What resources have helped you navigate the Inflation Reduction Act's climate $$ funds?

@Brett Cease
Thanks Brett! 

I'd love to get my organization https://www.QuitCarbon.com added to your resources list - we provide free home electrification planning and handholding, including rebate and incentive optimization, for single-family homeowners and small multifamily buildings in California (with more states being added soon). 

Also, you may care to refer folks to https://www.quitcarbon.com/residential-electrification-assistance-programs where we maintain a list of programs like ours across the USA and around the world!

Yes. QuitCarbon is great. We had them speak at our local electrification faire in Berkeley. Another good CA org is The Switch is On.

@Brett Cease Here's a great new resource from the EPA, a Climate Action Funding Fair. 

"The fair is a virtual series of events designed to assist states, local governments, Tribes, and territories to effectively identify, navigate, and prepare to leverage the many federal funding opportunities available as they develop climate action plans as required under EPA’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grant (CPRG) program. Attendees will gain a better understanding of the many funding opportunities available to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as how they may interact to achieve greater outcomes.  

After an exciting welcome keynote, each of the 90 – 120 minute sessions will include agency-specific presentations, a panel discussion, and a Q&A session. All the sessions will be recorded and available for viewing after the event."
 

@Brett Cease I see that the timeframe for availability of rebates now says 2024. On many sites, (Rewiring America, RMI), the date used to be Fall 2023 and then Late 2023. What do we know about where the rebate-income-checking software is being written and what’s up with that?
 

Hi @Judy Davis.  Every state's energy office is working with the US Department of Energy to establish programs and paperwork to make sure applicants qualify for the up-front rebates.  Those are expected to be completed sometime between late 2023 and early 2024, with some states being a bit quicker than others, but that's all we know right now.

Additional resources for tribal communities especially: 

In Community, Jade Begay, Policy and Advocacy Director  www.ndncollective.org  Defend. Develop. Decolonize.  Watch the NDN Collective Manifesto Video

Evergreen Action has a new report outlining ways to bring clean electricity to rural areas. Rural co-ops supply electricity to over 40 million Americans, or about 12% of the population, including 92% of counties stuck in persistent poverty. 

But they're often stuck in long-term contracts with coal power plants. As a result, they've lagged behind the rest of the country in transitioning to clean energy sources. That's a detriment to their customers because not only does burning coal generate dangerous air pollution and adverse health effects, it's also more expensive than replacing it with clean cheap solar and wind energy. 

1. USDA’s Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program, providing $9.7 billion in competitive grants and loans for renewable energy systems that eliminate aging, obsolete, and expensive infrastructure. This program has an upcoming deadline of September 15, 2023.

2. The Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) program, offering up a total of $1 billion in partially-forgivable loans for renewable energy projects. This program has an upcoming deadline of September 29, 2023.

3. Direct pay clean energy tax credits, including the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) and Production Tax Credit (PTC).

4. Additional clean energy tax credit bonus adders, such as the energy community adder, domestic content adder, and low-income adder.

5. The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment (EIR) program, which offers guaranteed loans to help retool, repower, repurpose, or replace uneconomic fossil fuel energy infrastructure in favor of clean energy.

6. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Grants, which is open to states, Tribes, municipalities, and air pollution

The EPA has also proposed new clean power plant regulations, and so rural co-ops would be smart to plan ahead accordingly and take advantage of these federal funding opportunities. Doing so would be a win-win-win, cutting costs for their customers and improving air quality and people's health in the process of reducing climate pollution.

There have been lots of good stories about the Inflation Reduction Act's 1-year anniversary and the successes it's had so far. For example, Canary Media nicely covered the manufacturing jobs created in the USA since its passage: 

More than 100 new clean energy manufacturing facilities or factory expansions were announced in the U.S. since President Biden signed the law last August, adding up to nearly $80 billion in new investment

But as great as it is to see all that manufacturing job creation, there's a lot more to the IRA than just domestic manufacturing. E2.org maintains a more comprehensive database of all IRA-related projects. Many of those are manufacturing facilities, but they also list new clean energy projects like solar farms; research, training, and investments; and new recycling facilities, for example. And as we know, the deployment of clean electricity sources like solar farms will be accelerated if we can succeed with our clean energy permitting reform policy area.

It might be a worthwhile activity to peruse their map (interactive version available at the above link) and become familiar with the new clean energy economy projects in your area. I learned about new expansions of solar and EV manufacturing facilities in my area, for example! 🤓

Another component of the IRA is of course one of our favorites – building electrification and efficiency. Tax credits are available for various home electrification upgrades, and the process to set up the upfront rebates is making progress.  Right now the ball is in states' courts, as they design programs with the Department of Energy to demonstrate that applicants qualify for the rebates. The quickest states may have those programs finalized and rebates available by the end of this year, with additional states rolling out their programs into 2024. As a reminder, we have a training page detailing those incentives, including a slide deck so folks can educate their communities about them! The URL for the slides is included in the recording under the Watch tab of the training page.

Despite all of these successes, the IRA still won't be enough to meet America's Paris commitments. That will take additional policies, and a carbon price would be the most effective complementary solution. But in the meantime, the IRA has been very effective in generating domestic clean energy manufacturing investments, and we're expecting to see a boom in clean electricity project deployments (especially if we succeed with permitting reform), and also in home electrification and efficiency improvements 🤓

Inflation Reduction Act Community Change Grants Program

NOW OPEN!

EPA’s new Environmental and Climate Justice Community Change Grants program (Community Change Grants) has announced a Notice of Funding Opportunity for approximately $2 billion dollars in Inflation Reduction Act funds in environmental and climate justice activities to benefit disadvantaged communities through projects that reduce pollution, increase community climate resilience, and build community capacity to address environmental and climate justice challenges. These place-based investments will be focused on community-driven initiatives to be responsive to community and stakeholder input. They are designed to deliver on the transformative potential of the IRA for communities most adversely and disproportionately impacted by climate change, legacy pollution, and historical disinvestments.

On this page:

• Is My Organization Eligible
• Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO)
• Technical Assistance and Resources
• Engagement Opportunities

https://www.epa.gov/inflation-reduction-act/inflation-reduction-act-community-change-grants-program