Memorandum
Date: September 21, 2021
To: The Honorable Lake County Board of Supervisors
From: Carol J. Huchingson, County Administrative Officer
Subject: Consideration of a Letter of Commitment Between the County of Lake and Trane Technologies Enabling Pursuit of Grant Funding Toward a Firemain Linked Auxiliary Supply Hydraulic Energy Storage (FLASHES) System Project in North Lakeport
Executive Summary:
As you will recall, on Tuesday, August 31, your Board approved submittal of an application for a PG&E Better Together Resilient Communities grant by Trane Technologies, on behalf of the County of Lake. You approved submittal of that application on the basis of its potential to provide funding toward feasibility studies on multiple potential Lake County energy and disaster resilience projects, including a Firemain Linked Auxiliary Supply Hydraulic Energy Storage (FLASHES) System project in the North Lakeport area:
https://countyoflake.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=5118972&GUID=F8DDCC22-1152-46EC-8858-AE07B148DA39
If we are to see such a large scale energy project come to fruition in Lake County, Capital Grants are a key piece to the puzzle, and significant engineering work and other efforts, beyond what can be afforded by the PG&E grant, alone, must be undertaken for our County to be competitive for such funding opportunities. Therefore, the attached Letter of Commitment (LOC) presented for your Board's consideration is the logical next step in evaluating the viability of the North Lakeport FLASHES Project.
As you may be aware, the United States Economic Development Administration's (EDA's) Build Back Better Regional Challenge (B-3) is a $1 billion dollar funding opportunity facilitated by the American Rescue Plan Act, seeking to "Provide a transformational investment to 20-30 regions across the country that want to revitalize their economies," in areas including Planning and Infrastructure development. Technical Assistance funding (Phase 1, ca...
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