Municipal Energy Manager Grant

Yes.

Yes. If you are a customer of Eversource or National Grid, you are eligible. Any municipality in your proposed group that is not a customer of either Eversource or National Grid is not eligible. For example, a municipality that has a municipal light plant and has no gas service is not eligible.

We provide a sample job description on the website that has recommendations for the level of education, skills and experience, however, it is not mandatory for recipients of the grant to use this sample job description. Participating municipalities can edit this sample job description however they need to align with their own goals and policies. All candidate screening, interviewing, and hiring decisions are the responsibility of the participating municipality. 

Eversource and National Grid will do our best to amplify the job postings of awarded applicants for the Municipal Energy Manager Grant.

Several resources where we recommend advertising job postings include but are not limited to:

• Mass Municipal Association job board
• The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center job board
• The New England Women in Energy and Environment job board
• Mass Hire’s Mass Talent job board
• Local colleges and universities with energy manager associates or bachelor’s degrees, such as but not limited to:

• Mass Maritime Academy
• Franklin Cummings Tech
• Fitchburg State University

If your community is looking to hire a contracted energy manager, we recommend issuing a request for proposals (RFP) to solicit this kind of service. Some of the same links above would be places to advertise the RFP, and you can also contact your Eversource and National Grid points of contact and we can work with you to get the word out to additional networks.

Municipalities that already have funding for or have already hired a full-time Energy or Sustainability Director/Manager/Coordinator are not eligible for this grant.

If you have a part-time Energy or Sustainability Manager you are eligible to apply to make that a full-time role.

Yes, you can use multiple sources of funding to support an energy manager role. We encourage the use of other funding sources when they are available.

Absolutely, we encourage municipalities to come together and apply jointly. Read more about regional collaboration in our Municipal Energy Manager Grant Guidebook.

If you only need an energy manager for less than 20 hours a week then we encourage you to coordinate with other communities and file a joint application. While we will accept an application for a 10 hour a week role, we recommend including details in your application of how you would find qualified applicants to work for a role that is 10 hours a week, or if it would be a contracted position.

There is no minimum population served or number of municipal buildings to apply for the grant. However, Small municipalities with a population of fewer than 20,000 and/or with fewer than five (5) school buildings are encouraged to partner with neighboring municipalities and share a Municipal Energy Manager or to apply for a part-time or contracted Municipal Energy Manager.

This is part of our school decarbonization offer, so we would like to see holistic applications that will address both school and municipal buildings. In this case we encourage you to get buy in from the other town in your regional school district and apply jointly. If you are unable to do so by the application deadline, you may submit an application as a single community and should include in your application details on the outreach that you have done to engage the other communities in your district.

Yes, Energy Managers should and are encouraged to work to address energy concerns for all municipal buildings in the participating municipalities.

Yes, we would like to see a signed letter of support from the municipal and school district leadership. You can find a template letter of support on the resource links page of the Municipal Energy Manager grant application platform.

The Municipal Energy Manager Grant webpage is the best resource to share with clients.

Applicants will be notified of the status of their applications in March, 2025.

If awarded a grant, municipalities will be issued a memorandum of understanding that will act as a funding agreement. We expect hiring to be done within 90 days of the municipality signing the memorandum of understanding.

Yes.