Ithaca and Tompkins County Win $250K Clean Energy Grant

Tompkins County and the City of Ithaca just won $250,000 to transform their community's clean energy future.

The funding comes from the Municipal Investment Fund, a national program helping local governments speed up clean energy projects and slash emissions. Out of 49 communities selected across the entire country, Ithaca and Tompkins County stand alone as the only New York winners in this funding round.

The partnership brought together some serious brainpower. Tompkins County and Ithaca teamed up with Community Sustainability Partners and Cornell University's Environmental Systems Lab to compete for the competitive grant. Their winning proposal outlined plans to build a pipeline of clean energy projects that do triple duty: cut greenhouse gases, create jobs, and bring affordable clean energy to low-income neighborhoods.

The money will fund market analysis, community engagement, and project planning. Early concepts span schools, electric vehicle charging stations, affordable housing upgrades, workforce training programs, and public building improvements.

Cornell's Urban Building Energy Model will help the team analyze how investments could transform neighborhoods while keeping costs down. That's especially important for affordable housing projects, where every dollar counts.

The Ripple Effect

This grant does more than fund a few solar panels. It unlocks access to financing tools and technical expertise that weren't available before.

Irene Weiser, who chairs the county's Planning, Energy and Environmental Quality Committee, sees the bigger picture. The grant opens doors to scale clean energy projects across the entire county while supporting the local economy and delivering long-term savings to residents.

Ithaca Mayor Robert Cantelmo emphasized the shift from talking about climate action to actually doing it. The city has ambitious climate policies on the books, but this funding helps turn those words into real projects that improve daily life while cutting emissions.

The $250,000 is just the beginning. It's part of a massive $5 billion capitalization grant from the EPA's National Clean Investment Fund, backed by ICLEI USA and the Coalition for Green Capital. That means communities like Ithaca could tap into much larger funding pools as their projects develop.

The team is already working to identify projects that could qualify for future predevelopment funding. Each successful project could attract private investment, creating a snowball effect of clean energy development across the region.

When small cities lead the way on climate solutions, they prove that ambitious action works at every scale.