SECO Energy will receive approximately $100 million in federal grants and low-interest financing but it’s not clear if that money will provide any relief to community development districts in The Villages facing huge increases.
SECO sent out a news release Monday indicating it has won the money aimed at supporting clean energy initiatives such as area light conversions to LED and micro-grid/community solar projects. What the release failed to address was the outrage that has occurred in The Villages after CDD supervisors were stunned by increases of up to 600 percent for pole rental. Some CDDs have even begun looking at installing their own poles.
SECO Energy was a co-applicant with Seminole Electric Cooperative and Suwannee Valley Electric Cooperative on the Empowering Rural America grant application to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which was facilitated by OVID Solutions, in Tallahassee.
“This is a monumental investment for our cooperative and its members,” said SECO Energy CEO, Curtis Wynn. “With these grant dollars, we’re able to transform our system’s long-term sustainability and adopt clean energy projects that otherwise might have been out of reach.”
The grant will leverage federal dollars to increase energy cost savings, enhance energy efficiency, and provide clean energy solutions.
Among other systemwide efficiency projects, SECO Energy will construct three solar microgrids, with battery energy storage that will generate about 6.6 megawatts of clean, renewable energy.
These projects are estimated to create over 500 short- and long-term jobs and increase rural access to clean energy in SECO Energy’s seven-county service area, which encompasses rural areas of Central Florida, including large portions of Marion, Sumter, and Lake counties.
The entire scope of the collaboration between the three cooperatives will impact as many as 42 Florida counties, generating 3,400 short- and long-term jobs and reducing greenhouse emissions by more than 3.5 million tons, which is the rough equivalent of removing one million gas-powered cars from Florida’s roads every year, SECO said in the news release.
