The Utah Rural Energy Diversification and Innovation (U-REDI) are in the last leg of the U.S. Economic Development Administration Build Back Better Regional Challenge. Part of this challenge is that officials have to host open and public meetings about their plans for obtaining the grant.

“With the led of the Utah Office of Energy Development and my office, Southeastern Utah Association of Local Governments, we put together this coalition, it’s of about ten different members across the state of Utah to form an application; that was back in October of 2021,” stated Deputy Director, Jade Powell. The UREDI submitted a grant application and there were over 529 national applications. Our area was selected as one of the 60 applications that get to move on to phase 2 of the challenge. They will not know if they will get funding until later this summer.

“We submitted a phase 2 application back in March and part of the application process and everything with the UREDI and this whole funding opportunity is to hold open and public meetings to solicit comments on all the different projects,” stated Powell. There are seven different projects that are part of this, which the main one is the San Rafael Energy Research Center and the other six projects have to support the San Rafael Energy Research Center.

There will be a public meeting held with members of the U-REDI coalition on Thursday, June 2 at the Southeastern Utah Association of Local Governments building on Carbon Avenue. “UAMMI being a part of the coalition, they are an initiative based out of the Wasatch front, off the Wasatch front, and what they’re looking to do is to bring some of their resources and their programming to the more rural areas starting with Carbon County,” stated Powell. They will host their Open House at 1:00 pm for individuals to come learn more about their company and what they can offer our area. This will be followed by the public meeting with the U-REDI officials where folks can learn more about the U-REDI projects.

To learn more about the Utah Rural Energy Diversification and Innovation (U-REDI) on Facebook.