This summer, 10 Roaring Fork Valley and Colorado River corridor jurisdictions were awarded over $4 million in climate and energy funding from the Colorado Energy Office’s Local IMPACT Accelerator program. The IMPACT Accelerator awarded $30.1 million statewide during this allocation round, meaning the local cohort landed over 13% of funding. The $4 million award will be shared between Aspen, Avon, Basalt, Eagle, Minturn, Red Cliff, Snowmass Village, Vail and Eagle and Pitkin counties.
The Colorado Energy Office and outgoing Gov. Jared Polis have designated a total of $50 million from an October 2024 federal Environmental Protection Agency grant to create the Local Implementation, Mitigation and Policy Action (IMPACT) Accelerator. IMPACT subgrants within Colorado are designated to support local governments with policy adoption to bolster local resilience, reduce emissions and advance state pollution reduction goals. Sectors considered for grant applications included buildings, land use, transportation and waste mitigation projects.
Within those categories, the Colorado Energy Office specified areas eligible for grant use. In the buildings sector, funding applications favor policies that adopt building energy codes that exceed the Colorado Model Low Energy and Carbon Code, establish energy performance standards and create energy efficiency incentives. Eligible land use policies are those that promote compact housing, parking management, EV charging and clean energy or that discourage greenfield development — building a new development on formerly undeveloped land.
Transportation application uses are policies that encourage high-quality active transportation infrastructure, transit prioritization, transportation demand management and fee-based vehicle registration incentives. Waste sector uses considered for IMPACT grants are policies that increase waste diversion, promote reuse and help convert refuse trucks to zero-emission vehicles.
“This award reflects what can be accomplished when communities work together toward a common goal,” said Tessa Schreiner, the City of Aspen’s environmental health and sustainability manager. “By partnering across our local communities, we’re able to accelerate energy efficiency and electrification projects that will benefit residents throughout the region.”
This is not the first time the 10 jurisdictions have worked together toward energy goals; the cohort previously collaborated to advance building energy codes across the communities. The new IMPACT funding will also support building energy codes as well as all-electric new construction and expanding local incentives for energy efficiency and electrification projects. Each jurisdiction developed projects that maximize the impact of allocated funding, tailoring projects to meet the needs of their community.
The Sopris Sun contacted Clare McLaughlin, a City of Aspen sustainability manager, to learn more about how funding will be used. “Most near-term, we will work as regional partners to advance building energy codes that support efficient, electric buildings,” McLaughlin said. “Then, jurisdictions will roll out community-incentive projects over the course of the grant, from winter 2026 to summer 2029.”
McLaughlin confirmed that specific funding use across all cohort partners was proposed during the application process. “Aspen plans to use project funding to support affordable housing efficiency and electrification retrofit projects,” she said. “Snowmass aims to support high-impact commercial buildings with rebates.”
McLaughlin said that Pitkin County, which includes much of the Crystal River Valley, “plans to use project funds to bolster residential rebates programs, with at least 40% designated to community priority participants.” These types of programs help reimburse qualified community members for energy-efficient utilities, from solar installations to water and heating updates to waste management options.
The jurisdictions are able to apply their portion of funding to a variety of eligible costs. These include policy funding to support or develop stakeholder outreach, education and facilitation; consultant support for technical analysis; studies that inform policy adoption and small pilot projects. Also eligible is project funding to cover expenses including equipment purchases, rebate programs or reduced fee programs, consultant support and studies for project implementation, larger pilot projects and incentives or similar efforts to increase policy impact.