Metro CERT Annual Event Recap

July 2026

On April 30, 2026, over 270 people gathered at the Hyland Hills Chalet in Bloomington for the 19th Metro CERT Annual Event.

It’s been a year of hardship in the clean energy world, and especially in our immigrant and underserved communities. Our theme this year was “rooted in community, resilient together” and the focus of the program was to uplift projects that have advanced community resilience or that have continued to promote clean energy and energy efficiency despite significant headwinds and challenges.

Metro CERT Year in Review

As per usual, we began the event with our Metro CERT Year in Review, with Metro Regional Coordinator Aaron Backs celebrating our top ten projects and initiatives from the past year. Highlights included recognizing our 2026 CERTs Seed Grant awardees, convening new conversations about geothermal energy in Minneapolis, hosting workshops and supporting home energy navigation programming to reduce energy burden, and the expansion of the CERTs Community Energy Ambassadors program. Which segued right into…

Community Energy Ambassadors Highlight

We carved out a portion of our agenda for Keely Rau, Metro CERT Program Associate and one of the main masterminds behind the Community Energy Ambassador program, to discuss how the program had evolved over the past year.

CERTs launched the Community Energy Ambassadors program in 2024 to support people across Minnesota with advancing clean energy projects in their communities. ‘Ambassadors’ complete a series of videos, quizzes, and activities about community engagement and clean energy topics such as solar energy, heat pumps, and electric vehicles, and apply that training in order to complete an energy project in their community. After completing a project, they become ‘CERTified’ and are prepared to continue advancing clean energy projects throughout the state.

From just four CERTified Ambassadors at the time of our 2025 Annual Event, the program now boasts over 60 around the state who’ve either completed a community energy project on their own, or have participated in a group through an Ambassador cohort.

Three Metro-based CERTified Community Energy Ambassadors spoke from the audience to share their experience with the program:

Laura’s project was an Energy Audit Referral Program for the commercial banking team at Sunrise Banks. “Everyone should get an energy audit. You can do it for any building you can influence – your home, your apartment building, even your kids’ daycare. It’s the best first step to saving money and decarbonizing our existing buildings.”
Mackenzie, a high school student with TriDistrict CAPs, created a flyer to explain solar energy in an approachable way. “After completing my project and officially becoming a CERTified Community Energy Ambassador, I want to continue learning more about clean energy and keep sharing what I learn with my community.”
Sagrario, a program coordinator at Minneapolis College, was part of the Energy Verde cohort of Latine community leaders that created a messaging guide about clean energy for a variety of stakeholders in the housing sector, including landlords, homeowners, renters, contractors, and real estate agents. “I am very grateful to Energy Verde and to CERTS for the opportunity to engage in meaningful, community-driven research. While my professional trajectory isn’t directly related to clean energy, the call to be a leader and have a role in making information accessible and approachable to our community is a call we can all answer to.”

Keely also debuted a brand new program refresh; the new program and website is intended to make it easier for individuals and cohorts to go through the training process and access more resources and tools to complete projects in their community.

Resilient Community Projects Fireside Chat

And to close out the program, our team convened a panel of community leaders from across the energy sector to highlight projects that fit the theme of this year’s event — ‘rooted in community, resilient together.’

Each panelist, in a conversation moderated by Bharat Balyan, resiliency hub project coordinator at the City of Minneapolis, shared about how the importance of community building and resilience inspired the work at their own organizations.

We heard from Isiah Jones and Janet Brown of the Sabathani Community Center in South Minneapolis, which is actively installing a geothermal heating and cooling system and solar panels as part of their efforts to become a resilience hub — efforts that had their roots in a community revitalization survey from over a decade ago. Sabathani also offers green workforce development programs, including Home Energy Career Training and Solar Installation Training, helping to advance green careers through paid training opportunities.

James Trice of the Public Policy Project shared about his longstanding work ensuring that communities affected by public policy decisions have the ability to be involved in the policy-making processes. He shared about his leadership role in the Environmental Justice Coordinating Council, as well as in the upcoming Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund Community Grant Program, which is designed to make a percentage of Minnesota State Lottery money easier to access, particularly for communities that have been affected by pollution and environmental degradation.

And to round out the panel, Carmen Carruthers of the Citizens Utility Board of Minnesota (CUB) highlighted their Lights On, Homes Warm Fund, part of CUB’s response to instability and financial stress among Minnesota communities during Operation Metro Surge this winter. The fund offers one-time financial support to help families pay utility bills and informs them of their rights as ratepayers and further resources for support. CUB is also a foundational partner of Good Energy Connections, a program designed over years of community engagement to help residents of St Paul and Minneapolis navigate the complexities of reducing energy bills with home energy efficiency projects.

The event wrapped up with time for networking and conversations about community resilience, clean energy, and collaboration. Attendees had the opportunity to visit resource tables from CERTs and several of our partners, including the Citizens Utility Board, Environmental Initiative, Department of Commerce Division of Energy Resources, Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light, Center for Energy and Environment, Good Energy Connections, and a community resource table with offerings about resilience, workforce development, and upcoming opportunities to connect.

Thank you to our sponsors for making this event possible. Enjoy pictures from the event on the CERTs Flickr, and we hope to see everyone next year for the 20th anniversary of the Metro CERT Annual Event!

Stay in the loop!

Get updates on clean energy ideas happening in communities near you, along with events that will keep you connected, and more.

MN Energy Stories

Feel free to republish this story!

We encourage reuse and republishing of this story. All Clean Energy Resource Teams stories are made available under the Creative Commons Attribution license, meaning you can share and adapt the work as long as you give us credit. We'd also love it if you link back to the original piece. Have questions or want to chat? Drop us a line.

Search