DOE Welcomes 39 New Communities to Peer-Learning Cohorts to Advance Local Energy Efforts

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced leaders from 39 entities will join one of three Clean Energy to Communities (C2C) peer-learning cohorts. These participants include county and local governments, Tribes, community-based organizations, and utilities across 23 states and Tribal entities. Starting in January 2025, cohorts of up to 15 participants will convene monthly through June to exchange strategies and best practices, learn from DOE’s national laboratory experts, and workshop policy and program proposals relating to distributed wind, renewable energy and energy efficiency in Appalachia, and microgrids. 

“C2C’s peer-learning cohorts are a powerful collaboration model for leveraging America’s wealth of energy knowledge and expertise,” said Jeff Marootian, principal deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. “As leaders across the country learn from one another and explore technologies, tools, and resources to improve their local energy systems, the lessons learned are proving valuable even for communities not directly participating in the program.” 

“We are so excited to innovate on the cohort model by launching a regional cohort that will convene people from communities across Appalachia,” says Jaquelin Cochran, Associate Lab Director at DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). “Participants in all three peer-learning cohorts will build relationships with peers facing similar local challenges and opportunities, while lab experts will provide cutting-edge research and tools to help advance participants’ goals.” 

Participants from nearly 300 communities have already participated in C2C peer-learning cohorts for educational resources, case studies, analysis and modeling tools, templates, trainings, and facilitated collaboration to enable accelerated clean energy progress. 

For the first time, this cycle includes a cohort about distributed wind, with a focus on building capacity in rural and agricultural communities. The cohort was designed to support the Rural and Agricultural Income & Savings from Renewable Energy (RAISE) initiative, a joint DOE and U.S. Department of Agriculture partnership to help rural small businesses, farmers, and electric cooperatives cut costs and increase income using smaller-scale renewable energy technologies. Distributed wind includes behind-the-meter wind turbines serving local demand, rather than the more familiar grid-scale wind projects. Distributed wind turbines can range in size from 5-kilowatt (kW) turbines serving a small farm to 100-kW turbines to serve industrial facilities.

Also new in this cycle is a cohort focused on a single region. The Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Technologies in Appalachia cohort is designed to fill one of the regional gaps that became apparent in the early cycles of peer-learning cohorts. Starting in 2023, the C2C team analyzed the geographic spread of participants and noticed gaps in participation across Appalachia, Gulf South, Midwest, and Northern Plains. The design and promotion of this new region-specific cohort included more direct engagement with regional serving organizations to identify participants and tailor the topics to better address regional priorities.

The third cohort is about planning for microgrids to increase energy resilience. This topic was selected based on frequent demand from eligible entities across the United States. Microgrids come in many shapes and sizes, can be grid-connected or grid-independent, and can integrate local renewable energy resources. They can maintain energy services even when there are outages or other issues with the larger grid. This cohort will cover the types and scales of microgrids, costs and funding strategies, engagement with residents, and next steps for refining project scopes and timelines.

Learn more about C2C’s three different technical assistance offerings and find out how to apply.

The cohort topics and participants in the January 2025 cycle are: 

Expanding Capacity for Distributed Wind in Rural and Agricultural Communities

• Bennington County Regional Commission, Vermont
• Clean Up the River Environment (CURE) (Minnesota)
• Ford County, Kansas
• Hailey, Idaho
• Howard County, Maryland
• Kankakee County, Illinois
• Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma
• Latino Coalition of San Benito County (California)
• Los Angeles County Planning, California
• Matanuska Susitna Borough, Alaska
• Penobscot Indian Nation

Planning for Microgrids to Increase Energy Resilience

• Boynton Beach, Florida
• CORE Electric Cooperative (Colorado)
• Cupertino, California
• Floyd County Fiscal Court, Kentucky
• Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma
• Los Alamos County, New Mexico
• National Tribal Energy Association
• Prince George’s County, Maryland
• Region 1 Planning and Development Council, West Virginia
• Sanibel, Florida
• Santa Barbara County Climate Collaborative, California
• South Bend, Indiana
• Sovereign Energy (New Mexico)
• United Power (Colorado)
• University of Minnesota West Central Research and Outreach Center (Morris, Minnesota)

Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Technologies in Appalachia

• Appalachian Sustainable Development (Virginia)
• Appalachian Voices (Virginia)
• Backroads of Appalachia (Kentucky)
• Boiling Springs, North Carolina
• Centre Region Council of Governments, Pennsylvania
• Corporation for Ohio Appalachian Development (Ohio)
• Ohio County Development Authority, West Virginia
• Prestonsburg Economic Development Foundation (Kentucky) 
• Region 4 Planning and Development Council, West Virginia
• Richlands Town Council (Virginia) 
• Rural Action (Ohio)
• SEEED Inc. (Tennessee)
• Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, Pennsylvania
• West Virginia University Institute of Sustainability and Energy Research

Learn more about past peer-learning cohorts, and find summary fact sheets and presentations, at NREL.gov/C2C/cohorts.

Peer-learning cohorts are one of three technical assistance offerings within the C2C program. C2C also provides communities with expertise and tools to achieve clean energy goals across a range of technologies through the 3-month expert match offering and the multiyear in-depth partnership offering.

Learn more about past success stories from C2C.

C2C is funded by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and managed by NREL with support from Argonne National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The World Resources Institute also supports C2C Peer-Learning Cohorts.