Energy Seminar Series: Designing Energy Infrastructure with Michiganders in Mind – February 12, 2026

Abstract:
For the last decade Sarah Mills has conducted applied research about community acceptance of large-scale renewable energy infrastructure, especially in rural communities, across the state of Michigan and beyond. In this seminar, she’ll talk about the lessons she’s learned about how communities respond to renewable energy, and provide insights into how these lessons might be applied to the design (both physical and financial) of new technologies, to expedite their deployment. She will also share more about how the Center for EmPowering Communities, which she directs, engages with Michigan local governments across the urban-rural spectrum, and ways in which other researchers can partner with the Center to tap into this network.

Biography:
Dr. Sarah Mills is the Director of the Center for EmPowering Communities at the University of Michigan’s Graham Sustainability Institute and an Associate Professor of Practice in Taubman College’s Urban Planning program. Her research looks at how renewable energy development impacts rural communities (positively and negatively), the disparate reactions of rural landowners to wind and solar projects, and how state and local policies facilitate or hinder renewable energy deployment. She is currently working on DOE-funded research projects understanding the adoption of solar zoning ordinances, the economic impacts of solar on agricultural communities, and landownership trends for solar projects. Through a grant from Michigan’s State Energy Office, she and her team also helps Michigan communities in incorporating clean energy in their planning and zoning. Sarah received her doctorate in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Michigan, where her dissertation looked at the intersection of farmland preservation and wind energy development. She has a master’s in engineering for sustainable development from the University of Cambridge, and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Villanova University. She grew up on a farm in Monroe County, Michigan but now lives in Ann Arbor where she has served on the City Planning Commission since 2014.