By Leslie Brooks Suzukamo
Retrofitting commercial buildings to be energy efficient not only saves energy and money, it also creates jobs, U.S. Sen. Al Franken said Monday as he launched an initiative to spur more retrofitting projects for private buildings in the state.
Franken said his "Back to Work Minnesota" initiative is aimed at removing financial and regulatory barriers to energy efficiency projects.
The initiative has no form yet, and there was no estimate of jobs it would create. Franken met privately in St. Paul with representatives from business, governmental agencies and others involved in energy efficiency after announcing his idea at a renewable energy summit he convened at Metropolitan State University.
Minnesota is a leader in energy efficiency, but many of the projects so far have involved local government buildings and schools, Franken said. Many of those projects have benefited from government grants and utility programs encouraging lower energy consumption.
Businesses find it difficult to get banks to finance a retrofit project even though the lower energy bills can pay back the expense, Franken said.
Energy efficiency got a plug at the summit from Arun Majumdar, director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Ad-vanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E.
ARPA-E's focus is funding cutting-edge research, but Majumdar endorsed the humble idea of reducing energy waste first.
"I hope the model you've created here is replicated around the country, because we can certainly use the jobs," he said.