NEW HAVEN, Conn. — The Biden-Harris Administration announced $4.3 billion in funding for communities to cut down on fossil fuel emissions across the country. Of the 25 grants given out, Connecticut is getting three of them.
Local, state and federal leaders gathered at New Haven’s Union Station Monday to share what projects the funding will go toward.
“Connecticut is green and getting greener and New Haven is leading the way,” said New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker at the announcement.
Elicker was joined by U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Gov. Ned Lamont, EPA Regional Administrator David Cash, Commissioner Katie Dykes with Connecticut’s Department of Energy & Environmental Protection and more.
“Access to affordable, reliable and clean heating and cooling is what New England families expect and deserve,” Cash said.
Cash made the trip to Connecticut to announce that our state has won three awards related to the $4.3 billion dollar Inflation Reduction Act initiative. The program tasks communities with projects to tackle the climate crisis and make the switch to clean energy.
“We stepped up in Connecticut in a big way to submit some nation-leading proposals,” Dykes said.
The first grant is part of a five-state proposal with Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine and Connecticut where $450 is being awarded to improve access to heat pumps across the region. Dykes said they plan to work with manufacturers to buy down the cost for heat pump technology, support workforce training and figure out innovative ways to get them installed in buildings where it’s a little harder to do so, such as mobile homes or multi-family units.
The second grant is another multi-state coalition led by New Jersey, also involving Connecticut, Delaware and Maryland. It’s a multimillion-dollar project to install charging infrastructure for clean trucks that will be installed along the Interstate 95 corridor including Interstate 91 and Interstate 84.
The third grant is worth more than $9.5 million dollars and will go to New Haven to create a network geothermal system.
“So much development, so much growth here in New Haven, and we’re doing it in a way that’s inclusive, that’s just environmentally, and that’s going to be affordable and clean in the long run,” said Steven Winter, executive director of Climate & Sustainability for New Haven.
The city is in the process of drawing up plans to build 1,000 or more affordable housing units right across the street from Union Station. They hope to use this grant money to create an underground system with heat pumps to cool and heat those units. The same system will be connected to the nearby train station, eliminating on-site fossil use.
“It will help power the heating and cooling so residents there will have almost no, very little cost energy bills,” Elicker said.
The heating pumps will replace Union Station’s gas and electric system to go green.
“We’re all familiar with air conditioners and refrigerators. Heat pumps use the same refrigeration technology, but they can run in reverse to move heat in the winter into your home to provide heating in the winter and then just like an air conditioner, they’re moving cold air into your home in the summer,” Winter said. “And the way they do that is by cycling a refrigerant which moves the heat and then compressing it and that magnifies the heat, and that’s the magic of it.”
Winter explained that with heat pumps, less energy is put into it and more energy comes out.
“And with a network, you can have even greater efficiencies. And that’s what so awesome about this proposal, is by doing it on a network, and bringing in multiple buildings, you get efficiencies, energy efficiencies that you’d never see otherwise,” Winter said.
The plans for New Haven’s Union Station and the housing project are still underway. Winter estimated it will take three to four years before it comes to fruition.
“This is about environmental justice. It is about doing right by neighborhoods and communities that have been disregarded for too long in terms of their environmental needs,” Blumenthal said.
“Compared to those other alternatives, they put a lot less demand upon our grid. A lot less demand upon electricity, all at the same time, it’s saving you a lot of money,” Lamont said.
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Julia LeBlanc is a reporter at FOX61 News. She can be reached at jleblanc@fox61.com Follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.
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