City Wins Green To Go Green

Union Station will be ​“the greenest train station in the United States of America” thanks to ​“heat pumps, heat pumps, heat pumps,” made possible by the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) new climate pollution reduction grant program.

So promised officials as they gathered at the train station to announce grants allocated to Connecticut under the program — including $9.5 million worth for New Haven.

State Department of Energy & Environmental Protection (DEEP) Commissioner Katie Dykes opened the press conference: ​“Connecticut has been a winner, a big winner in receiving grant funding” from the EPA under the ​“first-of-a-kind” climate pollution reduction grant program, which was authorized in the Inflation Reduction Act.

Passed in 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act allocated $4.6 billion of congressional funding for projects with the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created 25 grants for which states and municipalities could submit project proposals aimed at ​“reducing emissions, saving money for consumers, and growing jobs” — three of which, totaling $450 million, have been awarded to Connecticut-endorsed proposals.

The 25 nationwide grants are projected to reduce greenhouse gas pollution by as much as 148 million metric tons by 2030 and 971 million metric tons by 2050 — the Biden-Harris administration’s net-zero emissions goal, according to New England’s Regional EPA Administrator David Cash.

In collaboration with five other New England states, Connecticut spearheaded a proposal to accelerate the adaptation and accessibility of cost-saving heat pumps across the region. The project entails working with manufacturers to lower the cost of geothermal technologies at their point of sale, investing in workforce training for HVAC installation companies and vendors, and expanding the use of geothermal energy to alternative housing such as mobile units.

The project will fund the installation of heat pump-based technologies in over 500,000 residential buildings across New England, ​“with 40 percent of those allocated to low-income and disadvantaged communities,” said Cash.

The state also joined a coalition chaired by New Jersey to invest in charging ports for medium to heavy-duty electric vehicles at truck stops along transit corridors. The joint-proposal received $64 million dollars.

Just two of the EPA grant’s recipients were municipalities, one of which being New Haven. The city’s $9.5 million proposal — the feather in the state’s cap — features a carbon-neutral geothermal network that will include Union Station and, potentially, 1000 affordable housing units on the other side of Union Ave.

City Executive Director of Climate & Sustainability Steven Winter, who authored New Haven’s grant application, was proud of the city’s achievement: ​“Folks ask, ​‘How are we going to address climate change?’ I think you’re hearing a lot of it today. Electrification of our vehicles and buildings, partnerships, thinking big, and heat pumps, heat pumps, heat pumps!”