Southwest CERT 2014 Seed Grant Recipients Southwest CERT awarded $20,000 worth of seed grants, catalyzing energy efficiency and renewable energy projects across the region. Funding is provided by the Minnesota Department of Commerce, Division of Energy Resources. Thanks to everyone who submitted a proposal. Learn more and see past projects at http://projects.mncerts.org . SOUTHWEST REGION City of Slayton - Broadway Ave. LED Street Lighting Retrofits Slayton, MN – The City of Slayton currently owns twenty-five 250-watt High Pressure Sodium cobra head style street lights on Broadway Avenue, the City’s central business district and also contains residential housing units. The City of Slayton is working to replace Broadway Avenue’s street lights with twenty-five 55-watt LED retrofitted units to reduce energy use and energy costs and to increase energy efficiency while simultaneously increasing safety and security for Slayton’s Downtown pedestrians and businesses. (Energy Efficiency: Lighting Upgrades; $2,000) Christ Lutheran Church - Window Replacement Project Slayton, MN – The Church members will replace 15 of the original 25 windows with energy efficient windows. This project will be shared with and described to others by including church members in the project. Volunteer members will learn from a contractor and then help with the work, thereby learning or refining a skill set transferable to similar projects at home or elsewhere in the community. The entire congregation will learn from this process and benefit from the energy savings provided by the new windows. (Energy Efficiency: window replacement; $5,000) City of Russell – LED Street Lighting Project Russell, Arco, and Lynd, MN – Lyon-Lincoln Electric Cooperative, Inc. will replace a number of existing mercury vapor and high pressure sodium street lights with LED lights to reduce energy use by the cities of Russell, Arco and Lynd. Lyon-Lincoln Electric Cooperative will study the results of the project and share that information with its nearly 4,000 utility members and through energy edu- cation programs at area schools. (Energy Efficiency: Lighting Upgrades; $8,600) Red Rock Central School District - Community Auditorium LED Lighting Project Lamberton, MN – The school district auditorium stage lighting fixtures will be retrofitted with ener- gy efficient LED lighting. The auditorium is used by area communities for events such as dance recitals and community fundraiser rummage sales (this year’s will benefit the auditorium’s LED lighting upgrade). (Energy Efficiency: Lighting Upgrades; $4,400) GET SOCIAL WITH CERTs: on.fb.me/mn-certs twitter.com/mncerts linkd.in/mncerts flickr.com/mncerts youtube.com/mncerts pinterest.com/mncerts The Clean Energy Resource Teams (CERTs) connect individuals and their communities to the resources they need to identify and implement community-based clean energy projects Minnesotans building a clean energy future