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A successful regional collaboration to secure federal Inflation Reduction Act money in northeast Ohio has inspired a new, ongoing effort to help cities, counties, utilities and community groups coordinate on clean energy.
Three Cleveland-area foundations last month announced the launch of Power Up Local, which aims to play both a matchmaker and wedding planner role on large-scale, regional clean energy developments. The initiative plans to help connect potential partners, maximize projects’ community benefits, and facilitate joint funding opportunities such as federal grants, tax incentives, or green bank loans.
“This is really looking for the larger, more ambitious stakeholder projects that have direct stakeholder benefits,” said Daniel Gray, Power Up Local’s executive director. A big emphasis will be on assembling groups who “might not have worked with each other originally or understood where there’s an overlap” between clean energy and other goals.
The initiative could offer a new path for local leaders to advance in a place where state government remains hostile to clean energy. The continued availability of federal funding is in question following former President Donald Trump’s reelection, but Gray and others said they are confident some form of federal support for clean energy will remain during his second term.
The idea for Power Up Local grew out of collaboration among Cuyahoga County, the cities of Cleveland and Painesville, and other organizations on a $129 million grant application under the federal Climate Pollution Reduction Grant program. The application was among those awarded funding in July. It includes money for closing a coal plant and building multiple solar arrays, including on four closed landfills.
Beyond reducing pollution, the project will help lower electricity costs and generate revenue. Some of that will in turn aid in conservation efforts for the West Creek Conservancy, including lakeside access for residents in Lake County. Gray did some work on the project as director of local strategies for the Citizens Utility Board of Ohio, and local philanthropic support also helped in assembling the grant application.
The Cleveland Foundation, George Gund Foundation and the Fund for Our Economic Future are providing initial funding for Power Up Local. Initially, the program’s three full-time employees are being housed under Fund for Our Economic Future, with a goal of spinning it out as an independent nonprofit by 2027.
The George Gund Foundation also provides funding to the Energy News Network. Like other donors, it has no oversight or input into the editorial process and may not influence stories.
Gray said Power Up Local will help stakeholders think bigger and more broadly about projects. For example, a project to redevelop a former industrial site may be able to help bring in other properties from a land bank or other group, potentially expanding into an economic redevelopment district that might support a microgrid, he suggested.
“We can add efficiency to projects, both financially and timewise,” Gray said.
Power Up Local will be a resource for organizations that want to add clean energy to a project but may not have the time or bandwidth to figure out how to do it. “They don’t necessarily know how to engage the marketplace,” Gray said.
And when it comes to funding, competitive grants will just be part of the story. A range of other credits or incentives can also help bring more clean energy. That raised a question, said Stephen Love, program director for environmental initiatives at the Cleveland Foundation: “What would it look like at scale beyond just the competitive grants to really unlock the whole scale of federal resources?”
While Power Up Local will work on clean energy projects, those projects must still be “net-neutral or revenue-positive” in order to promote economic development, Gray said. “We’re looking to develop as much community benefit as possible.”
Those benefits can come from lower electricity rates for people with high energy burdens, health benefits from lower pollution, job opportunities, conservation, access to parks, redevelopment of properties to attract businesses, and so on.
“This is about economic development. This is about creating economic opportunity in our communities,” said Love. As he sees it, clean energy can help drive that development.
No one knows what Trump’s presidential victory will mean for federal clean energy funding, but advocates are confident some funding will still be available.
“There are still grants to go after, and will likely still be grants to go after in the future,” Gray said. A repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law would take time, and much of the grant funding has flowed to districts that supported Trump in 2020.
Even if agencies under Trump stopped carrying out the law, “I don’t think the bulk of the IRA direct credits are going to go away,” Gray said. He noted that Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Bainbridge Township) is among 18 members of Congress who wrote to House Speaker Mike Johnson this summer to support continuation of the energy tax credits.
Atlas Public Policy’s Climate Portal Program estimates those tax credits could exceed a quarter of a trillion dollars, with nearly another $250 billion of potential credits under the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Those credits can serve as refunds for nonprofits and local governments, which is how sewage treatment authorities in Columbus and Cincinnati plan to offset big chunks of the costs for biogas plants at two of their wastewater treatment facilities.
Financing opportunities will also be available from green banks, Gray said. Commercial banks also are looking to expand their portfolios for financing clean energy projects as part of corporate sustainability goals, he noted.
Power A Clean Future Ohio has already been working for several years to help its 50 local government members find ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions, based on their individual interests and priorities. Executive Director Joe Flarida said Power Up Local’s work will be a welcome complement to its ongoing work.
“It just underscores the huge needs we have in the state of Ohio to invest locally and ensure that our local leaders and local governments have all the resources they need to do this work efficiently,” he said.
In Flarida’s view, an anti-climate approach by the incoming Trump administration “is also an anti-jobs approach.” And even if the federal government no longer treats climate change as a key priority, “that doesn’t change the reality that this is an issue we have to address head on,” he said.
Gray encourages local governments and other organizations with ideas for projects to reach out in the coming weeks and months.
“Now is the time to start thinking about what might be possible,” he said.
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