Nice.
The U.S. Department of Energy announced Thursday that it awarded Harris County one of 16 clean energy grants totaling $30 million, distributed to state and local governments nationwide.
The Harris County grant of more than $1.6 million is the largest single investment so far in components of the county’s Climate Action Plan released earlier this year.
The grant will support the county’s efforts to make its own operations more sustainable by funding steps such as the review of solar and energy storage options in its buildings and restarting recycling programs. Some funding will also help with climate justice planning work as part of the ongoing formulation of a second, outward-facing action plan the county has been developing in partnership with community groups.
“We’re reining in lots of different federal funding opportunities for all these initiatives,” said Lisa Lin, Harris County’s director of Sustainability, noting that EPA pollution reduction funds, along with funds from the Hershey Foundation and coordination from the Houston nonprofit Coalition for Environment, Equity and Resilience, are also supporting planning of the outward-facing program.
“This particular DOE funding is helping us look at different ways to reduce energy burden and setting goals with community members on clean energy, energy resilience, that sort of thing,” Lin said.
She said the money would support several initiatives, from site assessments to the construction of a solar electric vehicle charging station in a disadvantaged community.
You can see the county’s climate action plan here. It was released in January – I didn’t see the story for it so I didn’t write about it, but it is similar in nature to the Houston climate action plan, which was released in 2020 and which I did write about. The county is still in the early stages of its plan, but they’re off to a good start.