Apex Clean Energy Awards Latest Funds, Totaling $710,000, in Conservation Grant Program

Charlottesville, VA – March 4, 2024 – Apex Clean Energy today announced the 2023 recipients of $710,000 in grant funding through its Apex Conservation Grant Program, which supports conservation initiatives near the company’s commercialized renewable energy projects. Since its founding in 2021, the program has distributed $2.4 million in grant funds—with another $6.26 million secured in matching donations—to preserve and restore nearly 3,000 acres near project areas.

An employee-initiated program, the Apex Conservation Grant Program is the first of its kind within the clean energy industry and expands the ecological benefits of Apex’s renewable energy projects by contributing a sum of money proportional to the size of each project (approximately $1,000/MW) to support local or regional conservation efforts.

“While our mission to accelerate the shift to a clean energy future has enormous positive ramifications for our nation’s environment and economy, the Apex Conservation Grant Program came from us looking at our work and asking, ‘How can we do more?’” said Ken Young, CEO of Apex. “This innovative program enables us to create a lasting impact beyond the megawatt, extending the benefits that decarbonized projects offer to the communities and areas that surround them.”

In 2023, on behalf of four commercialized projects—Angelo Solar, Big Elm Solar, Downeast Wind, and Timbermill Wind—Apex awarded grants to support the following initiatives:

• In the Southern Coastal Plains, Texas, the Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program ($165,000) will create three “rain gardens” within the Baffin Bay Watershed to support the Bringing Baffin Back initiative and ongoing efforts to reduce flooding, filter out pollutants, provide habitat, and improve water quality.
• In South Dallas, Texas, the Trust for Public Land ($30,000) has purchased 40 acres of former farmland and will restore 2.5 acres of it to native Blackland Prairie as part of the creation of Judge Charles R. Rose Park, which will connect to a 17-mile trail system among economically disadvantaged communities.
• Along the Rio Grande Valley in Texas and New Mexico, Ducks Unlimited ($200,000) will improve 969 acres of habitat for waterfowl, bats, and other wetland-dependent species while ensuring the efficient use of limited water resources and creating opportunities for enhanced public recreation.
• In Maine, Project SHARE ($126,000) will increase in-stream habitat complexity and suitability for the federally endangered Atlantic salmon in two riverine systems within the Downeast Wind project area.
• In Suffolk, Virginia, Friends of the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge ($92,100) will acquire 0.9 acres of land to improve refuge access, upgrade refuge facilities, and engage with nearby underserved communities.
• In Hertford County and Columbia, North Carolina, the North Carolina Wildlife Federation ($96,900) will reforest 80 acres of longleaf pine in the Chowan Swamp Gamelands and 100 acres of Atlantic white cedar at the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge—two imperiled habitats that support a myriad of federally endangered species.