And welcome everyone. My name is Troy mix. I'm Associate Director at the University of Delaware as Institute for Public Administration. You are here for recovered Delaware roundtable number 12. We're focused in on the general topic of clean energy, joined by Jim Purcell from energized Delaware, who's going to have a presentation for you on the empowerment grant and other programs energized Delaware. That's going to take the bulk of our time. We're going to have a broader discussion about clean energy as well, and we look forward to your engagement in this session with me today from the University of Delaware, Khalid Willard, and more than Cohen who have been engaged in the recovered Delaware project from the beginning. You can see this. There are 12 sessions, so we've been at this officially one year in terms of bringing these monthly roundtable such sessions focused on a variety of recovery topics. And as we get move forward in recovery and we have an infrastructure bill and place. A lot of our sessions recently have focused in on kind of grant funding opportunities and thinking through how you can make best use of those in your community. And that's what a lot of what we're going to talk about today, and that's what I see a lot of our future sessions focusing in on as we move forward. So I'm going to just provide a few introductory slides on this event. Everyone can see my slides. Okay. So recover Delaware initiative for those who have not joined in the past. We started again with these sessions about a year ago. At this point. And the idea was to bring people together to talk about a lot of uncertainty happening around kind of pandemic recovery, natural disaster recovery funding opportunities that came about as a result of those disasters. And how are we going to move forward in our communities or in the region. So these opportunities have been monthly sessions to sort through uncertainty, connect with people who are thinking through opportunities that our community provide some leads on direct assistance opportunities. And overall kinda build the resource capabilities of the communities in Delaware to kind of respond to the immediate disasters, immediate recovery issues, and think through building a more resilient future for the communities and for the region. So we'd like to kind of focus in on a particular Recovery Challenge today. Energy, clean energy is that our recovery challenge. Think about it and kind of broader bit big picture terms and then narrow in on what can you do to kinda get started thinking through issues and opportunities in your community? We like these to be interactive sessions. We have some Pauline included. It's a small enough group today that you can do polling. And we can also have people unmute and ask questions directly as it makes sense or provide your comments. They don't always have to be questions. Last few sessions have focused in on the infrastructure investment and jobs Act or the bi-partisan infrastructure law, whichever phrasing you do you prefer. Reality is there's a lot of funding opportunities, spread. It costs a lot of infrastructure categories. The process for getting those funds out into the community and what community means in some cases is not entirely straightforward. Lot of confusion over and there will continue to be natural confusion over kind of terminology, eligibility for different programs, liability of potential applications and the timelines at play. And there's going to be capacity challenges as groups that may not have considered going after federal funding opportunities seek to do so. Now that there's a lot bigger pie to v hat over the next several years as the infrastructure law rules out and has implemented. We've been trying to focus in on, on this topic, provide some kind of framework fraction and a time to kinda get together and talk about these grant opportunities. Little refresher for those who have been here before and kind of take what we've been trying to present with partners on these sessions. The basics are there's gotta be some existing programs with more funding, does will be kind of easier to tap. Those will be coming out sooner than kind of the new programs that are competitive or new formula for programs that might arise that from the infrastructure program. There's going to be wide variety of eligibility and application procedures. So some programs build on existing things that locals may have tapped in the past. Others are going to be new programs that are going to present new challenges. So thinking through how locals and I use that term pretty generally communities, organizations can think about moving forward. There's gotta be some opportunities that are targeted for your particular types of organizations. Identifying those opportunities is a big part of the game. Thinking about not just doing it yourself, engaging with local, regional stakeholders, partnership opportunities. That we've got a non-profit organization here today presenting that's a perfect example of not just the municipality going after grant opportunity, but thinking of ways to leverage with existing programs that are in place at the state, local, and community level. And then even if there's not opportunities that are going to come directly to you, our community organization. There's going to be a lot going on at different levels of government. At the state level, for example, working with the state to identify particular funding opportunities and advocating for investment opportunities that you see that are going to make a difference in your community. Those are some of the ways we can begin to kind of think through what's going to be coming down the pike over the next several years and how your community can be better position to make best, take best advantage of those opportunities. Today we want to kind of look at clean energy. Scratch the surface a little bit in terms of what some of the funding opportunities are. Narrowly focus in, not narrowly, but most of our time focused in on energized Delaware opportunities, but provide a little bit of context on what the infrastructural law has to say about energy to get us started. And think about how you might start thinking about taking advantage of some of the energized Delaware opportunities and maybe leveraging those to think about some of the infrastructural opportunities as well around energy. And so we want to get started with some of the interactive portions here. Morgan, are you prepared to give a little brief overview of Poll Everywhere as I pull up our slope, our first polling question. The community more than Thank you, Troy. So Poll Everywhere is going to be the program that we utilize to facilitate the interactive portion of these round tables. So you have two options, which is, which I assume you've got a Poll Everywhere.com and enter Troy mix work by five, or you can simply just text frame its work by 5222333, which is the option that we recommend as it will be easier to go back and forth between your cell phone and your computer screen, most likely. So those links will be in the chat shortly. Our first question, we got one respondent so far is what community organization are you representing today? So you've got the town of Wyoming. Thank you for joining today and instructions to join or in the chat. So this is as much to hear where you're from, which of course we're interested to know, but also to get you using the polling. So we'll give a couple, a minute or two here to get some responses. So we know you were clued into this portion of the program to that partnership, that other Estuary. Now the town of Wyoming, IPA high at the people I should know you. Dover can't MPO. Thanks for joining. Such as county community development housing. Now the Dover, Kent County MPO energized Delaware and we're glad you're here. Otherwise, the program will be difficult today. Thank you for joining UD folks. Okay. Hurry. And I think I'm going to go back to the presentation. Is that correct column? Then we'll come back with a couple more polling questions in a minute or two here. So column, you are up to belief. And thank you. Try. So first, just to cover some basic, basic level stuff here about clean energies that were on the same page and kinda go into this discussion. So we'll take it, we'll take a look at the big picture of both clean energy in Delaware and also the funding opportunities that we've got as well. And then we'll go from energized Delaware. So to start off, most of Delaware is energy consumption comes from natural gas. As is. The state has several power plants, primarily produce electricity using natural gas, and this kind of reflects it a pretty big shift that's occurred recently as coal has been based out and we've switched over to natural gas. A lot of the natural gas does end up coming from out of state as well. And as you can see on the graph here, it, as of now, the production in terms of natural gas fired plants is significantly higher than what we see from large-scale solar plants or other types of renewable energy. And oftentimes, especially, I saw some, uh, some people were from the Kent County area since it's County area. Sure. You're well aware that in recent past couple months and years, there's been some controversy over whether farmland should be used for solar panels on these large-scale production. In the meantime, as that's happened, a lot of the states production of solar energy actually comes from. It's smaller scale production that you would maybe see, maybe on top of a residential house, for example. And so that according to the Energy Information Administration, actually the amount of energy that's generated from small-scale production in renewables in Delaware is actually double the amount that's produced in large scale commercial plants. So. As well. Also considering in the future, the potential for wind power. Probably not as much on, onshore, But there are some companies exploring offshore production sites. So that might be an option for the future. But as of now, solar is definitely the leading clean energy solution that we've been working with in Delaware for the most part. And so when we are considering clean energy and the long-term, there are just a bunch of important factors that act crazy. The availability of usage of clean energy solutions. So first, legislative mandates like the IEP and the oval energy portfolio, renewable energy portfolio standard Act, require that providers get a certain percentage of their energy from the energy sources. Additionally, innovation and clean energy has helped me. Clean energy more cost effective. And electric vehicles are a really good example of this, though, upfront costs can be completely see the fuel efficiency, I'll pieces those of gas-powered vehicles. And that can translate to consumer is saving more money. And for this specific topic, if you'd like to learn a little bit more information, there will be a, an IP. Ip is boosting it EV charging infrastructure. But Ann Arbor Rock on May 20 bit and the link is going to be posted in the chat. So moving along, there are a number of opportunities for funding to support green and energy at the state and local level for municipalities. These grant opportunities are depended upon which electric provider, I mean, it's not he is covered by. And projects will also likely to require coordination between multiple stakeholders. So it's important to have these conversations sooner rather than later. There are a ton of opportunities out there, most of which could be down on the dendrite renewable energies is that stage. We think that directly into the PowerPoint. Otherwise, contact your provider directly or learn a little bit word from energized, still worthy, we'll hear from later presentation. And in addition to some of the state level programs that are administered by den wreck and energize Delaware. There's also some federal opportunities that have come through through the infrastructure bill and that are pre-existing as well. And a lot of the funding that's come through the infrastructure bill goes to research and directly to utility providers. But there are a few programs at the federal level that municipalities, other governments may consider. One of which is smarting, Smart Grid investment brand, which was started in 2009 through the Recovery Act and it was reauthorized for another three or five years with 3 billion in total funding over the course of those five years. There's not much information out yet about that grant. But there will be soon. Another one is the preventing outages and enhancing resilience of the electric current grant, which yes, is quite a mouthful, but it's going to be $5 billion over the next five years. And this is a new programs as it's rolling out sort of right now. And the federal organizations are kind of figuring out how they're going to administer that. So stay tuned on that one. The EV charging, refueling grants, as we mentioned before. That's the EB topic is a big one in this infrastructure bill. There's funding that's going directly to the state and states in the process of kind of deciding a strategy for how to install those charging stations, where to install them. But there's also an additional set of funding set aside for projects that aren't at the state level. So like we said, IPA as a workshop but then wreck coming up at the end of May. And I highly recommend if you're interested in this topic as there's going to be a lot more information on it. And then there's also a pre-existing Program and the USDA Rural Energy for America program. And there's actually been some Delaware farms that have received awards from this program. So we got some experience with that happening in Delaware, as we can see. And this is something that isn't necessarily leveraged by municipality, but it helps in that process with commercial agriculture and things like that. And so ultimately, like Morgan said, a lot of these electric related infrastructure projects and issues require collaboration between a lot of different stakeholders. So if you've had an idea for what can be implemented, It's really important that we start having these conversations now and engaging with the stakeholders that so we can have a coordinated and organized effort behind these projects. Thank you, Colleen and Morgan. Before we get to Jim's presentation, a couple more polling questions just to kind of benchmark conversation for today. Get a sense of where people are coming from. You should see the next question up on your screen now. How has interests? Availability of clean energy change senior community over the last decade? So power of the conversations you've been monitoring kind of evolved or how it's a regeneration or discussions around the United tree changed over the last decade? It's obviously a broad question. But if you've already text editor response, you can just text to that number again in your response should show up. If not the information to join this in the chat. And if anybody just want to verbalize, just feel free to unmute and let us know what you're thinking. Thicker, probably electric vehicles are always under discussion setting. That's what we need. Ev vehicles were charging station is going to be located. Solar installation for residential. It's been hot topic everywhere I think including Delaware, can get about ten more seconds for any other responses to come in. Anybody want to have something on their mind, they want to just shout out. You don't have to shout, but you can unmute and speak softly if you like. Lot more people with solar panels. So just kinda seen it in our community as it's rolled out, even if people are talking about it, we can see our neighbors, but with panels on our roof or in their yard, things like that. Okay. And our last polling question for this session, there's sex section of the program here. What types of energy projects are needed, tree or community. So when you think about needs, immediate, long-term, what types of things are needed in your community? And again, invite you to respond to the poll. Unmute and chat verbally if you like. So some sense of mandating solar for new construction, making it more part of new construction. Balanced approach. Some awareness education about what anybody want to expand on that, what you mean by educational awareness workshops. Kind of imagine what it might be. I would say for me it was not an energy expert. You don't know what you don't know necessarily. So to know kinda what projects might make sense, you need to kind of understand what the options are. Educate yourself on one of the applications are different approaches. So good, I appreciate y'all engaging in that, giving us a little bit of information as we move forward. Here's another one coming and reducing costs for clean energy installations. So not just making, not just prioritizing that with words, but really making it possible with incentives that make it make sense with new construction or retrofits, Whatever may make sense and assertive community. So I'm going to go back to the presentation here. And I'm going to invite Jim Purcell, who is Director of Development and programs at energized Delaware, to take a view through a few slides he has prepared and is prepared to deliver on the Empowerment Greg program. But Jim, thanks for joining us today. Hey Joy, it's great to be with you. It's great to be with colleagues from the University of Delaware MPA program. It's always good to come back. I'm glad to be here. I'll share with you a little bit information on, but first of all, and start off with kind of a definition. The last 12 months, your, your forums of concentrating on recovery. And that's, and that's so important after what we do it with the pandemic. But I'll, I'll leave with you, start with a definition. What is resilience? So, resilience is the ability to identify risk and build the capacity to maintain or rapidly regained functionality and vitality in the face of chronic stressors or severe disturbances. There's a short term resiliency planning enables communities to better address extreme weather or other high impact events. And the longer-term resilience is community resiliency around the ability to adapt and thrive despite changing climate, environmental, social, and economic conditions that are barriers to us. So I just wanted to start with that. We are here with the empowerment grant and energized Delaware to help create resiliency. Moving forward. Next slide, please. So just a little history. So energized Delaware is has been around for awhile. It's been around for about 12 years. It was formed as a non-profit through legislation. And are the chair of that organization with with Senator Harris packed our continues to be our chair. We have an oversight board of public and private officials. And of course, energized Delaware was really set up to be the kind of the one-stop shop for energy efficiency programs and services for all Delaware begins to reduce their carbon footprint. All the funding for that comes through through what was the Regional Greenhouse Gas. And those are familiar that we, as Delaware, participate with 11 other states. And we receive funding for the emissions of carbon in these states. And so energized Delaware has control about 65% of those funds. And so MIT, all of the programs that we run. For Delaware Aryans are through that funding source. So I will talk a little bit on the tail end about some of those types of resources. But I wanted to focus right now on the empowerment grants. So everybody knows that we are have been providing general rebate programs and loan programs and energy efficiency programs across the board. For residential properties, for commercial properties, for our non-profit community, for a farm communities, for municipalities all across the state. What we wanted to do with the empowerment grant is to go deeper. That was made possible by the merger of Delmarva power and epsilon power. When that happened a few years ago, the Public Service Commission and I had asked them to kickback funds to the state of Delaware to help with energy efficiency, especially in low income communities in the Delmarva power service territory. So that's kind of where we started about three years ago. And so fast. Can I advance the next slide, please? So why is that? That program was made possible because of we needed to do some more work and then let those lower and moderate income communities. So we needed to create some equity. So equity is about efficiency programs. We want to improve not only the energy efficiency of people, but also improve the health of people in their homes and in their businesses. And we want to create jobs. We want to focus in on low-income families, renters, people of color across the state. And we want, we know that climate change is going to disproportionately affect some communities more than others. Next slide, please. So as we, as we look at the kind of the cross sector benefits, we all realize that, you know, we want to ease that energy burden. We want to lower those monthly bills, but we know that there are some cross sector things that happen as well when we're working with energy, health, housing, and job creation. We are in an essence, improving the housing quality of people's homes through better health safety. Energy efficiency and clean energy promotes better health in our communities. It's also about local economic development. We are anticipating a lot of new jobs being created through the clean and renewable energy energy industry moving forward. And then we also want to lessen the power used. We want to reduce the environmental pollutants and our community. We want to be good environmental stewards. We want to improve the health and we also want to create efficiency in our transmission of power. Next slide, please. So that's, that's why we started the empowerment grant programs. So this shows you the fact that three, that three or four years ago, these entities came together to create the empowerment grant. So we were allotted $4 million in the merger settlement. And so will the last three years. We have provided $4 million of funding to various non-profit agencies and in groups to concentrate on energy efficiency in those Delmarva power service territory's. Here you see our 2021 Annual Report. You want to see more about all of our different programs that we provided. We do have two reports on our website, empowerment grant DE.org or energy equity fund.org. Next slide, please. So what are we trying to impact here? So we know that if we are clean, were efficient or affordable, that sustainable energy can't be a tool for impact in our communities. And so instead of really looking at the, the original empower, my grant was just to ease energy burn, right? For low-income into more of a power service territory. It's very restricted, very, very much focused in on, on what needed to be done there. We have now created a fund which we call the energy equity fund. That is where the Delaware Community Foundation, which is going to concentrate on these five areas. First of all, we want to continue to ease the energy burden for low and moderate income families. And we're not just talking about low income as as it is described in our past grant, we are really elevating and looking at more moderate income as well. We realize that the pandemic has really put a lot of people through the crack as fault fallen through the crack and they have not been able to to have services. So we are looking at 80 percent SMI or lower in terms of helping low and moderate income families. We also know in working with the health care community that energy efficiency in safe hands are so, so important when we look at the social determinants of health. And how it affects the people living in our communities, how it affects the people that are employed in our, in our workforce. We also know that we need to do more in terms of helping businesses, organizations, especially small businesses. And as it relates to the empowerment rant on working with minority on businesses so that we make sure that those businesses are energy efficient. They're green, they become more sustainable, that they are able to thrive as we become more resilient in our, in our economy. Next, we have access to clean and renewable energy. So everybody knows that solar is out there. There's a lot of great new technology that is out there, but it's not very affordable, right? It is coming down in price. Batteries are coming down, enterprise, EVs are coming to enterprise solar installation is coming down in price, but it's still a not, not opportunity for low and moderating come communities to get into that bell right now has a QME, any solar bill. And that is going to open up the door to many, many organizations, municipalities, neighborhoods across the state to get in, not in, into just the residential solar on top of people ruse, but actually identifying abandoned spaces, brand spaces that can be used to create cooperative arrangements in any community to share community solar. Bailey, I mean, all of this of course, is going to create jobs. But not only is it going to create jobs, we also need to make sure that we we train and we educate and we sustain, and we place people in these jobs longer term. We don't want just to have this be a project-based. We want this to be an building industry here in Delaware. Next slide place. So part of the empowerment grand is really being aligned and informed and connected with everything else that's going on in Delaware. So we have been engaged in community engagement and collaboration with various cross sectors like the housing sector, the workforce sector, the energy sector, the health sector. We have been very diligent in our resource development and grant-making as well. So through the empowerment grant, the, the energized Delaware board has seeded the current empowerment grant with $2 million to start this energy equity fund. So that it has enabled us to broaden our focus and and to look at several other grant opportunities. But at the same time, it's also allowed us to convene more people together to talk about the issues of clean energy, energy efficiency, job creation, health, and in our communities. And it's also enabled us to identify best practices in research and evaluation. So we were very much a line with a lot of the federal and social and economic recovery efforts. We in fact, were able to bring in about $2.5 million of RPA funds to continue to do energy efficiency projects in different parts of the state were very much keyed into the infrastructure bill as it comes out. But I, as I, as I talk about that, I also want to frame it. It doesn't have to be all public dollars and that's why the Empowerment Fund exists today. We want to be able to leverage those public dollars with private sector dollars. So in addition to energize Delaware seating itself and providing this opportunity, we're also in we're also out there fundraising. And so in the last year we've been able to raise about almost $500 thousand in additional corporate and foundation funding. And we hope to write raise an additional million and a half dollars in the next year that will go to so to to kind of sustain and complement the funds that have already been put in to the energy equity fund. Again as war, instead, we are aligned with the Delaware climate action plan in terms of what they want to do. And we do have a proven record for managing these funds over the last three years. Next slide, please. So this this guy just talks about Bechdel, our action plan that Morgan and calling had brought up. We know that in terms of equity, households with higher energy burns are more likely to remain in cycles of poverty. So that's why the empowerment grant exist so that we can go deeper with all these different types of programs that energized Delaware provides to all Delaware. Ian's next slide, please. So where are we targeting this new empowerment grants? So we are definitely want to make sure we're targeting investment where the state is already targeting investment. So we definitely are looking at those opportunities and that everybody knows the opportunity zones that have been around for, I guess the last 45 years. Many municipalities, many areas across the state. I think there's 22 of them. At this point, this one only shows a few of them. But we want to target those investments there. And we also want to target aren't those investments in other rural areas of the state as well. Looking at minorities, looking at urban, looking at municipalities, to faith community, and of course, our non-profit community as well. Next slide, please. So energy burden in Delaware is fairly high. It is higher than, than in some of the other parts of the country. But the biggest thing to focus in on here is that the lower your income, the higher that energy burden is. And that's why the empowerment grant is targeting those people that are under two or 300% of the poverty level. And so we need to bring that down. I mean, the average is about four to 5% of your annual income. You can see if you're earning, if you're 50 percent below the poverty level, they are spending 38% of their income on utilities and energy. Next slide, please. So the causes of energy burden, they're out there. We know that its location is geography, its climate, its housing characteristics. We talk about clean and renewable energy. The most important factor that we can do to stem energy burden is actually energy efficiency. So whether is ation of our homes and that is the key number one thing that Dan rack has put forward in our climate action plan as the key and number one thing that energized Delaware is doing not only are all Delaware and energetic energized our program, but also through the empowerment Grant. Next slide, please. So the first area that I really wanted to focus in on is energy efficiency, health, and housing. So we had the opportunity last year to have two really good forums, online forums that included the lieutenant governor and included several stakeholders in the health and housing sectors. Regime. A. Dixon was also one of our moderators as well. And in through those diet, through that dialogue, we kind of understood that there, there was not an alignment between the health, housing, and energy. That everybody was doing something different and nobody was really complementing each other as to what needs to be done to have an impact and all those different areas. So this slide kind of shows you that just by doing some insulation, by my improving heating systems, by improving ventilation systems, by improving and those types of systems. We have, our can have an impact on the health and safety of our homes and our businesses. So we, we want to focus some of our grants moving forward on the synergy between those areas. So that's why we, we had these forums last year and that's why we're continuing to push this as a grant opportunity moving forward. Next slide, please. Greeting access to renewable energy. We talked about that, that we have a community solar bill. We want to try to foster entrepreneurial efforts in this area, not only for residential but for commercial as well. We want to create diversity and equity and energy sectors. We want to educate and advocate for underserved communities that may need additional technical assistance and additional funding to help make that happen in their communities. And we really want to pursue this climate resiliency model where we look at the environmental impact and the social and economic impact, a clean and renewable energy and our communities. Next slide, please. We are. Finally here you look at building a green workforce. You now it's going to take jobs to make all this happen and the jobs are not there right now. The job that the training is not there right now. The the the the placements are not there right now. We have a lot of work to do. And hopefully through the impairment rats and through some other investments by the federal government, the state government, and the private sector, we will start to see some of these clean and renewable energy jobs that the training programs created and built out, the certificate programs built out and the placement of, of people all across sectors and these types of jobs. And to make sure that those jobs are sustainable and good paying moving forward. Next slide, please. So that brings us to the the grant opportunities that the impairment Grande has. And so in this cycle, we had we had just launched start this this past cycle back and April. We are on our deadline is actually May 20th for the two larger grants. Our largest grant is the Empower ecosystem grant. Nets really between $250,000 million. It's a cross-sector collaboration grant with many, many stakeholders and hopefully hitting all five of the areas that we are looking to our mission. So that I spoke about earlier, the empower neighborhood grant. It's just a smaller grant really focused in on maybe a neighborhood or a small municipality or a community center around the same premise of kind of bringing in all of those different missions that the impairment grant has talked about. The file brand here is the Empire and efficiency grant, and this is going to be an ongoing application. There is no deadline for this right now. We will continue to fund projects as long as the funding exist. And those are designed to be kind of onetime projects to encourage awareness, to really encourage emerging technologies, renewable energy, transportation, climate resiliency. And it could be seen as a planning grant. It could be seen as direct installs for, for businesses and for non-profits and for faith communities to help improve their energy efficiency. The final one that I'll just meet, you mentioned briefly that we haven't really launch discipline yacht is Arif. So my heart and resilient hangs campaign. So everybody knows that installation and roofs and really good structure of our hounds is very important. So GIF Adele, a roofing company here in Delaware, has contributed funds to the empowerment grant to help run a route from the heart campaign which would basically through a nomination process, select the needy family in Delaware to receive not only a new roof, but all new energy upgrades in the hand up to about $20 thousand. And so that's probably going to kick off here this, this summer sometime. Next slide, please. I just want to share it. We're all about results, anticipated results and learnings. We want to make sure that we are getting energy savings that were really have an impact on our communities. That were really curving the energy burden, the health and safety issues, the workforce development issues. This by far is just the beginning of the types of metrics that we will be collecting from brand teas as we grant them funds and then being able to evaluate our impact on the community. Next slide, please. So these are some municipal energy Improvement Act to activities that are possibly could be used. I'm going to be doing a presentation and actually to the league of local governments on May 26th. And I'll talk more about these at that, at that point. Next slide, please. Next slide. Next slide. Okay. So this is where I am, kind of wrap it up, but I want to tell you about some really interesting things that are going on with energized Delaware as that as a parent company. So, you know, as I told you, we'd get funds from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. And so those funds have increased over the last 18 months to 24 months. And because of that, you know, our board and our leadership here is looking to roll out some very new programs and improve and enhance some of the programs that are already going on right now. And we're calling it our Reggie challenge, regional greenhouse challenge. So some of the things I wanted to share with you before I leave today is that we're really looking at some really groundbreaking things. One of the things that I can share with you in that course, this is, this is all going to be built out over the next six months to a year. So it's stuck in it. It's going to roll out, but going to be immediate is solely for schools. We realized that we got a lot of brand new schools that are being built right now. And there's no real, you know, there's Rona if we want to make sure that they're so, we want to make sure that they're connected to clean and renewable energy. And said there's no real incentive for these school districts at the state level or through capital cost to help do that. So energized down, we're going to step up with 15 million dollars over the next three years to help some of these schools, I, existing schools and new construction build in solar to their schools. We're also going to do the same thing for public libraries as well. We got a number of public libraries that have been built in the last few years. And we want to provide some funding to do that as well. And we estimate that about $3 million or so. We also want to and this will probably get the interests to some of our municipal folks here. We want to look at the electric vehicle fleet grant opportunity, especially for local governments. We've got some more research to do on this, but we really, we want to be able to provide some funding in order to help by EVs for our municipalities. Put EV chargers in for them to use. And so we're looking to budget about $5 million into that program over the next year or so. So more to come on on, on that one as well. I'll maybe I'll be able to share that more at the Delaware League of local governments. In addition to some of those new programs, all of our existing programs that we're really going to ratchet them up. So are entered energy star program. We're going to increase the incentives there. We're going to increase the incentives on our rebates for our energy audit programs. We're also going to be looking at a new program for efficient heater and AC repair for low income individuals were going to increase multiple family program incentives. And then we're going to get into the small business area. So we do a lot of great work right now with medium and large sized businesses in terms of loans to help them become more energy efficient, we don't have a really strong Small Business Program. So we are in the process of building out a small business program, which bears are residential energy audit program and rebates program. So a lot of great news coming from energized Delaware in terms of r existing programs, new programs coming online. And of course, what I was able to bring to you today, and that's the empowerment grant. So true, I appreciate the opportunity being more than happy to take some questions. Sure thing. And I'm going to launch a polling question, which is just an open call for questions here. So if you have questions you want to text in, feel free to do so. Feel free to unmute and ask. I'm going to get started with one kind of big picture question. I think Jim, which is the grants through the empowerment grant program that you showed, what do you envision in terms of typical applicant CRD, like typical partner groups that might seep funds through these programs. So yeah, that's a great question, Troy. I mean, we we are through our last Brant and most of the the grantees were non-profit agencies. We had the privilege of supporting Habitat for Humanity for one and doing it in a refrigerator replacement program across the state. Very successful. And an insulated skirting program which is provided manufacture manufactured hands with needed skirting. We've also worked with senior centers. We you know, we did not work with any municipalities in our past cycle, but we would more than happy work municipalities, firehouses, community organizations, collaborative groups of, of associations representing neighborhoods are parts of the state. We really want to push the edge of the envelope when it, when we talk about matching our funds with other existing funds as well. So for instance, why we talked about health is that we were able to go out and we got actually got a grant from high mark to help support that healthy home, healthy and energy home initiative. So we would challenge are everybody that's out there to if they're interested. And the energy component. And they have a health component or they have a how a housing component or they have a workforce component that we can merge those funds together to do a greater to do greater good. Who else has questions for Jim? So we've got a couple of municipal maybe four to six municipalities represented here. If I do my math right. In terms of that municipal role in applying for a grant or assembling the partners. I mean, what do you think that might look like? I know you said you haven't had them apply, but if you had one apply in a couple of months, what might that look like? Yeah, I'm I'm I'm I'll address that. And I also would like to defer to the attorney to frame I who actually is Ahmed on the call today? He's our executive director and he's the one who came up with the EV charging idea. But i'll I'll talk a little bit about the empowerment advance with the impairment grant. I mean, we weren't happy to partner with the municipalities to go into their current facilities, go through energized Delaware to get an energy audit done. Look at some opportunities where the empowerment grant may be able to come in and help improve the efficiency of buildings that are serving the public will also look at that. In addition to EV chargers for municipalities. Or if the municipality wanted to put EV charges throughout the the the community. I mean, that's something that we could help out with as well. Any kind of conservation educational programs. We and we, we work very, very closely with our grantees. So I mean, we don't we don't leave you to do the grant application by yourself. We really hold your hand. Provide you a lot of technical assistance. So don't be afraid to apply. And feel like you're going to be out there by yourself. So but Tony, I'm at a toy. Can I defer to tiny? Sure. Absolutely. Hello, everybody. Thanks, Jim. Okay. Could you guys hear me okay? Yep. Great. Yeah. On the municipal program, we know that ten rack and the climate folks do have a program, so we just want to supplement that and put a little bit more money into the effort and perhaps fill any gaps that they can't fill. So that's the idea. In rough numbers. For this upcoming fiscal year. We've put aside $5 million and are planning on putting your side. I'll go to my board next week, but they've heard this twice now, so they agree. And the $5 million comes from simply the idea that ten vehicles plus chargers for a municipal fleet would be about $500 thousand if we can do 10 of those in the next fiscal year through open application process. That's what we're doing. We've, you know, we do still have to develop the application, make sure it plays nicely with the state program. We're open to new ideas. If anybody wants a shoot us an email, does it have to be just fleet vehicles? That's where we're leaning. But if you have other ideas, will be happy to talk. But these are not public charges. We want these municipalities, they use them. The idea is that is, the benefit will be shared by all the residents through savings. Me and they would be flat out grants. So we're not looking for anything back. Right? I'm going to go to the last polling question we had and I invite responses here, I buy additional response questions if either Tony, your gym here, but then I'm also going to turn this question to Tony. Jim said the question for folks to consider as well. What else do you need to know about some of these funding opportunities? What prevents you from applying? And to Jim and Tony, I guess, what kind of gaps do you see in terms of education and awareness that you're hoping to fill to kinda get more interest in getting that project ideas out there. Yeah, i'll I'll go ahead and take that first. So like I said before, the impairment grant is not about just putting a grant out there and just having anybody apply. We want to be engaged with those who are interested. So if you are interested and you're just scared of the grant process and all that. You don't be scared. I mean, we we have prided ourselves over the last three years of working very intently with those who want to apply to figure out what's the best approach that provide technical assistance in writing your grant week? We will have also consultants that provide that assistance as well. So we provide that on a fun in as you're applying. And then once if you are selected for the grant, you will continue to be part of a technical assistance. We're not just going to let you go. We want to make sure that you're able to implement what you have proposed and that you're able to collect data and collect impact to show that you have had an impact. And so we will be holding your hand through that whole process so you won't be alone there until the question. Swaps that came in was where and how to start. So it sounds like potentially reach out to energize Delaware. Is that what you would say? Yes. Yes. So so energized Delaware.org is our is our website. The empowerment ground is empowerment grant BE.org. Are I guess Tony, did you want to give out a phone number? I'll give out your cell phone number. You can write on our website Energize Delaware.com. There's a contact e-mail that I get directly. That's one way. Our office phone number is 3028833038, and I'll put that in the chat box. But yeah, look at our website. I mean, we have over 20 different programs, so there's no way we can present them all. We'd be happy to come back in some capacity to talk about all the other things we're doing. I appreciate Jim just getting the word out about our new programs that we're calling our Reggie challenge. And again, most of these are the idea and the challenge programs is to get Reggie dollars out quickly too, isn't it to impact as many people as possible? And we thought doing that through municipalities, school districts, public colleges, libraries would be a good way to just get it jump started. And to empower may grant the E dot word is the other a website just for the grant side of things. And my number is 3027247033. Again, are too large. Grants are going to be deadline is next week on May 20th. But we do have that rolling grant application that will continue. We will have a fall cycle for the two larger grants, which will open sometime in October. And we would play on doing this in the spring and the fall of next year as well. Hopefully, we have a very good year and in terms of raising additional dollars to put into this fund. But it was started in good faith and with really good starting money from from the energized Delaware, the board, and of course, you know, are two years of attractiveness through the empowerment graph for Delmarva has really allowed us to kind of shake out, in, out and understand where the gaps are right now. And so we look forward to working with everyone. So to just supplement. Yeah, The question was where it has a Gibbs ready to go. He's got his applications. In terms of the programs. I talked about, new ones, probably check back in the early fall for our applications and where we're at all or rather programs are ready to go if you can. You can see them through our website. But in general, both for empowerment and for us. One of the things we pride ourselves in as being sort of nimble and be able to turn around things quickly and being very customer-friendly. So don't hesitate to approach any of us. Well, thank you, Jim, for your presentation today. I thank you, Tony for being available to field some questions and get your perspective on things. All these slides are going to be made available to people who registered. So if you didn't capture some of the links and contact info that was shared, There's that they're going to be repeated in communication for me with those slides, we are just about right at one o'clock, which is we try to make these one hour. The Pauline right now is open for evaluation. Feel free to send your responses on, on how we did today. That's the basic question. What could we do better? What topics would you like to hear about in the future? Just texts that to the the polling number you've been sending your responses to all on. We have upcoming event that was mentioned in partnership had done rec building an electrical electric vehicle fleet for your down. So right on, right on topic for some of the discussion here today, that's a free session on May 25th at ten AM. You can always reach out to me if you have any questions about these sessions. We don't have a roundtable scheduled for June yet. Doesn't mean there won't be one. But we've done 12. We might take a little short summer break and come back and reliable. We'll see where we are, where we are in a couple of weeks as, in terms of what topics make sense to cover. Really briefly, I just want to say this is the 12th session, so one year and it's graduation season around the University of Delaware. So we've got two graduates in the house here. Angelie Collin Willard's going to be earning his undergraduate degree in public policy. And Morton Cohen's going to be earning her MPA degree, Master of Public Administration degree. So they've been really a driving force for a lot of this work. So it's, it's made my job pretty easy and productive, I think. And by extension, they'd been working on real-world projects and hopefully bringing value to the community. So congratulations to them. Thank you from me and hopefully from you to them. But thank you all for joining today and reach out to Jim and Tony. If you have additional questions, reach out to me if you have feedback on today ideas for additional sessions. We want to continue to bring value on what's a pretty dynamic picture in terms of infrastructure grants, funding opportunities, things like that over the next several months. So thanks again. Looks like there's two hiring opportunities to job opportunities out there and energized Delaware. So I don't know who that's targeted to you, but Collin Morgan, keep your eyes open and we'll be back with you soon. And thanks again for your attention and participation today. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Thank you.

Recover Delaware Roundtable #12 - Energize Delaware + The Empowerment Grant

From Sarah Marshall May 11, 2022

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Featuring a presentation from Jim Purcell, Director of Development & Programs with Energize Delaware, this session focused on outlining opportunities to positively impact the socioeconomic position of thousands of Delawareans and promote climate resilience through the Empowerment Grant program. Powered by the Energy Equity Fund, the Empowerment Grant seeks to support impactful and innovative energy equity projects in underserved communities. Participants learned about the grant program and engage in conversation on opportunities to address energy needs in their communities.

This session is the latest in the Institute for Public Administration's Recover Delaware Roundtable series. Launched in partnership with the Delaware Emergency Management Agency, this series features conversations on economic trends, community needs, and opportunities impacting Delaware's ongoing recovery from the pandemic.

Tags: recoverydelawareenergygrant

Department Name: Institute for Public Administration
Date Established: May 11, 2022
Appears In: Institute for Public Administration

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