Cincinnati City Council voted last week to approve about $34,000 to help put solar panels on two city buildings. The fleet maintenance garage and the department of public services facility will join 40 other city buildings with on-site renewable energy.

Director of the city’s Office of Environment and Sustainability Ollie Kroner says the funding is partly thanks to the federal Inflation Reduction Act.

“The city created the Revolving Energy Loan Fund and provided some seed funding using our Green Cincinnati Plan implementation dollars to basically loan money to departments making clean energy investments in a way that we could then recoup that money when we file taxes and receive those credits back,” Kroner explained.

Kroner says projects submitted for this fiscal year will bring about $430,000 back to the city. That money can be redistributed to other departments for even more renewable energy throughout the city.

The tax credits and revolving loan fund can also apply to electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and the city is working on installing batteries at recreation centers that could collect solar energy already being generated.

“That power could be used at night, or it could be used when the grid goes down, to create what we’re calling a resilience hub location in the community that could provide refuge if there’s extreme heat or deep cold and residents need a place to find shelter,” Kroner said.

A couple of much larger projects are a possibility as well.

“The Metropolitan Sewer District has a huge anaerobic digester project that — if it’s successfully completed in the time frame that the Inflation Reduction Act allows — it would qualify for significant funding back,” Kroner said.

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