In the run-up to Earth Day, Vice President Biden today announced of the selection of 25 communities for up to $452 million in Recovery Act funding to “ramp-up” energy efficiency building retrofits. Under the Department of Energy’s Retrofit Ramp-Up initiative, communities, governments, private sector companies, and non-profit organizations will work together on pioneering and innovative programs for concentrated and broad-based retrofits of neighborhoods and towns.

I found this very interesting in the announcement:

In addition to the $452 million Recovery Act investment, the 25 projects announced today will leverage an estimated $2.8 billion from other sources over the next 3 years to retrofit hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses across the country. Overall, the program funding was eight times oversubscribed, with more than $3.5 billion in applications received for the just over $450 million in Recovery Act funds available, indicating significant demand for investment in energy-saving and job-creating projects like these nationwide.

The full list of 25 cities that qualified are available here.

On a similar note, the DOE announced today that they were providing $28 million in funding to states to help states lower the cost and increase the availability of energy efficiency retrofits. Those funds will go to develop energy-saving policy goals in states that do not currently have strong energy efficiency programs in place, and for ten awards between $2 million to $5 million each for initiatives that significantly increase the number of commercial and residential building retrofits in a state.

All of this is in addition to the Commercial Building Partnership initiative that I mentioned earlier today in an earlier blog post.