Biden-Harris Administration announces $198 million to deliver residential solar in North Dakota, lowering energy costs and advancing Environmental Justice   

Publilshed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

BISMARCK, N.D. – Today, as the Biden-Harris Administration celebrates Earth Day, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced The Coalition for Green Capital and MHA Nation (The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation) have been selected to receive $62,450,000 and $135,580,000 respectively through the Solar for All (SFA) grant competition to develop long-lasting solar programs that enable low-income and disadvantaged communities to deploy and benefit from distributed residential solar. This award is part of the historic $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which was created under President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act to lower energy costs for families, create good-quality jobs in communities that have been left behind, advance environmental justice, and tackle the climate crisis. 

The North Dakota SFA will reduce greenhouse and other air pollutants by increasing the deployment of solar products across the state by providing solar arrays to single family homes. The program will facilitate grant, tax, and low interest lending to develop solar units for multi-family dwellings. These funds will also be used to mobilize financing and private capital by enabling community development financial institutions, credit unions, rural electric cooperatives, and municipal utilities to gain expertise in administering a revolving loan fund without incurring significant risk. The program impact can be measured and used to attract additional funding to the region. Finally, and key to the Justice 40 initiative, these programs will all serve communities designated as low-income and disadvantaged. 

“Although solar technology has become more affordable for residential use, many communities still face cost barriers to access,” said EPA Regional Administrator KC Becker. “One of our goals with the Greenhouse Gas Reduction fund is to make clean energy more accessible, especially for communities who are both overburdened by climate change impacts and disproportionately excluded from green technology resources. The Solar for All program will make access to cleaner energy more equitable for North Dakota communities.”   

The Coalition for Green Capital is among 49 state-level awards EPA announced today totaling approximately $5.5 billion, along with six awards to serve Tribes totaling over $500 million, and five multistate awards totaling approximately $1 billion

“These awards are a big win for residents across North and South Dakota and on Tribal lands in the region,”  said Eli Hopson, Coalition for Green Capital’s executive director and chief operating officer. “We look forward to meeting with local leaders, including Tribal leaders, to collaborate in putting these dollars to work quickly and effectively and in as many communities as possible. We also congratulate many of our network partners who have received awards and will deliver for their communities in states across the country.”  

The MHA Nation was selected to receive $135,580,000.  

The Northern Plains Tribal SFA program (NPT-SFA), headquartered in North Dakota, will transform energy and economic systems in disadvantaged communities with deep and concentrated investments. Expanding to broader areas over time, NPT-SFA will focus first in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana, with additional participation of tribes in Wisconsin, and Wyoming. NFP-SFA’s strategy is based on a successful pilot program on the Northern Cheyenne reservation in Montana and includes the establishment of Tribally-owned and managed portfolios of solar systems sited at the homes of Tribal members. The high electricity prices, frequent power outages, and inefficient housing stock will be leveraged as opportunities for deep, impactful programs. Innovative apprenticeship programs, education, and training partnerships will also attract industry leaders, building capacity in the region to deliver continuing benefits that will endure long beyond the period of the grant.  

“Our future depends on changing our approach to energy,” said MHA Nation Tribal Chairman and U.S. Marine Corps Veteran Mark N. Fox. “All forms of energy will play a role. We are honored to lead a coalition of 14 tribes in our region to develop the efficiency, resilient, and renewable energy systems that the Solar for All program will support.” 

A complete list of the selected applicants can be found on EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Solar for All website. 

EPA estimates that the 60 Solar for All recipients announced today will enable over 900,000 households in low-income and disadvantaged communities to deploy and benefit from distributed solar energy. This $7 billion investment will generate $350+ million annual savings on electric bills for overburdened households. The program will reduce 30 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions cumulatively from over 4 GW of clean energy capacity. In total, solar projects funded by this program will generate over $8 billion in household savings over the 25-year lifetime of the assets. Solar and distributed energy resources help improve electric grid reliability and climate resilience as well, which is especially important in disadvantaged communities that have long been underserved.  

Solar for All will deliver on the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to creating high-quality jobs with the free and fair choice to join a union for workers across the United States. This $7 billion investment in clean energy will generate an estimated 200,000 jobs across the country. All selected applicants intend to invest in local, clean energy workforce development programs to expand equitable pathways into family-sustaining jobs for the communities they are designed to serve. At least 35% of selected applicants have already engaged local or national unions, engagement that demonstrates how these programs will contribute to the foundation of a clean energy economy built on strong labor standards and inclusive economic opportunity for all American communities.  

The Solar for All program also advances President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative, which set the goal that 40% of the overall benefits of certain federal climate, clean energy, affordable and sustainable housing, and other investments flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution. All of the funds awarded through the Solar For All program will be invested in low-income and disadvantaged communities. The program will also help meet the President’s goal of achieving a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 and net-zero emissions economy by no later than 2050. 

The 60 selected applicants have committed to delivering on the three objectives of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund: reducing climate and air pollution; delivering benefits to low-income and disadvantaged communities; and mobilizing financing to spur additional deployment of affordable solar energy. Solar for All selected applicants are expanding existing low-income solar programs and launching new programs. In 25 states and territories nationwide, Solar for All is launching new programs and opening new markets for low-income, residential solar by providing subsidies and low-cost financing so that households in low-income and disadvantaged communities can build and access affordable solar energy for the first time. 

Review and Selection Process Information 

The 60 selected applicants were chosen from 150 applications to the Solar for All competition. The 60 selected applicants were selected through a robust competition review process. This multi-staged process included hundreds of experts in climate, power markets, environmental justice, labor, and consumer protection from across EPA, Department of Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Department of Treasury, Department of Agriculture, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of Labor, Department of Defense, and the Department of Energy’s National Labs – all screened through ethics and conflict of interest checks and trained on the program requirements and evaluation criteria – participating in the review, scoring and selection of the applications through dozens of review panels and an interagency senior review team.  

EPA anticipates that awards to the selected applicants will be finalized in the summer of 2024 and selected applicants will begin funding a projects through existing programs and begin expansive community outreach programs to launch new programs. Selections are contingent on the resolution of all administrative disputes related to the competitions. 

Informational Webinars 

EPA will host informational webinars as part of the program’s commitment to public transparency. EPA has scheduled a public webinar for the Solar for All program, and registration details are included below. Information on other GGRF webinars can be found at EPA’s GGRF webpage. 

Read the full article at: https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/biden-harris-administration-announces-198-million-deliver-residential-solar-north

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