SPRINGFIELD — The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency Acting Director John J. Kim has announced that the Agency’s Office of Energy has awarded more than $2.1 million in grant funding to four wastewater treatment facilities across Illinois. The grant opportunity was announced in December 2018 as part of the Office of Energy’s Wastewater Treatment Plant Energy Efficiency Program. The funded projects will reduce the amount of energy consumed by wastewater treatment operations thereby reducing the energy burden for Illinois residents.
“This first cycle of funding will make an impact on the energy consumption at wastewater treatment plants throughout the State,” said Acting Director Kim. “The Illinois EPA looks forward to tracking the progress of these projects and using their success to advance the wastewater energy efficiency program.”
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Grant applications were ranked according to multiple factors including the energy savings per dollar funded, the energy rate paid by the applicant facility, and the energy cost to treat one million gallons of wastewater at the applicant facility. A total of $2,105,353 in grant funding will be leveraged by $3,044,901 in matching funds from the grantees. The grantees are:
• American Bottoms Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility (Sauget Sanitary Development & Research Association), St. Clair County - $327,671
• Village of Annawan, Henry County - $130,821
• City of Fairfield, Wayne County - $146,682
• Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, Cook County - $1,500,000
The grants will run through May 2020 and will enable grantees to make energy efficiency upgrades to plant equipment identified by previous energy audits, in some cases provided at no-cost by the Office of Energy. These grants will save the grantees 6,610,374 kWhs of energy annually, which amounts to $408,000 annual savings. The funds for the grant program are provided by the United States Department of Energy’s State Energy Program.
The Illinois EPA’s Office of Energy strives to achieve energy equity by investing U.S. Department of Energy State Energy Program (SEP) funds in projects across the State that aim to reduce the energy burden for Illinois residents. For more information about Office of Energy programming, including the Wastewater Treatment Plant Energy Efficiency Grant Program, please visit https://www2.illinois.gov/epa/topics/energy/Pages/default.aspx.
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