Skip to main content

The Biden-Harris Administration, through the EPA, has announced a monumental $20 billion in grant awards as part of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), established under the Inflation Reduction Act.

The initiative aims to create a national clean financing network, offering clean energy and climate solutions across various sectors. The fund is designed to reduce climate and air pollution, lower energy costs, improve public health, and generate good-paying clean energy jobs, with a significant focus on low-income and disadvantaged communities.

The announcement, made in Charlotte, North Carolina by Vice President Kamala Harris and EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan, includes three selections under the $14 billion National Clean Investment Fund and five under the $6 billion Clean Communities Investment Accelerator. These selections are set to mobilize almost $7 of private capital for every $1 of federal funds, dedicating over $14 billion—or over 70% of the awards—towards uplifting low-income and disadvantaged communities.

The selected organizations are poised to make a significant impact. They are committed to reducing or avoiding up to 40 million metric tons of climate pollution per year and leveraging nearly 7 times the grant funds in private investment. This ambitious initiative underscores the Administration’s dedication to combating climate change and ensuring equitable access to clean energy solutions.

The National Clean Investment Fund awardees are specifically tasked with delivering “accessible, affordable financing for clean technology projects nationwide, partnering with private-sector investors, developers, community organizations, and others to deploy projects, mobilize private capital at scale, and enable millions of Americans to benefit from the program through energy bill savings, cleaner air, job creation, and more,” according to the EPA.

NCIF Awardees:

  • Climate United Fund: Awarded $6.97 billion, this nonprofit, formed by Calvert Impact alongside CDFIs Self-Help Ventures Fund and Community Preservation Corporation, aims to invest in underserved market segments with a significant portion of investments directed towards low-income and disadvantaged communities.
  • Coalition for Green Capital: Receiving a $5 billion award, this nonprofit has nearly 15 years of experience in establishing green banks, catalyzing $20 billion into qualified projects. They focus on public-private investments, leveraging a national network of green banks.
  • Power Forward Communities: With a $2 billion award, this coalition includes leading housing, climate, and community investment groups aiming to decarbonize American housing, offering affordable solutions and making a substantial impact in low-income and disadvantaged communities.

Clean Communities Investment Accelerators

Meanwhile, the Clean Communities Investment Accelerator is part of a monumental $6 billion initiative designed to catalyze clean energy and climate solution projects in low-income and disadvantaged communities across the United States. The initiative aims to establish hubs that provide crucial funding and technical assistance to community lenders, thereby offering a direct avenue to initiate projects that contribute to a sustainable and equitable energy future. Each selected applicant under the CCIA is tasked with providing capitalization funding, technical assistance subawards, and services to community lenders, ensuring they are equipped to finance impactful projects like distributed energy, net-zero buildings, and zero-emissions transportation.

  • Opportunity Finance Network: Awarded $2.29 billion, this nearly 40-year-old CDFI Intermediary supports a vast network of over 400 community lenders, holding collective assets of $42 billion and serving diverse communities across all 50 states and U.S. territories.
  • Inclusiv: Receiving $1.87 billion, Inclusiv represents a 50-year-old network of over 900 credit unions and financial cooperativas, managing $330 billion in assets and serving 23 million people nationwide, including CDFIs.
  • Justice Climate Fund: With a $940 million award, this nonprofit, supported by a wide coalition and ImpactAssets, aims to provide clean energy-focused capital and capacity building across the country, leveraging a network of over 1,200 community lenders.
  • Appalachian Community Capital: Awarded $500 million, this organization focuses on delivering clean capital and capacity building to community lenders in coal, energy, and underserved rural and Tribal communities, primarily in the Appalachian region.
  • Native CDFI Network: Received a $400 million award to advocate and support over 60 Native CDFIs, working across 27 states to improve capital access in Native communities, covering both rural reservation and urban areas.

These organizations are poised to make significant advancements in clean energy deployment, energy efficiency, and transportation decarbonization, focusing particularly on ensuring that the benefits reach those communities most in need. The CCIA represents a critical step towards achieving broader climate goals, emphasizing the importance of localized action and community empowerment in the transition to a clean energy economy.

Impact of the GGRF Awards

For companies developing projects with sticker prices under $100 million, or just looking for alternative sources of capital for project devleopment, the organizations which have received these billion-dollar grants — and the groups they eventually fund — should be viable options for financial support.

These GGRF investors and the organizations they support should be able to serve as another stopping point for projects on what the DOE likes to call the “bridge to bankability”. For innovative climate solutions — or really any climate solutions — finding project financing can be difficult. These investments are designed to support the de-risking and deployment of technologies that other lending or financial institutions have bene reluctant to back.

To learn more about the investment opportunities available for your projects reach out to us at Energy Transition Finance

Leave a Reply