HUD Awards $23 Million to Test New Energy-Saving Approaches in Older Multifamily Housing Developments

All across the country, owners of aging apartment complexes are looking for ways to reduce their energy consumption and save money. In order to test new and innovative ways to cut energy bills and to finance energy efficiency upgrades in existing multi-family residential properties, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today awarded nearly $23 million to a dozen organizations on the cutting edge of bringing energy-saving solutions to the housing market.

These affordable housing providers, technology firms, academic institutions and philanthropic organizations were selected to receive grant funding to test new approaches to implement and to pay for these energy-saving upgrades that may become the model for financing these ‘retrofits’ on a wider scale in the future (see grant summaries below). The federal grants are directly leveraging an additional $60 million in philanthropic, local and private capital.

"These grants are being awarded to a diverse collection of organizations that will help us find new ways to cut energy, save money and generate jobs!" said Acting Federal Housing Commissioner Carol Galante. "This is more than just ‘going green,’ it’s about bringing real dollars and cents solutions to a sector of the market that is currently wasting money heating and cooling buildings, some of which were built more than a generation ago."

Theodore Toon, Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for HUD’s Office of Affordable Housing Preservation, added, "These energy-saving innovations will be driven by the private sector who will help lead the way in bringing down the costs in our older multi-family housing stock. HUD’s new Energy Innovation Fund will become the model for others to follow in the national effort to bring a new generation of energy efficiency to older residential properties."

The goal of HUD’s pilot program is to develop ideas and mechanisms that could potentially be replicated nationally, as well as help create industry standards in the home energy efficiency retrofit market. In addition, the pilot program will create public/private partnerships as a result of capital investments from private industries and create green jobs in construction, property management, and technical analysis (e.g. energy audits and building commissioning), including opportunities for low income residents. 

HUD is awarding Energy Innovation Funds to the following organizations:

University of Illinois-Champaign, IL: $500,000

Enterprise Community Partners, Inc, NY: $2,795,071

Heat Watch, LLC, NY: $356,300

Columbus Property Management & Development Inc, PA: $3,000,000

Community Environmental Center Inc, NY: $3,000,000

iCast, CO: $590,118

Jonathan Rose Companies LLC, NJ: $325,732

New Ecology Inc, MA: $989,275

Network for Oregon Affordable Housing, OR: $3,000,000

Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future, DC: $1,500,000

Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, MD: $1,250,000

NRG Solutions LLC, MA: $5,250,000