This summer, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is offering cities, wastewater treatment facilities, and other local government units free energy benchmarking assistance. The program will allow you to benchmark against others nationwide. You can learn more here.

The Winona Daily News reports that energy efficiency improvements have saved the City of Winona over $120,000 in 2009 and over $27,000 for Winona County. The city, a GMET member, and the county pursued energy saving goals in partnership with GMET business member McKinstry.

Ex-Star Tribune and MPR staffers recently launched an energy news aggregator. Midwest Energy News, produced by the Media Center of Fresh Energy, aims to not be an “advocacy endeavor,” but rather a “daily online guide to the best journalism available on energy subjects of special interest to readers in an eight-state region.” If you are [...]

MPR reports today on the impending application deadline for the Renewable Energy Grant program and profiles the impact these grants could have on small businesses in Minnesota.

The Minnesota Office of Energy Security has posted information regarding an Request For Proposal that it will be posting in January 2010. The Facility Cost-Share Grant Program will make awards to local units of government and other entities of up to $100,000 for projects that improve energy efficiency at existing facilities. A broad overview may [...]

At a recent state hearing focused on energy programs funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Sen. Ellen Anderson (DFL-St. Paul) argued that state officials are not doing enough to ensure funding is available for workers in economically-disadvantaged communities. Read more here.