Montevideo American-News - Projects in Willmar, Milan earn grants from Clean Energy Resource Teams to improve sustainability

Article: Recently the Clean Energy Resource Teams (CERTs) granted funds to 27 clean energy projects in Minnesota.

The University of Minnesota-sponsored initiative is starting 2012 with seed grant awards in all seven regions of the state. Each region will receive $10,000 in grants for projects that help promote clean energy use and production, such as solar energy heating in mobile homes or wind turbine projects.

A grant of $2,500 will be going to the Willmar Public School’s Youth Energy Summit team in order to upgrade the Willmar Community Greenhouse. The money will be used to add better insulation, to redesign the system, and to reconstruct and improve the efficiency of the solar panels and the biomass boiler. Currently, the greenhouse is heated by solar thermal hot water panels, a biomass burner, and vermicompost bins.

Another $2,500 grant will be going to Milan’s Sustainable Energy Utility (SEU) in order to provide education, technology, and financing services for area residents with the goal of improving energy efficiency and encouraging the use of renewable energy in residences, businesses, and gathering places.

The SEU is working to revitalize the Milan school building and improve its energy efficiency to better fit the multiple uses the community has for it.