SPRINGFIELD —Illinois Environmental Protection Agency Director John J. Kim has announced that the Agency’s Office of Energy has awarded $422,250 in grant funding to four Illinois wastewater treatment facilities. The grant opportunity was announced in December 2019 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 energy costs for Illinois residents.
“We are pleased to assist these municipal wastewater organizations with funding to achieve the already identified energy efficiency improvements,” said Director Kim. “These grants will reduce energy demand as well as operating costs.”
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Illinois EPA scored grant applications based on 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 facility. The $422,250 in grant funding will be leveraged by an estimated $16,018,574 in matching funds being applied toward the projects from the grantees. The grantees are:
• City of Anna, Union County - $52,250
• City of Rock Island, Rock Island County - $45,000
• Village of Romeoville, Will County - $200,000
• Thorn Creek Basin Sanitary District, Chicago Heights, Cook & Will Counties - $125,000
The grants will enable these municipal organizations to make energy efficiency upgrades to wastewater equipment identified by previous energy audits, in some cases audits were provided at no-cost by the Office of Energy. These grants will save the grantees 2,431,955 kWhs of energy annually, which translates to significant money savings. The funds for the grant program are provided by the United States Department of Energy’s State Energy Program (SEP).
The Illinois EPA’s Office of Energy strives to achieve energy equity by investing U.S. Department of Energy SEP funds in projects across Illinois 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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