Milwaukee in spotlight for green economic transformation
Three Milwaukee area companies are representative of the impact that a suite of economic recovery and development bills have had across the country, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said during a stop Wednesday at Discovery World.
Granholm was in Milwaukee as part of a four-day swing through Michigan and Wisconsin to tout progress made in the Biden administration’s “Investing in America” initiative, a package of bills passed in late 2021 and early 2022 that aims to encourage investments in domestic manufacturing, accelerate the nation’s transition to clean energy, and create new, well-paying jobs.
Granholm called the initiative “the new industrial revolution,” one that seeks to reverse the losses from years of manufacturing plant shutdowns and offshoring, and position companies and workers to succeed in a hightech, clean energy economy and, for the first time, prioritize activities that benefit low-income communities that have historically been shut out of economic development initiatives.
As signs of progress, she pointed to Ingeteam, a Spanish company that was encouraged by made-in-America preferences in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to begin making electric vehicles chargers in Milwaukee, and Copeland, a Missouri company that received a DOE grant that will help it begin making compressors for heat pumps in Cudahy.
“It’s happening all across the country,” she said. “You know, since the passage of the president’s agenda, these clusters of innovation and manufacturing − these clean energy ecosystems − are popping up in places like Milwaukee County, and all over the country.”
Over three years, Granholm said, that’s added up to $650 billion in investments in semiconductors, clean energy technology and other industries, nearly two-thirds of which is related to clean energy. Clean energy companies have launched construction or expansion of 600 factories in that time, she said.
As the transition to renewable energy accelerates, it’s not without challenges, including a backlog of projects that are in queue to be connected to an already at-capacity national electric grid.
Granholm said DOE is working with regional electricity transmission systems operators, utilities and companies working on new and better ways of transmitting electricity to find ways to ease the logjam.
“I think that we all are operating with a huge sense of urgency, especially since the energy demand is increasing as a result of data centers, and AI and these manufacturing facilities that are coming on and electrification.
Granholm was scheduled to attend a closed-door listening session later in the day with Milwaukee community leaders at the headquarters of Walnut Way Conservation Corp., a nonprofit community development agency in the Lindsay Heights neighborhood.
She said she also planned to tour a house on North 15th Street that Walnut Way is remodeling as a showcase for energy efficiency.
“Since the passage of the president’s agenda, these clusters of innovation and manufacturing − these clean energy ecosystems − are popping up in places like Milwaukee County, and all over the country.”
Jennifer Granholm U.S. Secretary of Energy