The Department of Environmental Protection this week announced the opportunity for industrial and commercial businesses, institutions and municipal drinking water and wastewater treatment operations located with this Commonwealth.

The Department's Office of Energy and Technology Deployment annually co-sponsors energy-saving ''Best Practices'' workshops in cooperation with other sponsoring Commonwealth organizations and the Department of Energy's Industrial Technology Program. (No list of workshop dates was included in the notice.)

The Energy Use-Reduction Grant project will provide up to ten--$1,000 grants to organizations of the Commonwealth that participate in the Department's co-sponsored DOE workshops and reduce energy consumption through the development and implementation of a project that applies workshop ''Best Practices.''

Project applications judged ''best in class'' by OETD staff will receive a grant. Applications will be evaluated on multiple criteria including: sustainable energy and economic benefits, technical merit, the application of workshop ''Best Practices'' and completeness. Applicants will have a 4-month application window following each workshop to design, implement and report project results.

Organizations participating in a workshop may only file a single project application for each workshop attended. Third party applications will not be accepted. Applications may not be faxed or electronically submitted to the Department. Postmarks will not be accepted.

DEP said applications will be available following each Department co-sponsored workshop, will be available online, or by direct request to Richard Illing, Program Specialist, OETD, 717-772-5834 or rillig@state.pa.us . Questions submitted by e-mail should include ''Energy Use-Reduction Grant Project'' in the title line.

10/19/2007