Decorah, Clean Energy Districts of Iowa to receive $1.1 million grant

Decorah and the Clean Energy Districts of Iowa have been awarded a $1.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy grant to reduce energy burdens for low-income households in Eastern Iowa and southwest Wisconsin.

The funding comes from the DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant, a program designed to help states, local governments and tribes reduce energy use, reduce fossil fuel emissions and improve energy efficiency.

In 2010, Decorah received one of the block grants for around $880,000. Winneshiek Energy District — Iowa’s first grassroots nonprofit energy district — was a sub-recipient and used its share to connect residents to energy-efficiency opportunities and federal incentives.

The success of that initiative blossomed into 13 member districts that now make up Clean Energy Districts of Iowa.

With the new funding, the Clean Energy Districts of Iowa is once again teaming with Decorah to provide technical assistance for local governments and schools in eight counties -- Allamakee, Clayton, Delaware, Howard, Jackson, Winneshiek and Tama counties in Iowa and Vernon County in Wisconsin.

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“This is an interesting way of delivering technical assistance in rural areas where people lack access to professional expertise,” said Jim Martin-Schramm, a Clean Energy Districts of Iowa policy analyst who helped write the grant application.

The $1.1 million in funding will allow the team to hire two energy planners and an engineer to help municipal governments, school districts and low-income households take advantage of state and federal energy efficiency and renewable energy opportunities.

Clean energy

Many of those opportunities were lumped into the Inflation Reduction Act, a 2022 law investing nearly $370 billion in clean energy over the next decade.

Among its incentives, the legislation extends tax credits for qualifying clean energy projects and now includes incentives for nonprofits. It also grants more incentives for census tracts where coal power plants have shuttered — like those surrounding Alliant Energy’s now retired Lansing Generating Station.

Other programs offer opportunities in that space, too, like the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Energy for America Program, which supports renewable energy or energy efficiency projects in rural and agricultural communities.

“Our job is to bundle all that information and help them understand how they can make wise and judicious investments that will benefit the citizens of their community or the families in their school district,” Martin-Schramm said. “And then also to work with low-income households.”

Low-income help

The High-Efficiency Electric Home Rebate Program, funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, will be a key financial resource for low-income households investing in energy upgrades. The program grants rebates on energy-efficiency projects, based on household income.

Federal funds are sent to state energy offices, which then distributes the money. Iowa expects to receive around $60 million for this program, according to the Iowa Economic Development Authority.

But the state program is scheduled to launch toward the end of 2024, Martin-Schramm said. That may delay the Clean Energy Districts of Iowa and Decorah’s outreach to low-income households in the project’s first year.

Decorah and the Clean Energy Districts originally applied and planned for a $1.56 million grant that would stretch over three years. After receiving 70 percent of that, they’re now negotiating new terms with the Department of Energy. Those terms include the number of low-income communities and households that can be integrated into the program.

Brittney J. Miller is the Energy & Environment Reporter for The Gazette and a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.

Comments: (319) 398-8370; brittney.miller@thegazette.com