(Photo by Jim Still-Pepper/iStock via Getty Images)
We’re all feeling the pinch of inflation in many of our household costs, including our food, gas and insurance — frankly, almost everything we buy. And while costs are starting to improve, part of that inflation picture is what we’re paying for electricity in our homes and businesses, which has gone up significantly here in Indiana over the past few years and adds to the overall cost pressures on our daily lives.
Indiana’s first nonprofit green bank was recently created to help Hooisers lower their energy costs and, while doing so, also make their homes and communities healthier and more comfortable.
Imagine a church saving thousands each year on their electric bill by installing low-energy lighting. Or a food pantry installing solar panels and battery storage, redirecting those savings to better serve their patrons. Or a family or small business replacing their old, failing boiler with a new, energy-efficient model—or better yet, a heat pump.
We often read about large-scale clean energy projects, but we don’t hear as much about smaller projects that can make a huge financial difference to all of our lives across Indiana while expanding positive health outcomes and helping workers transition to better-paying jobs.
These projects are more attainable than ever before thanks to the launch of the Indiana Energy Independence Fund, our state’s new and only nonprofit “green bank.” As we wrap up our first year and prepare to continue our work in 2025, we wanted to share this information with you.
What is it?
Green banks are mission-driven institutions that do more than just provide financing for energy improvement projects. Green banks leverage innovative, low-cost funding mechanisms to deploy energy efficiency and renewable energy where they are most needed: in underserved and disadvantaged communities. Like the more than 50 green banks across the U.S., the Indiana Energy Independence Fund prioritizes community impact over profit.
Our mission focuses on three primary goals.
First, we want to accelerate the adoption of clean energy across Indiana by funding projects that support individuals and organizations that have historically been excluded from such opportunities.
Whether it’s a nonprofit in a small town or a family in an underserved big city neighborhood, we are committed to ensuring that everyone can lower their energy bills, create healthier environments and build greater economic resilience, especially those people and organizations that need it most.
Our second goal is to help identify and fill gaps in Indiana’s workforce and to build jobs in the clean energy sector. Indiana currently ranks 12th nationally for the most clean energy jobs, with clean energy and clean vehicle companies employing almost 90,000 Hoosiers. The industry added jobs almost twice as fast as Indiana’s overall economy, and more than six times as many Hoosiers work in clean energy than the number of lawyers, web developers and real estate agents combined.
And yet we need and want more Hoosiers, especially those from under-represented communities, to join this fast-growing workforce opportunity. We are pleased to be collaborating with a number of organizations across the state to help expand clean energy jobs in Indiana.
And finally, the Indiana Energy Independence Fund was created, in part, to help Indiana as a whole take advantage of the once-in-a-generation federal funding made available through the Inflation Reduction Act. Schools, houses of worship, local governments, businesses and individual households have already benefited from the funding, and our third goal is to make sure those benefits reach every corner of the state for many years to come.
The fund recognizes the importance of collaboration. We owe much of our early success to generous support from the state’s philanthropic community, public and private funding and many other partnerships. We will continue to build those in communities—large and small—across the state in 2025 and beyond.
And as Indiana’s nonprofit green bank, the Indiana Energy Independence Fund represents another step forward in our state’s commitment to a cleaner, healthier future. Every project we support will help transform lives and create jobs, making our state more resilient one step at a time.
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