On the latest episode of Grounded, host Bryan Hockaday catches up with Sarah Moehrke, ODOE’s Community Navigator. In her role, Sarah is often on the road and meeting with Oregonians all across the state. In just over this past year, Sarah has logged nearly 15,000 miles as she connects cities and counties with resources to help with community-scale sustainable improvement projects.
In this month’s newsletter, ODOE celebrates a new grant-supported community solar project, announces and then quickly reserves new funding for heat pumps in rental homes, joins partners in celebrating $197 million in federal funding for Oregon, and more.
Public input is crucial in developing an inclusive, informed, and effective Energy Strategy. The July 31 Listening Sessions will help identify key questions to model and help evaluate the tradeoffs of different energy pathways to 2050.
The Oregon Department of Energy is thrilled to be part of the team selected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to receive a $197 million federal Climate Pollution Reduction Grant.
Last fall, ODOE welcomed RARE AmeriCorp member Alice Weston to the agency to serve as a liaison between ODOE and central and south-central Oregon communities to help better connect Oregonians with ODOE programs and opportunities. We’ve shared several stories from Alice and the Community Navigator team on our blog, and now we express our sincere thanks and bid Alice a fond farewell as she wraps up her RARE term. In her final blog post, Alice reflects back on her work and what she’s learned over the past year.
The Oregon Department of Energy will once again begin accepting incentive reservations through the agency’s Oregon Rental Home Heat Pump Program on Tuesday, July 23, 2024. Under this program, owners of rental homes and manufactured dwellings or recreational vehicles in a rented space may receive incentives for installing energy efficient heat pumps and related upgrades.
On July 29, the Oregon Department of Energy will host a virtual public meeting to provide energy resource suppliers and other interested parties with a summary of the department’s 2025-27 Agency Request Budget.
As Oregon makes progress on its clean energy goals – including a 100 percent clean electricity target by 2040 for the state’s largest utilities – the state will need new clean energy generation facilities like wind and solar to meet energy demand. But who decides where and how facilities are built in Oregon?
A new community solar project in Ontario, OR is the first fully constructed project supported by the Oregon Department of Energy’s Community Renewable Energy Grant Program. The City of Ontario’s nearly 3-megawatt solar project was awarded $900,000 in ODOE’s first round of grants in 2022.
The next regularly scheduled meeting of Oregon’s Energy Facility Siting Council will be held virtually on Friday, July 19, 2024.