The US Department of Environment Secretary – Steven Chu has announced the release of $20.5m (£12.6m) for new community renewable energy projects.
The funding comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and is being ploughed into five differerent biomass, wind and solar projects. The DOE hopes the funding will promote investment in clean energy, promote widespread energy installations and create jobs. The five trial projects are expected to serve as models for other local governments and campuses, encouraging communities to design projects that fit their individual size and energy needs.
“Smaller, more localized renewable energy systems need to play a role in our comprehenseve energy portfolio” said Chu. “These projects will help create jobs, expand our clean energy economy and help us cut carbon pollution at the local level”.
The projects selected for the funding include:
1) Forest County Poawatomi Tribe – a biomass heating/ cooling and generating project, solar PV panels and 3 wind turbines
2) City of Montpelier – wood chip combined heat and power unit (CHP)
3) Phillips County – 30 Megawatt community owned wind energy project
4) Sacramento Municipal Utility District – ‘Solar Highway’ (3 PV system installations on 2 miles of highway) total capacity of 1.5 MW, a digestor using fats, oil, grease and liquid food processing waste with sewage to produce biogas and also an anaerobic digester CHP.
5) University of California- Waste to Energy with advanced storage battery.
For more details check out the DOE website.
