CLEVELAND —  The Environmental Protection Agency is awarding a nearly $130 million Climate Pollution Reduction Grant to Cuyahoga County and the cities of Cleveland and Painesville for clean energy projects across the region.

What You Need To Know

  • The Environmental Protection Agency is awarding a nearly $130 million Climate Pollution Reduction Grant to Cuyahoga County and the cities of Cleveland and Painesville for clean energy projects across the region

  • The money will be used for the deployment of solar installations on several brownfields and previous landfill sites, as well as natural habitat restoration and tree coverage expansion

  • The largest portion of the sum—$80 million—was awarded to the city of Painesville to close their coal-fired power place and replace it with solar energy

  • Because the cost of panel installation will be covered with grant funding, residents will pay less on their energy bills through solar than they do with the coal-fired plant

“This is what the Biden-Harris Administration and other Democrats had hoped for when we passed the legislation for the Inflation Reduction Act,” U.S. Congresswoman Shontel Brown (D, OH-11) said. “Bringing green jobs and clean energy has been a high priority, and especially in communities that have been disadvantaged and overlooked for so long. So being able to bring this type of money, real money, nearly $130 million, is a phenomenal day for the city in northeast Ohio.”

The money will be used for clean energy project across the region, like the deployment of solar installations on several brownfields, natural habitat restoration and tree coverage expansion.

The largest portion of the sum—$80 million—was awarded to the city of Painesville.

“What it will allow the City of Painesville to do is transition from the coal fired power plant to solar power with a ten megawatt battery backup,” City Manager Doug Lewis said. 

Painesville’s coal-fired power plant has been providing residents with electricity since 1888.

Lewis said today, they rely on it three to seven times a year during service peaks.

“If we hit our peaks, it provides us a reduction in our costs for transmission and those types of things," he said. "So it saves us anywhere from $2 to $4 million a year.”

But burning coal puts pollutants in the air, and the EPA limits how often those plants can operate. 

Because of that, Lewis said leaders in Painesville started searching for clean energy alternatives.

“So one of the things that we were looking at is the possibility of doing solar,” he said.

Lewis said the city was going to move forward with the plan regardless of whether they got the grant, but because the cost of panel installation will be covered with grant funding, residents will pay less on their energy bills through solar than they do with the coal-fired plant. 

“It will provide us with clean and more efficient and cost effective power for our residents,” he said.

There are about 15 employees at Painesville's current plant, all of whom will be offered training to transition into jobs in solar energy. One of them, Dana Hendricks, has been an engineer there for over 37 years. He said he and many of the people who work there were once retired and returned to work after the city struggled to find employees who had training to run a coal-powered plant.

“It's a great thing for the city of Painesville,” Hendricks said. “We know that our days are coming here. The coal plant, it wasn't going to run forever. And I think it'll be a good transition.”

Lewis said this is a win for his community.

“It's going to be clean power and cost efficient and very effective for us to provide power to our residents,” he said.

The recipients of the grant must spend the funding within the next five years.