Washington DC – The Energy Department today announced approximately $5 million in funding to 13 states, including Arkansas, to advance innovative approaches for local clean energy development that will reduce energy bills for American families and businesses, protect the environment by reducing carbon emissions and increase our nation’s energy security. In support of the Administration’s all-of-the-above energy strategy, each state will design and deploy innovative programs to advance energy efficiency and renewable energy, ranging from programs targeting specific areas for advancement to more comprehensive plans that consider economic development along with resiliency and energy supply issues.
As a part of the effort to support the advancement of the residential, commercial and industrial markets for energy efficiency and renewable energy, the Energy Department will invest more than $3 million to assist Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Mexico, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington. The funding specifically focuses on six transformative areas, including frameworks for evaluation, measurement and verification of energy and emission reductions; financing retrofits for public facilities; supporting partnerships with local governments and others to remove potential barriers to clean energy investments; benchmarking building energy performance using whole-building data; and policies and programs for distributed resources. Through this effort, states will also demonstrate how their model projects can be replicated by other state and local governments.