MARION — More than $200,000 is coming to Marion for energy saving projects at town facilities.

The funding, tied to four different projects at three municipal buildings, is part of the Green Communities program within the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources.

The $212,675 in grant money, announced Sept. 6, comes months after extensive discussion that preceded Town Meeting regarding Marion’s participation in the Green Communities program, in which municipalities must meet certain criteria in order to receive funding for energy-conservation projects.

The four projects include a transformer upgrade at Sippican Elementary School, a heat pump system upgrade at a pumping station on Front Street, and a building management system upgrade and “variable frequency drives” at the wastewater pollution control facility, according to a town news release.

Alanna Nelson, chair of the town’s Energy Management Committee, said the grant funding is “a nice extra piece” for the projects.

“These are three different parts of town, and they provide different types of upgrades that we would have to do as a community eventually anyhow,” Nelson said. “But this way, we can do them sooner, and we can do it without it coming out of property taxes.”

The projects at the wastewater facility address the amount of energy used to make the plant function correctly, while the transformer at Sippican School concerns “safety, reliability and ability to upgrade in the future for any other electric needs,” according to Nelson.

“We wouldn't have had access to this money if we weren't in the Green Communities program,” Nelson said.

Discussion earlier in the year regarding Marion’s participation as a Green Community focused on the “stretch” building code that cities and towns in the program must adopt as part of the program’s criteria. 

Serving as an appendix to the state’s building energy code, the stretch code “emphasizes energy performance,” according to the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources.

Marion adopted the stretch code in 2018 when it became a Green Community, but the code has since been updated, most recently in 2023.

A vote on whether Marion would continue with the updated stretch code, and therefore as a Green Community, was set for Town Meeting in May but eventually postponed after a well-attended public hearing at a Marion Select Board meeting.

“The changes were big this time,” Nelson said. “There were some really different things that people had to learn, that people might have had to redo some projects, or they might want to rethink how they do it.”

Rochester in 2023 became the first municipality in Massachusetts to withdraw from the Green Communities program.

Since 2018, Marion has received more than $750,000 in Green Community grants, according to state data.