City of Old Town recieves street light grant
March 22, 2010
Old Town is one of 87 Maine communities that has been selected to receive federal stimulus grants for energy efficient improvements.
According to City Manager Peggy Daigle, Old Town’s grant, came after John Holden of Eaton Peabody Consulting Group applied for an Efficiency Maine grant in the amount of $85,000.00 with $32,000.00 in matching funds to install new LED street lights in the downtown area along with development of an energy strategy for development in Old Town.
“The city hopes to look at innovative ways to improve the downtown area for energy efficient lights as well as to examine a variety of uses of geothermal heat.,” said Daigle. “this work will complement the energy efficiencies the city has undertaken to convert to natural gas heating use for the City buildings, Old Town Fuel and Fiber’s forest bio-products research initiative, the proposed landfill gas to energy project and Bangor Savings Bank’s energy efficient geo-thermal heat use for their new facility on Stillwater Avenue.”
The grants are part of the Commission’s Federal Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant, which can be used to municipalities and county governments to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. The program is being funded for the first time with federal stimulus spending under ARRA. In November 2009, the Commission was awarded approximately $9.6 million in Block Grant funds from U.S. Department of Energy, of which approximately $5.8 million has been set aside for local units of government.
The projects which received grants are predominantly weatherization and heating system retrofits at existing municipal buildings, but towns also received grants to install solar hot water systems and wind turbines, conduct building energy audits and establish new, innovative residential weatherization programs which will be structured to complement Efficiency Maine’s statewide Home Weatherization Program.
A total of $4.8 million was awarded in the grants announced this week. The PUC anticipates that a second round of application request will go out to bid this month for the remaining $1 million in grants.
Courtesy of The Penobscot Times
