Benchmarks and awards increase as city renews certification
With Earth Day approaching, the City of Beacon announced this week that it has received nearly $900,000 in grants over the past year through the New York State Clean Energy Communities program.
The funding, awarded because of Beacon’s “silver” certification as a Climate Smart community, is being used to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from municipal operations, including through the purchase of electric vehicles, installation of EV charging stations and energy-efficiency audits on city buildings. Beacon earned silver certification, the highest rating possible, in 2020.
Because the Trump administration is dismantling programs created to mitigate climate change, Mayor Lee Kyriacou said it is “more critical than ever for local governments to redouble our efforts to transition toward a clean-energy future.”
Energy-efficiency studies are underway at three city-owned buildings: the Wastewater Treatment Plant’s administrative building, the Veterans Memorial Building on Main Street and the Beacon Volunteer Ambulance Corps facility on Arquilla Drive. After collecting utility data, state funds will be used to upgrade insulation and convert the aging buildings from directly burning fossil fuels to electric heating and cooling.
Additionally, Clean Energy Communities grants helped the city purchase emissions-free electric vehicles for multiple departments, including police, recreation, building and administration. An electric Ford F-150 Lightning is on order for the Recreation Department. Electric vehicle charging stations will be installed at City Hall and the Recreation Center on West Center Street.
The city is also preparing to solicit bids for a rooftop solar array at the Highway Garage with funding secured by Assembly Member Jonathan Jacobson, a Democrat whose district includes Beacon. The project is expected to add 223,000 kilowatt-hours annually to the electricity already being produced by a solar array on Dennings Avenue. That facility, opened in 2018 on a 20-acre former landfill site, generates about 70 percent of the electricity used in municipal buildings.
Finally, the city is participating in the Mid-Hudson Municipal Landfill Emissions Mitigation Project, funded by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The money pays for biofilters that will reduce methane emissions at 14 closed landfills.
Five years after its silver certification, Beacon is preparing to renew its status. “This isn’t tinkering,” said Faye Leone, the city’s Climate Smart coordinator. To qualify for state grants, “we have to keep reducing our emissions by taking on bigger and bigger projects. The work gets harder and harder.”
Leone said she expects the “next frontier” in sustainability to be the conversion of municipal buildings to clean energy. Citing the city’s all-electric, geothermal, “super-insulated” central fire station that opened last year, she said it “sets a new bar for city buildings: zero or low emissions, cost-efficient and healthy and comfortable for those who work there.”
