Movement Climbing and Fitness — home to Boulder’s largest indoor climbing wall — on Tuesday received one of the country’s first renewable-energy cash grants. The fitness center got $157,800 for an 100-kilowatt photovoltaic solar array on the roof of its revamped building at 2845 Valmont Road.
The grant was one of a dozen, totaling $500 million, made by the Obama administration as part of its economic-stimulus package.
The program, which is for commercial and industrial projects, is expected to spend more than $3 billion, according to Assistant Treasury Secretary Dan Tangherlini.
“It could be more,” Tangherlini said in a teleconference. “This is not a competitive program; any qualified applicant will receive a grant.”
Movement’s grant covered 30 percent of its $526,000 solar-electric and thermal-hot-water system, said Scott Franklin, president of Boulder-based Lighthouse Solar, which installed the system.
“This will be a pretty significant program for us,” Franklin said. “The government has offered tax credits, but you’d have to wait up to 18 months to get them.
“When the economy was in such a hard place and credit was frozen, it was hard for a business to write a check for $5 million or $5,000 and have to wait.”
Under the grant program, the funds will be in the hands of Movement and the other applicants in five days, Tangherlini said.
Ten of the first grants went to large-scale wind farms and ranged from $28 million to $114 million.
Solaire Development in Danbury, Conn., received a $2.5 million grant.
The Boulder award was the smallest, but the program plans to make many more small awards, said Matt Rogers, U.S. Department of Energy senior adviser.
About $125 million in applications get approved each week, ranging from large wind farms to rooftop projects, Rogers said.
“It really highlights the breadth of renewable-energy projects across the United States,” he said.
Mark Jaffe: 303-954-1912 or mjaffe@denverpost.com
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to a reporting error, this story gave an inaccurate size of the photovoltaic array on the Movement Fitness
Center in Boulder. The system is 100 kilowatts.
