Courtesy of the National Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the California Energy Commission (CEC) has received $314.5 million to invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency programs during the 2010 calendar year, beginning in April.
The CEC will use the grant to fund four separate renewable energy initiatives: the State Energy Program, the Energy Efficiency Conservation Block Grant Program, the Appliance Rebate Program and Energy Assurance Planning.
The CEC will use the majority of the stimulus funding ($226 million) to implement the State Energy Program; a state plan to cut energy cost and consumption, slice the state’s reliance on imported energy and scale back environmental impacts.
California will pour $49.6 million into the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Program to fuel investments aimed at saving California consumers 61.2 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. Through the program, the CEC will directly allocate over $35 million to small cities and counties throughout the state in an effort reduce over 22,000 tons of CO2 emissions and save local governments over $9 million. The savings is expected to translate job creation and retention.
$35.2 million will be allocated to the Energy Efficient Appliance Rebate Program, beginning Apr. 22. Clothes washers, room and window air conditioners and refrigerators will be eligible for the new rebates, which will be given in addition to rebates offered by California utilities or appliance manufacturers.
Finally, California will provide $3.6 million for energy assurance planning. The funding is meant to improve California’s emergency preparedness plans. It will also help improve smart grid training across the state by paying to hiring staff in technology integration, interdependencies and cyber-security.
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