Puget Sound Energy (PSE) has provided a Green Power Solar Grant to a partnership between the Lummi Education Division, Lhaq’temish Foundation, Lummi Indian Business Council and Northwest Indian College. The grant will be used to install a 50.4 kilowatt (kW) solar array at the Lummi Nation School as part of an ongoing effort to provide assistance to our communities, an effort that is heightened by the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
PSE is committed to supporting those who serve families and individuals in our communities through its Green Power and Solar Choice programs, PSE awarded more than $1 million in grant funding to 15 organizations in its service area to install new solar projects—the highest amount distributed through the programs to date.
Recipients range from local non-profits, public housing authorities and tribal entities serving low-income and Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) community members and projects that further clean energy in the region.
“We’re excited to be awarding Lummi Nation School a Green Power Solar Grant as we continue to create a clean energy future for all,” said PSE Director of Product Development Will Einstein. “Our customer’s participation in PSE’s voluntary renewables programs allows us to help fund new solar projects that create energy cost savings that they can use to support their core mission.”
The annual generation of the 15 projects will total nearly 560,000 kWh, equivalent to powering nearly 50 average homes each year with newly installed solar from the Puget Sound region. The goal is to help local organizations reduce operating costs while also reducing their carbon footprint by using renewable energy they’ve generated.
Bernie Thomas, Lummi Nation Education Director, says “Green energy may not yet possess the panacea solution to global warming, but incremental, positive steps like the Solar Project at Lummi Nation School, and partnerships with NWIC faculty, help the tribal member students envisage solutions to incubate and grow. As our students make their way into their individual lives, they understand that reversing climate change is in the hands of their generation.”
To date, the PSE Green Power Program has funded 52 projects with nearly $3 million in grant funds to support local renewable energy.
PSE is committed to working together to create a clean energy future for all while setting an aspirational goal to be a Beyond Net Zero Carbon company by 2045. PSE will target reducing its own carbon emissions to net zero and go beyond by helping other sectors to enable carbon reduction across the state of Washington. Partnering with our customers like this helps PSE engage more people in that mission.
