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County outlines resilience-hub grants, Solarize campaign and mandatory climate training
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Summary
The Department of the Environment presented remaining climate-action strategies, a $217,000 resilience‑hub grant round, Solarize incentives and mandatory Climate 101 training for county employees; multiple grant applications are pending.
The Department of the Environment's Climate and Energy Division updated the TIEE committee on implementation of the county's climate action strategies and on new resilience and clean‑energy grant activity.
Katie Dickinson, the climate action officer, said five implementation strategies remain in development and that the division is working with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments on tree and renewable energy strategies. She announced a community resilience hub grant program administered by the Chesapeake Bay Trust with $217,000 available this fiscal year; Dickinson said the first application round produced seven applications and awards will be announced in March.
Dickinson summarized other grant efforts the division supported: assistance with a $16.4 million Local Government Energy Modernization (LGEM) application for county facility renewables and efficiency, a $2.25 million application for low‑income solar and efficiency upgrades, and a combined $275,000 feasibility application for distributed energy resources on 13 county facilities. She described the Solarize campaign and an accompanying solar‑energy grant offering $10,000 to residents in designated resilience communities and $5,000 for other eligible households; she said the program had received 10 applications to date with a goal of 30 grants.
The division also reported on outreach and workforce efforts. Dickinson highlighted the Brave Boy Climate Leadership Summit and said CED is commissioning an updated greenhouse‑gas inventory for county operations. She said the department's Climate 101 training is mandatory for county staff in FY2026 and that 878 employees had completed the course as of a few days before the meeting.
Committee members welcomed the grant and outreach efforts and asked DOE to follow up with details on other incentive programs and the backlog in older tax‑credit programs. Dickinson said the division would provide requested details and continue coordination with the council.
