More Green Stimulus Funds For Arkansas

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – aka, “the stimulus funds” – was one of many political footballs in play in Arkansas during the November 2, 2010, election. So it is not without irony that the day following – depending on your personal politics either a sweeping victory or, to use President Obama’s phrase, a “shellacking” – one of those stimulus footballs landed in the arms of a very willing Arkansas receiver.

On November 3, 2010, the Arkansas Energy Office, a division of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, announced that twelve Arkansas companies will receive $3.14 million in stimulus funding. The funds flow through the Arkansas Green Technology Grant program and will go toward assisting companies that make or sell products that contribute to renewable energy production or storage, energy efficiency or reduction of energy use in the state's economy.

Here are the companies that will be receiving the funds:

AERT - Lowell: $190,000 for replacement of high energy use recycling equipment.

AmerCable - El Dorado: $675,000 for installation of an additional product line for components used in solar panel construction.

LGW Inc. - Fayetteville: $290,496 for a pilot project to demonstrate battery-based storage systems.

EcoMembrane USA - North Little Rock: $315,000 to manufacture biomembranes for methane gas capture and utilization.

Phigenics - Fayetteville: $300,000 for build out of a water analysis facility in commercial and industrial cooling towers and heat exchangers that will directly save 15 to 25 percent per facility in utility costs.

NextGen Illumination - Fayetteville: $337,500 for a statewide demonstration of LED lighting.

Columbia Forest Products - Trumann: $100,047 for the retrofit of existing boilers to supply heating steam to three on-site buildings.

Cooper Power Systems - Fayetteville: $60,000 to replace an annealing oven with a high-efficiency oven.

Bekaert - Fayetteville: $100,000 for a facility lighting retrofit.

AP Fabrications - Stuttgart and Danville: $109,345 for a demonstration of their new economizer (an additional heat exchange that takes waste heat from a boiler to heat water or air) design.

Global Manufacturing - Little Rock: $315,000 for retrofit of a roof to allow conversion of the space to a year-round manufacturing facility.

Flexsteel - Harrison: $257,264 for a facility lighting and HVAC retrofit with significant energy savings.

Here’s Governor Mike Beebe’s take: "These grants will help Arkansans build renewable-energy companies, and will make existing companies more energy-efficient and cost-effective. The program is spread throughout the state, and will benefit both the current operations and future endeavors of these companies." This is another victory for sustainability in Arkansas, and Governor Beebe’s remarks are right on point.

This is not the first influx of green stimulus funds in to Arkansas, and it will not be the last. Likewise, the Arkansas Green Technology Grant Program is not the only grant program in the Arkansas sustainasphere. Stay tuned….

Information about the Green Technology Grant Program can be found here: www.arkansasenergy.org