TRENTON, NJ—The Christie administration has laid the groundwork for what is believed to be the first state-level fund intended to bankroll projects to make energy infrastructure more resilient in extreme weather. Known as the New Jersey Energy Resilience Bank, the fund uses $200 million through New Jersey's second Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery allocation.

First proposed this past February, the initiative comes after Superstorm Sandy left an estimated five million New Jersey residents without power in the fall of 2012. Distributed energy resources, including combined heat and power, fuel cells and off-grid solar inverters with battery storage, allowed some critical facilities, such as hospitals, wastewater treatment plants and universities, to remain operational while the electric grid was down. ERB is intended to enable many more such facilities to remain operational during future outages.

“Distributed energy resources proved extremely resilient following Sandy; unfortunately, due to high initial costs, many critical facilities do not have these energy resilience solutions in place,” says Michele Brown, CEO of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority. “The ERB will help address this unmet need by providing technical and financial support to critical facilities across New Jersey to ensure they have a path for building energy resilience.”

The ERB will be focused on providing capital, via both low-interest loans and grants, to critical facilities that offer the greatest resilience benefits for the state. Among these are water and wastewater treatment plants and hospitals, with subsequent funding directed towards other critical facilities, including transportation and transportation networks, emergency response facilities including police, fire, emergency services buildings, and schools that can function as shelters in case of emergency. Realizing resilient energy solutions at water and wastewater treatment plants will be an early priority.

Earlier this week, the NJ Board of Public Utilities approved a sub-recipient agreement with the EDA to work jointly in the establishment and operation of the ERB. The EDA had approved the agreement on July 10.

The EDA and BPU also announced the hiring of staff to fill two ERB leadership positions. Mitch Carpen has been named the ERB's executive director, while Thomas N. Walker has been named deputy director.