Federal funding for solar energy cancelled

Alan Bailey

for Petroleum News

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has notified the Alaska Energy Authority that the federal government has cancelled funding under the Solar for All program that had been authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022. EPA had awarded AEA a grant of $62.5 million under the program for the deployment of solar photovoltaic projects across the state. The grant money was to have been split between AEA and the Tanana Chiefs Conference for the funding support of various solar energy projects both in rural Alaska and in the Alaska Railbelt. No cost matching was required from grantees.

At this point no projects have been impacted because the funding program had not gone into operation, AEA has indicated.

In rural Alaska communities have been installing wind and solar power generation systems to reduce their dependency on diesel fueled power generation. Diesel generation is very expensive for these communities, especially given the high cost of shipping fuel to remote locations. In the Railbelt there is interest in the use of solar energy to offset some of the need for electricity produced from gas fueled power generation systems, given pending shortages in gas supplies from the Cook Inlet basin.

AEA had planned funding for communities in rural Alaska, for low income homeowners in urban and suburban areas and for appropriate labor and workforce development for solar energy. Tanana Chiefs Conference had planned solar energy programs for tribal communities and low income Alaska Native and American Indian households in the Railbelt and other large utility service areas, and for tribal communities in rural Alaska.

--ALAN BAILEY