Connecticut DEEP Climate Resilience Fund

Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environment’s Climate Resilience Fund (DCRF) was initiated in 2023 to support community, infrastructure, and energy resilience projects. Government entities and others in the community can apply for funding to support infrastructure planning in the face of more severe weather events and a decline in federal funding.

DCRF funds have since expanded supported projects from planning and advancement to include construction of community and energy resilience projects, such as energy infrastructure and nature-based urban cooling systems. Municipal governments, Councils of Government, neighborhood organizations, non-profit organizations, academic institutions, public utilities, state and federally recognized Tribal nations are all eligible to apply. Projects fall into one of three categories (planning, advancement, and deployment) and must incorporate the following five principles:

  • Comprehensive, complementary approaches that may incorporate nature-based solutions 
  • Support for planning and community engagement  
  • Maximizing federal resilience funding 
  • Establishing predictable, equitable state and local match for federal resilience funding 
  • Leveraging other state and federal funding resources for climate resilience 

Forty percent of the funding must go toward efforts that benefit vulnerable communities, as defined in Conn. Gen. Stat. § 16-243y, to support flood prevention, climate resilience, and erosion control systems. In its first round of grants in 2023, the DCRF allocated funding for plans and projects across 17 municipalities and councils of government in the state, with 90% of the $8.8 million in state funding going towards vulnerable communities that year.

In 2025, Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environment Protection allocated $44 million in federal and state funds to support community, infrastructure, and energy resilience projects. The resulting second round of grants, announced in June 2026, awarded $5.1 million to 14 municipalities, regional entities and non-profits. Some of the funding for this round is coming from the Federal Emergency Management Agency via matching funds to allow for the allocation of federal funds as well.

The DCRF was initiated through Governor Ned Lamont’s 2021 Executive Order 21-3 to provide funding for adaptation, resilience and development projects. The DCRF expands on the state’s prior Microgrid Grant and Loan Program, which was originally established in 2012 and expanded upon by the legislature in 2020 to authorize greater uses for resilience.

 

Publication Date: October 2, 2025

Related Organizations:

  • Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP)

Related Resources:

Sectors:

Resource Category:

Resource Types:

  • Funding program

States Affected:

Impacts:

Go To Resource