The council on Feb. 18, 2025, approved the requested funding for the Rising-West Princeton Corp. and continued the agreement with the USGS.

The Birmingham City Council will consider authorizing the mayor’s office to apply for a grant of up to $250,000 to explore solar-power deployment in the city.

Grant funding would come from the Coalition for Green Capital, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Clean Investment Fund supports through a $5 billion grant.

The grant would provide technical assistance to study market conditions and develop strategies to unlock opportunities for solar-energy projects, Thomas Yuill, deputy director of the mayor’s Office of Resilience and Sustainability, told the council’s Budget and Finance Committee on Monday. The grant would not require any matching funds from the city.

Committee member and Council President Pro-Tempore Wardine Alexander asked whether any particular areas would be studied.

“It’s more focused on the funding and financing opportunities around solar projects,” Yuill said. “However, there will be a feasibility component of just broadly solar in the city of Birmingham. There may be a special interest in looking at brownfields, using those as solar fields.”

Brownfields are abandoned industrial or commercial sites that have been contaminated with hazardous waste.

Councilor Valerie Abbott expressed interest in using solar power for city-owned properties, and Yuill said the city could use information obtained through the study to better understand solar opportunities for city facilities.

“I’m really excited about that, just because I feel like the city of Birmingham should have been doing solar power for a long time, because we have all these flat roofs we could put it on,” Abbott said.

Abbott also questioned whether the grant funds could be cut or frozen as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to slash federal spending.

“This is an open grant opportunity, and we are going to pursue it,” Yuill responded.

The committee asked about obstacles homeowners face when using solar energy. Yuill said Alabama Power customers have to pay a solar surcharge if they generate solar power. He also said he does not think selling excess energy back to the utility company—a process called net metering—is possible in the Birmingham market, as Alabama Power does not offer such a program.

The Budget and Finance Committee approved the resolution, and it will move to the full City Council for a vote.

In other business, the committee also approved moving forward to the full council:

• A resolution that would provide up to $10,000 in District 8 discretionary funds to Rising-West Princeton Corporation, a 501c3 nonprofit, to renovate the kitchen and generally maintain the Rising-West Princeton Community Center, which is to provide a space for monthly neighborhood meetings and community-held events for one year.
• A resolution to continue for one year a joint funding agreement with the U.S. Geological Survey, at a cost to the city of $95,240, under which USGS assists with operating and maintaining 15 stream-flow gauging stations in all five Birmingham watersheds. The stations continuously monitor water temperature and specific conductance, basically flow rates. Changes in those measurements could indicate water-quality problems and alert the city to investigate, said Direcus Cooper, stormwater program manager for the city. USGS would contribute $41,710 to services performed during the agreement period.