Federal Funding Secured for Wide Variety of Western Energy Projects

Homes in Tribal northwestern New Mexico and northeastern Arizona may soon have enhanced access to energy as a result of new federal renewable energy funding.

In announcing that funding, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said it was the “largest amount that the Department of Energy has awarded to tribes for energy projects.”

A total of $366 million is being released for a variety of projects in 20 states and 30 Tribal Nations, with all of those projects centered on building clean energy deployment in rural and remote areas.

The funding was folded into the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and will take on everything from building microgrids for community health centers to constructing hydroelectricity facilities.

Granholm said the funding is part of a larger Energy Department initiative to help “revitalize communities across America,” while also “ensuring thriving businesses, reliable access to clean energy, and exciting new economic opportunities, now and for generations to come.”

Exactly $8 million is going for the building of solar-powered battery-based systems in both Navajo and Hopi communities in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah.

A community solar project for the Hopi Nation in Arizona is in line for $9.1 million in funding; while a microgrid project in Arivaca, Arizona, among other locations, is getting part of a big $45.2 million in funding.

Another microgrid project at Fort Lupton in northern Colorado is receiving $6.1 million in an effort, according to the Energy Department, to “increase the reliability of the municipal water treatment plant and replacing the aging diesel generator.”

A press release from the Energy Department said that the projects upon completion will create “safer, more resilient communities,” while enhancing Tribal sovereignty and delivering “new economic opportunities in every pocket of the nation.”

​By Garry Boulard

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