A $32,203 grant from Maine’s Community Resilience Partnership will allow the town to install efficient lighting and conduct an energy audit of the Town Office.
Most of the funds will go toward the replacement of the building’s lighting with LED lighting, while $4,500 will pay for the energy audit. The audit could result in recommendations to further reduce the building’s energy use.
The project is part of the town’s sustainability plan and seeks to reduce the town’s carbon emissions.
The Harpswell Resiliency and Sustainability Committee developed the sustainability plan and shepherded the town through the steps necessary to join the Community Resilience Partnership.
Selectman Jane Covey recognized those contributions following the announcement of the grant during a selectmen’s meeting on Thursday, Dec. 1.
“I think it’s also a testament to the pre-work that’s been done over many years so that Harpswell is ready to go as this program has been initiated, and I think we really need to thank and congratulate everyone who worked on it for a long time,” Covey said.
Established in December 2021, the Community Resilience Partnership helps municipalities and tribal governments plan for climate change, reduce carbon emissions, transition to clean energy, and increase their resilience to the effects of climate change. The Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future administers the partnership.
The creation of the partnership was a recommendation of Maine’s four-year climate action plan, “Maine Won’t Wait.”
Gov. Janet Mills announced $2.9 million in grants from the partnership to 91 communities, including Harpswell, on the plan’s second anniversary.
“We are making unprecedented strides to embrace clean energy, to reduce carbon emissions, and to help our communities fight, at every level, the greatest danger of our time,” Mills said in a speech at Colby College on Thursday, Dec. 1. “With our climate action plan as our guide, we will be the generation that protects this precious place we all call home, so that future generations may live in a Maine that is as beautiful and bountiful as it is today.”
