights into Aspen Power's work in community solar and multi-family projects, particularly in key markets including New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, and Maryland. The discussion takes a meaningful turn as they address the critical issue of gender representation in renewable energy, with women comprising only 10-20% of the solar workforce despite being 50% of the population. Noelle shares her involvement with WRISE (Women in Renewable Industries and Sustainable Energy), highlighting how the organization's Leadership Forum creates spaces for women to network, learn, and grow professionally without traditional barriers. Mark your calendar for the WRISE 20th Anniversary Gala on June 26th in New York City!

The conversation tackles the multifaceted nature of the gender pay gap, which Noelle describes as layered by variables including motherhood status, geography, and ethnicity. Listeners will gain practical insights on how men in leadership positions can support women in the industry through intentional inclusion and meaningful dialogue. 

The episode also explores the challenges of community acceptance for solar projects and provides tactical advice for developers on authentic community engagement. Whether you're interested in diversity in renewables, community solar development, or the intersection of both, this episode offers valuable perspectives on building a more inclusive and successful clean energy future.

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Noelle Paige

Aspen Power

Transcript

Noelle Paige: 0:51

I used to have a saying of, you know, I didn't want to talk about things I didn't know about, and that was out of wanting to not sound entitled or dumb, like I didn't know what I was talking about. But I've since switched that start talking about the things you don't know about. And so I think men start talking to women about what it means to be in rise, you know. Have these conversations with women. Bring women into the room, you know. And like, Well, how do you see this, you know, and whatever the issue may be, recruitment, retainage. Just have those conversations. And like, Listen,

intro: 1:30

are you speeding the energy transition here at the Clean Power Hour, our host, Tim Montague, bring you the best in solar, batteries and clean technologies every week. Want to go deeper into decarbonization. We do too. We're here to help you understand and command the commercial, residential and utility, solar, wind and storage industries. So let's get to it together. We can speed the energy transition

Tim Montague: 1:57

today on the Clean Power Hour women in solar, my guest today is Noelle page. She is the Vice President of Development for Aspen power. Welcome to the show, Noelle. Thank you so much. I'm happy to be here. I'm really psyched for this conversation. Yeah, we're here in Boston, at Ra plus northeast, just getting ready to go into the trade show and do a bunch of interviews there on the trade show floor. But Noelle, tell our listeners a little bit about yourself,

Noelle Paige: 2:21

sure. Well, you gave me a great introduction. Thank you. Noel page, Vice President project development at Aspen power. I live in DC, work in New York. I love these shows. I get to see all my friends and walk the floor. I love it so much. But, yeah, I've been in solar probably about eight years now, a background in project management, urban planning, public administration. And before that, I was a ballerina,

Tim Montague: 2:50

good combo. Yeah, right. But how did you get into solar specifically? Sure,

Noelle Paige: 2:56

I was a little random, so I was involved in kind of sustainability infrastructure through the University of Illinois at Chicago, working in project management. I did my Master's in Public Administration, and did a lot with the chaddock Institute for Sustainable Development. And then I was a grad student looking at jobs on LinkedIn, and I found Cypress Creek renewables, and they were hiring for zoning and community outreach people. And I thought that was just a title that made a lot of sense for me. Applied, got the job, moved to North Carolina, and here I am, eight years later,

Tim Montague: 3:31

awesome. And so Cyprus is mostly utility scale, or both utility and community scale.

Noelle Paige: 3:41

Yeah. So when I started, they were doing a lot of utility scale, and that was primarily the team that I was on. I did move over to their project finance team, and so I was exposed to a lot more of the community solar that they were doing, so I think now they have a lot more community solar. But yeah, they've done a little bit of everything great.

Tim Montague: 4:01

And then how did you end up coming to Aspen power?

Noelle Paige: 4:05

Yeah, I kind of hopped around a lot. I have a rap sheet of solar developers on my resume, but I love all of them. I went to soul systems right after Cyprus, and I met Aaron Bartel, who's Aspen's General Counsel, but he was the General Counsel at soul systems. And, you know, the solar industry, it's quite small, but I had known the folks at Aspen for a while, and we just kind of stayed in contact, and they reached out about kind of restructuring their project development team, and thought it was a great move.

Tim Montague: 4:39

And Aspen is based in DC.

Noelle Paige: 4:41

They're in New York, okay, a lot of us are kind of sprinkled everywhere, though. Got it. The main office is in New York,

Tim Montague: 4:47

New York City, yep. Okay, right on. So what is Aspen up to Aspen's,

Noelle Paige: 4:52

up to a lot. We were primarily community solar and a lot work a lot with CO developers in the industry. So we kind of come in as the IPP slash finance year and then long term owner operator. We also have a multi family real estate arm that's a small section of the pipeline. But that was new completely to me, I've never done anything residential, so that was a learning curve for me. But

Tim Montague: 5:15

that multi family work is that also community solar? Or what exactly is the business model there? Yeah,

Noelle Paige: 5:20

so it's primarily in California, and I think it's maybe title 24 it's California's kind of board of renewables or sustainability effort to kind of require new construction for multi family units and buildings to have some sort of renewable or offset or something green, basically. So we work with the general contractors or the developers to provide that.

Tim Montague: 5:47

Got it all right. So I. So anything else about Aspen you'd like my listeners to know before we move on to women in solar, because I'm very eager to geek out on women in solar.

Noelle Paige: 5:59

I love that Aspen's growing. Aspen is great. It's a It's just such an awesome team, and the growth has just been unreal. It started as a super small company, and I've kind of been like, watching them, knowing, you know, general counsel and a few others that sort of started the business, and then they acquired Safari energy, so it's just been, like, explosive the growth. So,

Tim Montague: 6:22

and can you speak to, like, the megawatts or gigawatts that are in your portfolio?

Noelle Paige: 6:29

Yeah, that's a good question. You know, somebody's gonna get mad that I don't know my OKRs, no

Tim Montague: 6:36

worries, no worries. All right, so when you say community solar, just to put a pin in that, you know, I think there's, you know, a handful of states where community solar is really rocking and rolling, like Illinois, Massachusetts, New York Maine was, I don't know if that was a bit of a boom and a bust maybe, but yeah, what are there other places that are hot? Yeah,

Noelle Paige: 7:00

you, I think you hit most, not Colorado just yet. Maryland, Maryland, and I'm hearing, I'm hearing New Mexico. It might be coming back around. They had a pilot program, but it was, it was pretty small, very small. Yeah, yeah. And Minnesota for a while there, too. Haven't heard about them lately.

Tim Montague: 7:19

Yes, it's so interesting, right? How these things ebb and flow. Minnesota was an early adopter. They kind of kicked butt in the Midwest, and then they busted, and now Illinois has kind of surpassed them. And you know, we're doing 10 gigs in the next 10 years. Yeah, New York is doing a little more, I think, you know, volume wise. But anyway, and so ironic, and I'm curious what you think about this, that California, you know, our earliest adopter, really, here in the US. I mean, Hawaii's a little further along, but Hawaii so small, doesn't have a great community solar market. Yeah, they their legislation is chronically flawed. Is there a fix in the works there? Do you know? Oh,

Noelle Paige: 8:02

gosh, I, I was really hopeful. Was that a year or two ago? I think it was right before maybe the 2023, SPI or maybe infocast. I don't recall, but we were, we were so close, you know, we're so close to that community solar bill, but it just didn't happen. But, you know, legislation always comes back around, right? The IRA is like the build back better, but a little bit different. So I think we'll get there one day.

Tim Montague: 8:25

All right, all right. So women in solar, as I said in the pre show, women are a vast minority in this industry. It's a real problem for a whole variety of reasons. You know, obviously in the population, you're 50% of the population, and yet, in solar, you're between 10 and 20% maybe, you know, and and so just give us a broad strokes. What kinds of things are you involved in when it comes to workforce development and getting more women involved in the industry?

Noelle Paige: 8:56

Sure, yeah, rise is a great organization for renewable energy. It's the women in renewable industries. So it's a good mix of solar and wind, hydro. We get a little bit of everything in the renewable side. There's also the women's energy network, which is really interesting to me, because I'm just solar. I've never done anything else, I've never done wind, I've done a little bit of storage, but I feel like I'm, you know, I'm just like, I'm just solar. I need to learn more. But the women's energy network has a big conference every year, and so you get to hear about oil and gas and nuclear and kind of the new technologies on that side as

Tim Montague: 9:32

well. And how many people attend that

Noelle Paige: 9:36

last year, it was pretty big. I want to say maybe the size of this eight to 10,000 8000 maybe. Okay, yeah, wow, yeah. And it's not just women that go to these It's hosted by women, though, and we try to counteract the mantels the all male panels. So

Tim Montague: 9:56

the dreaded man, I love it. So I've heard about rise, but you're the first person that's really engaged that I've spoken with. So what exactly is rise doing? Sure,

Noelle Paige: 10:10

a lot. So we do a forum every year, the leadership forum, and it is no offense. It is the best conference in this industry. It is so much fun, and the energy is just amazing. And it's like everybody leaves their egos at the door, you know, and you just truly network, and you just learn. And that's it's just such a fantastic environment. But I spoke there last year in 2024 October, it was in DC, and I did a workshop with a recruiter, Cameron Benton, from soul search, and we spoke about just gender pay gap and Labor Workforce and women. Did a lot of research for that. And. Like, put on my economist hat and, like, statistician hat, and really dove into that, because to talk about that topic like, you have to, you have to be correct, right? Because people have kind of an emotional reaction to it, and so I just wanted to stick to the facts. Wanted to really shed light on some of the issues and show data for it.

Tim Montague: 11:11

Yeah, you there's a lot to unpack there. Let's talk about pay gap. What are your thoughts about that? Like, I have my own thoughts, but is it just like an unwritten agreement that humanity has created, or what's the deal there?

Noelle Paige: 11:29

Yeah, that's a good question. There's a ton of layers, and the way I like to describe it is sort of in layers, but not sequentially. And so those layers are variables, and that's the status of motherhood, that's your geography, that's your ethnicity, and so on and so on. And so there's so many variables to that, and some may weigh more for some people in some circumstances, you know, nothing has like, it's not sequential, right? But I had an economics teacher in undergrad refer to the pay gap as the mothers gap, which is just nauseating, right? And, yeah, it's, it's affecting mothers more as they get older. And so that's kind of the trend of where wages get further and further apart.

Tim Montague: 12:13

Yeah, you know, it's curious. I also think about how in society, we compensate college teachers or professors more than we compensate kindergarten teachers, but kindergarten teachers are more influential when it comes to developing young humans. Right by the time you get to college, you're already formed. That tree is growing in a certain direction, right? And so in a way, I feel like kindergarten should be the highest paid profession when it comes to education, yeah. And yet it's inverted. And and I, when I have this conversation with people, they're like, they kind of make up stories about why that is, but it really is just an agreement. Yeah, there's no technical reason why kindergarten shouldn't I mean, everybody needs a doctor, right? Doctoring is a high wage. Everybody needs an attorney. That's another high wage. Everyone needs a kindergarten teacher, but that's a low wage, yeah? Why? That's

Noelle Paige: 13:09

a great point, and that's a great conversation to be having. We should definitely be having that conversation. And it's so it's bizarre, right? And we, I think kindergarten teachers get sort of like the babysitter title,

Tim Montague: 13:21

and it scares men away from that industry, actually, right? Men go, Wait a minute, that's very low wage. I'm not going there. And, and so you see a big gender gap in that industry, yeah, but which contributes we have the opposite problem here in the solar industry. In your time, you've been in solar for you said, eight years, yeah. Have you seen things changing?

Noelle Paige: 13:43

Yes, absolutely. The women in leadership, I think now, in the last four or five years, are just powerhouses, and I, I love to just look up and then make those people my peers at some point. And I just walk up to the Abby hoppers of the world, right, President, CEO of Sia, and it's like, it's like, you're this amazing powerhouse woman, and like, I get to have a conversation with you, you know? And it's amazing. But I think that attitude and just kind of that again, dropping your ego at the door, and, like, having that openness has really helped women network and like, you know, just have candid conversations about to work. You know,

Tim Montague: 14:22

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Noelle Paige: 15:28

stuff like this. Talking to women, I used to have a saying of you know, I didn't want to talk about things I didn't know about, and that was out of wanting to not sound entitled or dumb, like I didn't know what I was talking about. But I've since switched that start talking about the. Things You don't know about. And so I think men start talking to women about what it means to be in rise, you know, have these conversations with women. Bring women into the room, you know. And like, Well, how do you see this? You know, and whatever the issue may be, recruitment, retainage. Just have those conversations. And like, listen,

Tim Montague: 16:11

be real, but we also have to be more intentional, I think, and that's and that's the beauty of things like rise, right? We need to organize, and we need just to have an awareness that there's a problem. It's not an existential threat, but it's a serious problem, and we can change it, and we are changing it, maybe too slowly. I don't know. How do you feel? Are you frustrated? Or

Noelle Paige: 16:38

honestly, I don't. Well, depends on what day it is, but I try to stay positive. There are, again, just so many amazing female leaders, and also the work the younger workforce, the Gen Zs. You know, the women are coming up and they're walking right up to you, you know, and they're taking chances, and they're bold, and I just love to see that.

Tim Montague: 16:59

Yeah, so for the women listening, what can women do differently, and how do women get involved in things like rise, yeah, to find their groove or find their people. Yeah, I'm just curious what else women should be thinking about and doing. Yeah,

Noelle Paige: 17:17

so I don't think women need to do anything differently if you want to get involved in rise or when it's W, R, i, s, e, there's local chapters. I'm in the DMV chapter, I dabble with the New York chapter. I pretend like I'm in that too, because I'm in New York so much. But those organizations and the events like the Leadership Forum and I'm actually hosting that same workshop I mentioned before that I did at the Leadership Forum in two weeks in New York, we got a lot of great feedback. So we're doing it again. We're taking it on the road. Oh, cool. But events like that, you know, and again, just being bold and walking up to people, I find people are just way more receptive than you think they're going to be right. Like, I used to sit at Merchandise Mart in grad school and just like, ask to buy people coffee and ask, like, what their job title was, you know, because I was a ballet dancer, I had no idea. And doing that at a conference, you know, here at re plus, or at the rise Leadership Forum, or any other situation or industry event.

Tim Montague: 18:18

Does that background as a dancer hinder you in any way in the industry? Do you think

Noelle Paige: 18:23

absolutely not. No, I love it. So this is also kind of one of my workshop leadership and workforce development topics. Yeah, if I were to say, my first job in solar community outreach, teaching a very niche subject to a demographic that probably doesn't know a lot about it. I was doing that for solar, right? Well, when I was a ballet dancer, I was doing the same thing. I was doing lecture demonstrations in rural communities, going out, doing a build a ballet for students, middle school students, elementary school students, even some high schoolers. We would lay down Marley do our show, build a ballet. Those kids had probably never heard of Swan Lake before, right? You know? So I was doing the same thing. So getting out into the community and teaching. I love teaching, teaching a niche subject to a demographic or population that doesn't know a lot about it. I'm doing the same thing with solar?

Tim Montague: 19:12

Yeah, yeah. I want to talk about community acceptance of solar, but, but first, you're also doing some Workforce Development things talk about that work?

Noelle Paige: 19:23

Yeah, I am working with an organization called repowering schools. I have a webinar today with them. It they go into colleges and universities and just introduce solar careers to students, which is a huge effort, and I think there needs to be more of it. And I'm trying to kind of scheme away that IPPs can be more involved in that kind of effort. Because a couple of years ago, I went to the IREC, the Interstate Renewable Energy Council conference, and the data and forecast on the jobs that we're going to need to keep up with demand of energy transition or just current goals, is insane, and we don't have it. And so the more students we can connect with, the better.

Tim Montague: 20:12

Yeah, and I think we should even go into high school, yeah, yeah. I don't think a lot of young people know how vibrant the solar, wind, battery storage, yeah, industries are. There's also electrification. I don't care any pick your pick your slice right? Of that pie. It's pure growth for the next 30 years. Yeah, literally, and there are a few industries, AI would be another, maybe scary, more scary, I would say, than solar. But solar so, you know, it's such a feel good, right? We're cleaning the air. We're creating a safer, healthier future for humanity. What's not to love? Yeah. Yeah, I know technology for a better future. It's a beautiful thing. We just need more of it, right? And we need a lot more people in the industry. So thank you absolutely. Well, let's talk about how communities in rural America are responding to this wave. It is a wave, right? And one of the things that we forget sometimes as solar professionals is that, because of the way the grid is built, some communities are more impacted than others, right? Where those substations are there, you get a cluster of activity of solar and wind, right? And so some communities can start to feel like, oh my goodness, another solar project or another infrastructure project. And that's another thing I've noticed in Illinois, is that there's pipelines. There's a lot of pipelines, and so there's a certain fatigue that communities start to experience, and they're pushing back. We call this nimbyism. It's not a dirty word. I don't think it's just a phenomenon, right, not in my backyard, and it is certainly a right for communities to say this. But communities are often misinformed about what are the benefits? What is solar what does it mean from a land use perspective, and what are the goods, the economic goods, the environmental goods, they they generally have a very poor understanding of what those goods are. But from your perspective, what is happening in rural America around solar and communities?

Noelle Paige: 22:25

Yeah, it's, it's, it's a toss up. Honestly, some communities respond wonderfully, and they're very supportive. They understand the tax benefit, the revenue you know that's going to benefit their communities. They understand that, you know, the farmer that's leasing their land is benefiting from this, and they have the right to choose what to do with their land. Other communities, like you said, are pushing back, and they do have the right to do that. And it's it's unfortunate that those communities feel taken advantage of by infrastructure projects. But that's on us. That's on IPPS, that's on developers to be connected to the community. Don't just go in and throw your site plan to the building inspector, the zoning officer, you know, start with the local church. Talk to your landowner. You know, what's the, what's an organization here that we could help with. You know? How do we, how do we make this like more wholesome than just like, I want to get my project done, right? You know? And it's, it's not to be rah rah about it, right? But it's just, it's more authentic. If you just, you have those conversations, and you just be respectful of these communities.

Tim Montague: 23:30

It is a change. And a lot of the projects are going into what is historically farm ground, either, you know, we're either feeding livestock on that ground, or we're growing cash crops like corn and beans. And you know, I live in America's bread basket, some of the best farmland in America, in Champaign County. And you know, we're going to convert some fraction, some small fraction. That's another thing, I guess, that people don't realize is it's only one or 2% of the landscape that we need to completely green the grid, right? It's not a huge amount of real estate. We've already built over 6% of the landscape with roads and build buildings right in the US, yeah,

Noelle Paige: 24:11

parking lots and parking lots.

Tim Montague: 24:17

Yeah, I heard a crazy statistic that in a city like LA, I think 30% of the landscape is parking oh my gosh, yeah. So solar canopies. There's the future there, hopefully, for sure, but so getting involved in communities, I love that. What else do you say to developers? Because I think we need to rise all boats here. Some developers are doing it right, like you say, and getting involved Apex kind of stands out in this regard. In my opinion, the ground game is very good. They set up websites for projects so that people can put their name on the project and get involved, you know, remotely. But what else are, what are some other best practices that developers can utilize? Yeah,

Noelle Paige: 25:08

I think they'll good old fashioned community organizing, host a community meeting, you know, mail, merge your your your parcels and your addresses, invite the neighbors out. Say, Hey, I'm going to be here, you know, and just have a candid conversation. It doesn't have to be a super formal thing. And I love the websites, though, that's that's great, because that just gives, you know, 24/7 access and, you know, contact submission, right, if you have a question, and like, commonly, you know, fun facts that are mistaken about solar and just kind of have it all laid out in one place. So that's a great idea. We have a couple of projects that we've had websites for in the past, but, yeah, good old community meeting. Just really show face FaceTime is really important. And now COVID. Is behind us. We can do that. And that was a huge challenge right in 2020, and 2021, all of the planning board meetings were virtual, and I think that contributes a little bit to the way right now that we're seeing a lot more nimbyism. It feels like it's because people felt like they got taken advantage of and they got too separated from what was going on in their community.

Tim Montague: 26:10

Well, in our last minute together, Noelle, we're here at re plus Boston, re plus northeast, I just call

Noelle Paige: 26:18

I say the same thing. Little easier to say. I think that's on my out of my office. Actually, I should probably change that.

Tim Montague: 26:24

And you know, for me, one of the things I love is the networking, meeting new friends, connecting, reconnecting with old friends. I'm a geek for technology. I love seeing what's going on in solar and batteries. But what are you looking forward to today?

Noelle Paige: 26:40

Today, gosh, there is an event with rise the rise. Ladies here are getting together. We're going to see each other in two weeks at that workshop I mentioned. But we are planning the 20th Anniversary Gala right now. I'm on the planning committee for that. We're gonna, we're gonna chat about that and kind of make it that is June 26 the New York City. Okay,

Tim Montague: 27:04

yeah, so you heard it here, yeah, June in New York, the rise Gala. Yeah. Anything else you'd like our listeners to know before we say, sayonara,

Noelle Paige: 27:14

um, no, I think we covered a lot. Thank you. We did this is great.

Tim Montague: 27:17

All right, awesome. Well, thank you. Noel, page with Aspen power, Vice President of Development for Aspen power, check out all of our content at cleanpowerhour.com. Please give us a rating and review on Apple and Spotify. Reach out to me on LinkedIn. I love connecting with my listeners on LinkedIn. You can also connect with me on the website, and with that, I'm Tim Montague, let's grow solar and storage. You.