Clean energy projects in some of the most remote US communities—with populations under 10,000—will be eligible for a $1 billion Energy Department program advanced Wednesday.
The Energy Improvement in Rural or Remote Areas Program, established by the 2021 infrastructure law, will target funding to scale up energy projects pitched by utilities, local and tribal governments, nonprofits, and environmental groups.
The department unveiled a request for information seeking comments on how to structure the program.
“It actually allows us to get at the heart of rural America,” Katrina Pielli, engagement director for the office, told Bloomberg Law. “We’re really excited to see where this goes.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said in an August 2021 news release that the funding “will help Alaskan communities and Native villages to improve overall cost-effectiveness of energy generation, transmission or distribution systems, providing or modernizing electric generating facilities, and developing microgrids.”
The rural communities program comes as the department scales up its portfolio of large-scale demonstrations, which include a $7 billion regional hydrogen hub program launched last month in Pittsburgh.
New Endeavor
The Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, one of many agency offices set up following the infrastructure law’s passage, represents a new kind of endeavor for the department, which has long funded earlier-stage research and development instead of large-scale demonstrations.
The program hopes to build a project pipeline in a variety of remote communities—and take lessons learned and apply them across its portfolio, Pielli said.
“How can we leverage what we’re going to be doing in these smaller communities to then inform other demonstrations?” she said. “And then how do we take this to the private sector so the technology can be scaleable?”
In addition to improvements to electricity lines as well as microgrids and energy efficiency, the program targets projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants in rural areas.
It’s a broad mandate, and the department will use the RFI comments to inform program design, including future funding opportunity announcements and technical assistance, a spokesperson said.
“Risk in this context is going to look very different” than across the rest of the office’s portfolio, due to unique challenges of installing new technology in these communities, Pielli said.
Siting and permitting, workforce availability, and transporting technology to geographically remote communities will be central challenges the program will likely address, she said.
Coal Town Opportunities
The department also on Wednesday announced a notice of intent to fund $32 million in projects to recover rare earth metals and other critical minerals from coal waste.
The program is part of the Biden administration’s goal to build a domestic supply chain of minerals key to clean energy products such as solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, and hydrogen fuel cells.
Converting coal production waste into components of clean energy technology, the department stated in its notice of intent, can create good-paying jobs in communities that have historically produced fossil energy fuels and power.
The infrastructure law “is delivering an important opportunity for American leadership to produce critical minerals and materials—the very components needed to develop clean energy technologies,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement.
Read More: Remote Regions to Get $1 Billion for Clean Energy Projects (1)