Colorado heat pump technician training grants pay 3 schools
Colorado heat pump technician training grants are now paying 3 Colorado schools to teach heating, ventilation and air conditioning workers, called HVAC workers, how to install heat pumps, machines that warm and cool a home by moving heat rather than burning fuel. The Colorado Energy Office runs the grants through its Training for Residential Energy Contractors program, called TREC, and says the money comes from the United States Department of Energy. Its own award record names 3 recipients. Colorado Mesa University Tech in Grand Junction gets 223,342 dollars. Red Rocks Community College in Lakewood gets 259,482 dollars. Pickens Technical College, run by Aurora Public Schools, gets 257,346 dollars. Those 3 amounts add up to 740,170 dollars, a total this article calculates by adding the 3 awards together, since the Colorado Energy Office states each award on its own and publishes no combined figure.
223,342 dollars, 259,482 dollars and 257,346 dollars add up to 740,170 dollars, a total this article calculates, since the Colorado Energy Office publishes only the 3 separate amounts.
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| Colorado Mesa University Tech | 223,342 |
| Red Rocks Community College | 259,482 |
| Pickens Technical College, Aurora | 257,346 |
What the 3 grants build, and how big a single award can grow
Each school is building something different with its award. Colorado Mesa University Tech is creating a Heat Pump Employment Ready certificate inside its existing HVAC technical certificate program, open starting fall 2026 both as a full college course and as an evening class for people already working, plus a mobile learning lab reaching students in rural Delta and Montrose. Red Rocks Community College is adding heat pump lessons to its HVAC program so students can earn the Energy Skilled Recognized Heat Pump Installer Credential, taught in both Spanish and English with scholarships available. Pickens Technical College is helping technicians already on the job study for the Heat Pump Installation and Comfort Advising exam, mixing online lessons with hands on lab work and its own mobile learning lab for rural communities.
The Colorado Energy Office says every TREC award, no matter which school wins it, falls between 50,000 dollars and 350,000 dollars, and recipients never have to add their own matching money. The 3 awards granted so far sit inside that range, but below its top end.
The Colorado Energy Office says this range applies to every Training for Residential Energy Contractors award and that no recipient has to add matching money. All 3 awards granted so far sit inside this range, below its top end.
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| TREC grant award | 50,000 to 350,000 dollars |
One federal record names a law, the Colorado record does not
A program record published by the Department of Energy says the national grant category behind these awards, called the State Based Home Energy Efficiency Contractor Training Competitive Grant Program, was created under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the federal law that set aside money for clean energy work across the country. The Colorado Energy Office pages about its 3 awards name only the United States Department of Energy as the funder, and mention no law at all.
These 3 grants are 1 part of a larger push. The Denver Regional Council of Governments runs a separate, Environmental Protection Agency funded program, Power Ahead Colorado, aiming to train more than 4,800 workers in building electrification over 5 years and upskill 1,000 more already on the job. That effort is funded by a different federal agency and is not part of the 3 TREC awards above.