Biden Administration Awards Wyoming $30 Million From New ‘Solar for All’ Grant

On Earth Day, President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) announced $7 billion in federal funds to help low- and middle-income residents and communities in all 50 states gain access to low-cost clean energy under the new Solar for All Program. Despite rising utility rates, or forecasted increases in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, those states did not directly apply for funding. Instead, the grants awarded to all three states will be administered by the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, an environmental climate and energy nonprofit. 

The grants “will not only combat the existential threat of climate change by making solar energy available to working class families, it will also substantially lower the electric bills of Americans and create thousands of good-paying jobs,” Sanders said in a prepared statement. He called the money a win for the environment, consumers and the economy.

Wyoming’s $30.26 million grant will be aimed at rooftop solar projects and workforce job training, particularly in low-income and Tribal communities.

“All projects that get funded through our programs will be delivering 20 percent energy bill savings to households, and or those households will either be below 80 percent of area median income or in a specifically designated disadvantaged census tract,” said Evan Ramsey, senior director of renewables for the Bonneville Environmental Foundation.

Although Bonneville is not administering the grants under the direction of Idaho, Montana or Wyoming, Ramsey said that the foundation worked with the Idaho Office of Energy and Mineral Resources, Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality and the Wyoming Energy Authority, as well as several other local organizations and communities, to develop its application for the funds coming to those states. If Bonneville didn’t apply for funding, “these states may miss out on these investments,” Ramsey said. 

“We want to make this available as broadly as possible, provided it is complying with the Environmental Protection Agency’s guidelines,” said Ramsey, who added that the foundation has set its own goal of directing 25 percent of the financial assistance from the Solar for All grant towards projects that would benefit Wyoming’s tribes, the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho. “We’re going to try to work with our tribal nations and partners to realize those goals,” he said.

In April, the Northern Arapaho applied for millions to reduce pollution from a different federal grant program. Among its plans for those funds is the development of a micro-grid on the Wind River Reservation near Lander.

Bonneville expects to partner with dozens of stakeholders such as utilities, local governments, energy departments, affordable housing organizations, tribes, labor groups and nonprofits for input on how best to spend the Solar for All funding, which they expect to lower residential energy costs. 

When the sun is shining, homeowners with solar panels “are going to wind up purchasing less energy from the utility,” said Scott Kane, a co-founder and co-owner of Creative Energies, a solar company that does business in Utah and Wyoming. In some months, solar could satisfy all of some residents’ electricity needs, drastically reducing their utility bill. Year-to-year, solar panels can also soften the blow of rate hikes from utilities, he added.

Utility rate increases have been a bitter subject for many Wyomingites. Last year, regulators denied Rocky Mountain Power, the largest utility operator in Wyoming, a rate increase of almost 30 percent to cover fluctuations in fossil fuel prices. Earlier this year, the company reapplied for a 12.3 percent rate hike to once again cover the rising market price of fossil fuels. 

Spiking fossil fuel prices mean “affordability for both homeowners and renters is becoming more acute,” said Chris Volzke, deputy executive director of the Wyoming Community Development Authority, an organization created by state law that helps residents finance homes. Putting solar panels on residents’ rooftops using money from the Solar for All grants “can help homeowners cut some of their energy costs,” Volzke said.

The upfront costs of installing solar panels can deter first-time buyers from going solar, and “this federal funding, especially with the key to assist primarily low- to moderate-income customers, really breaks down that barrier,” Volzke said. Without the funding, it would likely not have been feasible for people in those income brackets to lower their energy costs by installing solar panels. 

Solar panels’ ability to provide hyper-local, cheap energy is one of the reasons why Kane hopes some of Wyoming’s grant money goes toward developing community solar projects, arrays of panels that can supply power to several households or businesses at once. Current state law does not support community solar, he said, a technicality Kane hopes will soon change through revised or new legislation. “We need to set it up so that utilities can legally permit [community solar] construction and interconnection,” Kane said.

For any of these plans to come to fruition, Wyoming needs a workforce capable of delivering a variety of energy projects. Kane was particularly excited about how the Solar for All grant could reinvigorate Wyoming’s solar energy workforce, which is about more than people who get up on roofs and install panels, he said. Wyoming will need more licensed electricians who are ready to learn the new skills it takes to install solar, but the state’s lengthy training process means it could be years before aspiring electricians who start learning the trade now join the workforce. “You don’t become a licensed electrician overnight,” Kane said. 

He added that the state would also benefit from training more home surveyors who could inspect buildings for energy efficiency upgrades and communicate technical topics to customers in a straightforward way. 

For Bonneville, injecting a sizable portion of the federal funding into workforce training and job creation appears to be a primary goal. “We want to invest in [a clean energy workforce],” Ramsey said. “That also has benefits to the state and the trades moving forward because there’s more available workforce to do any number of jobs.”

Ramsey said he expects the specific terms of contracts for Wyoming’s Solar for All grant, which is administered by the EPA, will be finalized by the end of September. In the interim, the foundation is reaching out to stakeholders it worked with during the application process to continue fielding feedback on how the money should be spent. 

“There will be many opportunities for people to engage and provide input and help us steer this program in the right direction,” Ramsey said.