Staff Writer

Osceola County and the city of St. Cloud will receive more than $2.3 million from the state over the next two years to promote energy efficiency within the local community through education, free residential energy audits and energy efficiency retrofitting, among other activities.

The Osceola Energy Initiative, a partnership between the county and St. Cloud, was awarded the most funds in the state for the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant.

“We are all proud and excited to begin implementing this energy efficiency effort in our community,” Bonnie Fraser, St. Cloud grants administrator, wrote in an e-mail announcing the award to the city, later explaining: “We will, as a community, become more aware of energy conversation, hopefully start saving money on utility bills, reduce carbon emissions, create more jobs.”

Awards for the state-administered funding, part of the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, were announced last week. Though the Osceola County application was one of 12 in its category to receive full funding, the specifics of the program won’t be finalized until formal acceptance of the award, which has to be approved by the Osceola County Commission.

The federal program was designed to reduce fossil fuel emissions and total energy use, improve energy efficiency and create jobs.

“They’re really pushing for change to start now,” Fraser said. “If you start in your community, it works better than having something forced from the top.”

The local initiative requested funds specifically for outreach and education to every utility customer in the county, energy audits that will be free to residents and low-cost to commercial entities and a fund for low-interest loans for energy efficiency retrofits. The loans, which were designed to have no income limits, would come with classes through the University of Florida.

The county’s funding was so great because its goals and the scope of the energy impact it hopes to make through the program were very ambitious, Fraser said.

“It would have been a lot easier to say, ‘OK, we want to change all lighting to LED lights,’ and that would have still saved carbon emissions and utilities,” she said. “(But) it wouldn’t impact as many people and had as big an impact as reaching out to the community.”

Along with education, all three utility companies within the county – OUC, Kissimmee Utility Authority and Progress Energy – would provide an online tool to show customers their real-time energy usage and make suggested changes to reduce their utility bills. The utility companies also will provide incentives and rebates through the program.

According to the application submitted to the state, the initiative would create 70 jobs per year for the next two years of the program. The new employees, whose salaries would be partially subsidized by Workforce Central Florida, would work in program administration, as energy auditors or in skilled trades. Workers would receive training at the Technical Education Center Osceola to perform the energy efficiency retrofits.

The application also asked for funding for some governmental purchases. St. Cloud officials asked for $435,000 to purchase a rooftop solar thin-film installation at St. Cloud City Hall to generate solar power. Osceola County requested funds for a hybrid vehicle and containers for its internal recycling program, training and LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification.

Funds also were requested to establish more efficient timing for traffic signals along Osceola and John Young parkways, to ease congestion and reduce gas wasted at stoplights. Finally, St. Cloud and the county each would receive $20,000 to develop a Climate Change Action Plan for their governmental operations.

The Osceola Energy Initiative partnership includes the General Electric Company and the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council. In exchange for receiving the grant money, the governments would be responsible for salary and benefits for jobs in the administration of the program, as well as some promotion among the community.

Local entities worked with Orange County to submit a joint application to the federal energy efficiency block grant program, Fraser said, the award of which is still pending.