Matsui Announces Sacramento Region to Receive $5 Million Towards Green Innovations
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, January 22, 2010
CONTACT: MARA LEE
(202) 225-7163
Matsui Announces Sacramento Region to Receive $5 Million Towards Green Innovations
Includes Funding for Innovative Renewable Development
Today, Congresswoman Doris O. Matsui (D-Sacramento) announced that Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) and local partners will receive $5 million in federal grant funding from the Department of Energy (DOE) for the installation of California's first Solar Highway, a co-digestion facility, and three anaerobic digesters. This funding was authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), which was supported by Rep. Matsui last year. Matsui helped SMUD secure the grant through a_letter_of_supportto the Assistant Secretary of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy within the DOE in August.
Today's project announcement serves as a milestone for those in the Sacramento community who have strived to push our city forward as a clean-tech capital, said Rep. Matsui. With the added aid of these federal dollars, local stakeholders are able to progress further in spurring the local economy through investments in clean, green energy alternatives. This is an excellent example of a partnership that will benefit generations of Sacramentans, and Americans, for years to come.
SMUD is already a leader in renewable energy. The funding will be applied to developing four renewable technologies that push the envelope and provide affordable energy solutions for customers. The grant allows SMUD to demonstrate the nexus between the efforts of a public power utility and its program partners to bring vision to reality and value to customers, said SMUD General Manager & CEO John DiStasio.
The technology of collecting energy from solar panels within the vicinity of the public highway operating right-of-way, interfaced with SMUD's developing Smart Grid, is of keen interest to international energy innovators, state, and federal agencies. Likewise the development of a full-scale co-digestion process using food waste and sewage to produce biogas, low-NOx anaerobic digesters fed by dairy facilities to produce combined heat and power and an anaerobic digestion using pre-consumer food processing waste to create a combined cooling, heating and power application will provide volumes of technical knowledge and opportunity for the region and beyond. Once developed these projects will showcase what can be accomplished with public-private partnerships.
I look forward to working with the Administration to showcase all that Sacramento has done, helping to replicate our city's green revolution around the country, Rep. Matsui added. SMUD's projects will demonstrate that solar PV and anaerobic digesters can be readily implemented through collaborative partnerships, and avoid sitting issues and transmission constraints that pose barriers to renewable energy capacity additions.
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