Portland’s billion-dollar climate justice program is set to invest nearly $92 million in community-led programs to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and advancing racial and social justice over the next five years.
On Wednesday, the Portland City Council unanimously approved the Portland Clean Energy Fund’s third round of Community Responsive Grants.
The chosen proposals focus on a range of renewable energy projects as well as workforce development in the energy sector. They include retrofitting single-family, multi-family and commercial properties with renewable energy, expanding access to solar power by building more community solar projects, increasing tree canopy, and providing training and apprenticeship opportunities in green technologies such as solar panel and heat pump installation.
PCEF received 230 applications totaling about $309 million in funding requests.
Employees with Imagine Energy put the final touches for the PDX Community Solar project on Aug. 22, 2024 in Northeast Portland. The 2,200-panel project is aimed at helping lower helping energy bills for low-income qualified Cully neighborhood residents.
Monica Samayoa / OPB
Seventy-one proposals were chosen, and they will receive nearly $92 million over the next five years, with $50 million going toward renewable energy.
The Portland Clean Energy Fund is a billion-dollar voter approved climate action program that imposes a 1% tax on large retail business in Portland. It’s a first of its kind environmental justice and climate program aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions while advancing racial and social justice. The money is used to fund a range of climate related projects, including energy efficient retrofits, renewable energy development and job training in the construction and energy fields.
Wednesday’s community responsive grants are the first approved since the fund underwent a nearly yearlong overhaul that included efforts to improve accountability and transparency, and created a $750 million, five-year climate investment plan.
But funds have also landed in city bureau budgets through other PCEF allocations earlier this year.
In February, City Council used the fund to back-fill budgets for six city bureaus’ climate-related projects to avoid budget cuts, totaling $540 million over the next five years. Then in July, the city diverted an additional $7 million of PCEF funds toward Portland’s general budget. Some state leaders say those moves could begin to stray the fund away from its original intent.
A PCEF dashboard shows how much the fund has dispersed since its inception. About $883 million of the fund’s estimated $1.5 billion have been allocated so far.
Wednesday’s City Council approval could be the final PCEF related item the current council sees before a new form of government begins next year.
Seventy-one projects
Last week, Portland Commissioner Carmen Rubio said the next round of grants will provide meaningful investments for Portlanders most in need. Rubio oversaw the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, where the fund is managed, for several years up until July. Mayor Ted Wheeler currently oversees all city bureaus until the transition to a new government is complete next year.
“This fund is designed to reduce and remove the systemic barriers that have accompanied our dependence on fossil fuels while centering front line and BIPOC communities as decision makers,” Rubio said.
During public comments last week, Community Energy Project program director Jim Plantico spoke about the positive impact previous funding from PCEF has had for his organization and the community members they have helped.
The nonprofit organization received nearly $10 million in 2022 for deep energy and electrification retrofits, with a goal to have at least 50% of the vulnerable Portland residents it serves be Black, Indigenous and people of color. Deep energy retrofits could include necessary health and safety repairs needed to complete energy efficient work like insulation to walls, floors and ceilings. It also includes replacing inefficient heating and cooling systems that use fossil fuels to electric systems like heat pumps and maintenance visits to clean or repair energy efficient technologies.
“Our PCEF 2 grant was to retrofit 250 single family homes over the next five years, and we currently have 100 houses that we’ve bid out or work completed,” Plantico said. “This work has impact.”
So far, the retrofits have helped lower their customers’ energy bills by about 40%, helping those households save about $1,000 per year in energy costs, Plantico said.
The grant also supports the workforce, he said.
“We have generated so far over 10,000 hours of boots-on-the-ground labor,” he said.
Community Energy Project’s round 3 grant will expand the work it has already started through the previous round of PCEF funding, by helping the nonprofit perform deep retrofits to an additional 200 homes in Portland.
For the group Oregon Tradeswomen, the PCEF grant will also boost opportunities for women in trade jobs like construction and electricians.
The organization provides trade training and apprenticeships, as well as career education, advocacy and leadership development for women .
With its PCEF grant, over the course of three years the Oregon Tradeswomen will offer about 300 women, especially BIPOC women and transgender and non-binary people, the opportunity to join these trades. The trades group will seek to ensure graduates of the pre-apprenticeship programs enter high-paid apprenticeship programs.
“Women, and especially women of color, have been overlooked in these occupations and we are looking to change that,” Oregon Tradeswoman workforce development manager Courtney Hamilton said during public comment.
Not only will the industry benefit from a diverse workforce in the construction and renewable energy industry, she said, but the income those workers spend benefit the community as well.