On December 16th, DEP announced that 90 small businesses across the state will receive more than $560,000 in grants through the Small Business Advantage program to reduce energy use and pollution, enabling them to become more competitive. 40 of the 90 award winners are Pennsylvania Small Business Development Center EMAP clients who received a total of $226,996 in grant funds!
Since this is a cost share grant program, these SBDC clients are investing an additional $490,427 in their own funds to complete these project. This provides a nice boost to PA's economy with over $700,000 being invested by SBDC clients to purchase and install new energy and resource efficient equipment. Furthermore, these companies will realize long term benefits of saving at least 25% on their utility costs - cost savings which can be used for other business costs such as retaining employees.
Since 2004 when the Small Business Advantage Grant program opened, EMAP clients have received 275 grants for over $1.5 million in grant funds. Considering the cost share requirement, the total investment by SBDC clients is over $3 million into the economy.