Community Environmental Center Receives $3 Million DOE Grant for Innovative Weatherization Project

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Queens, NY (September 1, 2010)—Community Environmental Center (CEC), the Queens-based nonprofit organization that is the largest implementer of New York State’s Weatherization Assistance Program, has received $3 million from the Department of Energy (DOE) to develop innovative ways of bringing energy efficiency to low-income New York City residents, announced Richard M. Cherry, CEC’s founder and president.

CEC is one of 16 national grantees receiving a total of $30 million from the DOE for this Weatherization Innovation Pilot Program. The $3 million grant to CEC–the maximum amount that the DOE has allotted to any program participant–requires the raising of $9 million in additional funding or in-kind support.

“CEC will partner with Con Ed, NYSERDA and the City to leverage the additional money that is needed for our Innovative Weatherization Project,” said Cherry.

“The DOE,” Cherry also said, “has taken the excellent step of building on the federal government’s strong weatherization program with an imaginative new program, one that is open to forward-looking technologies and methodologies. This is a very exciting time for the future of weatherization.”

One of CEC’s planned innovations will be to expand ways of delivering weatherization to low-income communities, by involving local groups in neighborhood-wide outreach. CEC will also educate and train building owners, tenants and maintenance staff to understand and preserve weatherization improvements once they are completed.

CEC’s technological innovations will include the installation of high-efficiency fiberglass windows, which do not conduct heat or cold, and the painting of roofs with reflective coating, to counteract the destructive ‘urban heat island effect.’

A pioneer in the use of solar thermal systems at New York City’s multifamily buildings, CEC will also pursue strategies to make solar hot water systems and solar PV systems sound investments for low-income home and building owners, and reduce their reliance on fossil fuels.

Organizations that will be helping CEC implement the program include the Sustainable South Bronx (SSBx); Solar One; Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation in Brooklyn; Nontraditional Employment for Women (NEW); Local 10 of the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA); the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB); the 32BJ Thomas Shortman Training Fund (TSTF); and Forsyth Street Advisors.

CEC’s Innovative Weatherization Project is expected to begin in January 2011.

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For more information, please contact Alexis Greene, agreene@cecenter.org / 718-784-1444, ext. 156.

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