Lincoln Electric System has received $300,000 from Google to provide energy-efficient improvements for affordable housing units.
The money will help Lincoln continue the South of Downtown Rental Rehabilitation Program, a 2023 program that in part aims to improve energy efficiency for residents in portions of the city’s Near South and Everett neighborhoods.
The program offers $15,000 in financial assistance per dwelling unit to owners of affordable residential rental properties that fall within the boundaries of J and A streets going north to south, and South 10th and South 17th streets going west to east. These improvements can include high-efficiency heat pumps, upgraded insulation and smart thermostats, which LES assists with.
LES CEO Emeka Anyanwu said since 2023, the program has helped fund upgrades in 133 housing units using funds left over from the utility’s 2018 Sustainable Energy Program, and the new infusion of funds from Google will help pay for at least 50 more.
He said the improvements have yielded average annual bill savings of around $250 per apartment.
“We knew kind of where we were with funds,” Anyanwu said. “And so as we analyzed that, our team sort of identified that this was possibly a match in terms of the purpose of Google’s Foundation, and a program here that we have in the city, that needed the funding. And so, you know, we started the conversation with Google and the Sharing the Power Foundation and with our partners with the city, and sort of the match came together.”
According to Allie Hopkins, the area lead for Google data centers within Nebraska and Iowa, Google is giving the money to LES, “to continue [its] commitment to building better communities in the region…Since arriving in Lincoln, Google has been committed to being a strong community partner, and this program is what it looks like in action.”
Google is currently in the process of building a data center in Lincoln and aiming to have it in service later this year.
Case Maranville, a landlord who owns properties in the area eligible for the program, said the funding assistance helps accomplish improvements without raising rent.
“It’s a benefit for us because it lets us improve our infrastructure, our HVAC units,” Maranville said. “We want to protect affordable housing. We don’t want to raise rents, making them unaffordable, in order to fund infrastructure projects. It’s a win-win in a lot of ways, mostly for our tenants. They experience new systems that are efficient, their energy bills go down, and it doesn’t raise the rents.”
The South of Downtown Rental Rehabilitation Program is currently planned as a 10-year program, said Dan Marvin, Lincoln’s Urban Development Director.
“We are in phase three,” said Marvin. “We’ve got an additional seven years. We’re going to do 100 units a year. We’ll do 1,000 units in this neighborhood over the 10-year period.
The application process for 2025 has passed, but the city of Lincoln is taking applications for the 2026 funding cycle.
