![Massachusetts Receives 6M Federal Grant to Enhance Solar Programs for Low-Income Residents Massachusetts Receives 6M Federal Grant to Enhance Solar Programs for Low-Income Residents](https://i0.wp.com/energynews.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/solar-boston-nature-center.jpg?fit=2048%2C1366&ssl=1)
A $156 million federal grant is expected to fund a transformative investment in residential solar energy for low-income households in Massachusetts, advocates and officials say.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Solar for All program awarded Massachusetts the money for its plans to provide interest-free loans, financial subsidies and technical assistance to solar projects benefiting low-income households and public housing facilities. . The state’s proposal was largely designed to leverage existing programs and resources to maximize the impact of federal funding.
The grant is the largest any New England state has received from the program, but falls far short of the $250 million requested by Massachusetts. Still, the state hopes to move forward with all initiatives outlined in its application, although planners are now working to reallocate money among planned programs to maximize impact.
“We were shooting for the stars,” said Elizabeth Mahony, commissioner of the state Department of Energy Resources. “This was an extremely competitive award process.”
Solar for All is a $7 billion program created in 2022 by the Inflation Reduction Act, an economic stimulus bill that included $369 billion in spending on energy and climate change programs. Solar for All will provide grants to states, territories, nonprofit organizations, tribal governments and municipalities to increase solar development to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, create energy savings for overburdened homes and build markets for businesses of renewable energy. The grants will target low-income and other underserved communities where renewable energy has historically been less accessible.
Last month, EPA announced the selection of 60 applicants for grants ranging from $25 million to $250 million. Only five recipients received larger awards than Massachusetts; 22 received the same amount.
The Massachusetts proposal is structured around initiatives in three program areas: small residential buildings, multifamily housing, and community solar energy. The programs will be administered by a coalition of agencies including the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, the Boston Housing Authority and MassHousing.
“They had a really strong coalition of important players involved,” said Kyle Murray, Massachusetts program director for the nonprofit climate organization Acadia Center. “While it is disappointing that we did not receive the full award, I cannot emphasize enough how much this money will be a game-changer in bringing solar energy to low-income and disadvantaged communities.”
The small residential portion of the programming, originally scheduled to receive $40 million, includes two main initiatives. The first would provide low-income households with interest-free loans to pay for solar panels. The program would be modeled after the MassSave Heat Loan program and the Mass Solar Loan, which expired in 2020, after providing about 3,000 loans to low-income borrowers for the installation of solar panels.
“We’ll go back to that and revive it because it was quite successful,” Mahony said.
The initial proposal also allocated $65 million to programs that would install solar panels on affordable housing and public housing, with benefits going to residents. In housing developments where tenants pay their own utilities, they would receive savings through lower electricity bills. In homes where utilities are included in the rent, that benefit could be more than just savings on your energy bill: free Wi-Fi or better facilities, for example.
Another provision of the Inflation Reduction Act will further expand the financial power of installing solar panels on public and affordable housing. In the past, nonprofits were not eligible to receive clean energy tax credits because they did not pay taxes. Clean energy tax credits are now available to nonprofits in the form of a direct payment.
“This means we will be able to bring more federal resources to the state of Massachusetts,” said Joel Wool, deputy administrator for sustainability and capital transformation at the Boston Housing Authority, which will manage the public housing portions of grant programming across the state. state. “Every dollar we can save on operating costs in public housing is a dollar we can invest in improving housing.”
The community solar segment of the plan builds on the state’s existing Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target, or SMART, program. All community solar projects that receive grant funds will have to meet SMART’s existing requirement that at least half of the project’s purchasers be low-income residential customers. Additional points will be awarded to projects that offer greater savings, serve a higher percentage of low-income households, or have members (such as nonprofit organizations or affordable housing facilities) that benefit the community.
At the same time, the state is in the process of updating SMART to meet current environmental and economic needs. The Solar for All community solar program is likely closely intertwined with these changes, Mahony said.
“We’re really leaning heavily on SMART when it comes to shared community solar that serves low-income customers like we’ve never done before,” he said.
Smaller funds in the original plan would be used to finance improvements, such as roof replacements or wiring upgrades, needed to prepare buildings for solar panels and to provide community outreach and engagement, workforce development and technical assistance.
In addition to the environmental benefits and savings for low-income residents, supporters of the plan hope the influx of funds will have a long-term effect on the growth and stability of all facets of the renewable energy industry.
“That really allows the Commonwealth and surrounding states to make those investments in their workforce and their supply chain, knowing that there will be demand for that equipment and those services for years to come,” said Maggie Super Church, director of policy and programs from the Massachusetts Community Climate Bank, part of MassHousing.
The state is now in the midst of negotiating the final grant contract with the EPA, a process it hopes to conclude this spring. The goal is to begin implementing the first programs in the fall.
“The numbers of what we can do are still amazing,” Mahony said. “It’s just going to look a little different than how we presented it in the first place.”
Related
Keynote USA
For the Latest Local News, Follow Keynote USA Local on Twitter.