Wisconsin will receive close to $15 million from the United States Department of Energy for industrial energy-efficiency projects.

Steven Chu, secretary of energy in the DOE, announced that recipients across the country will receive $155 million in federal stimulus money through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Wisconsin received the largest amount of funding among states that were awarded grants.

“Many companies already realize that improving efficiency saves money while helping the environment,” Chu said in a statement Tuesday. “These projects will make energy efficiency technologies more widely available, cutting energy use and reducing carbon pollution across the country.”

CleanTech Partners, a nonprofit organization that invests in energy saving technologies, will receive up to $14.5 million to finance energy-efficient equipment at nine companies across Wisconsin. The funding is projected to help increase energy efficiency by 45 percent through 25 different sub-projects, according to a statement the DOE released Tuesday.

Masood Akhtar, president of CleanTech Partners, said there was only a 2 percent chance his company would receive the funding.

“We put together a very strong proposal,” Akhtar said. “We were thrilled to see that we were able to compete.”

CleanTech invited firms from across Wisconsin to participate in the proposal and ultimately chose nine companies to include, Akhtar said. The total funding of the proposal was $31 million, which will be provided by utility companies, the private sector, CleanTech and the DOE funding.

“CleanTech has the expertise and the credibility with the DOE,” Akhtar said. “The DOE looks at our deployment model (of energy-efficient projects) as one of the best models.”

CleanTech then disperses the funding to apply energy-efficient equipment in industries like paper and pulp mills, printing, plumbing and small engine manufacturing.

Included in the grant was $350,000 allocated to the Wisconsin Office of Energy Independence.

Dave Jenkins, director of commercialization and market development in the Wisconsin Office of Energy Independence, said the funding will be used for a sophisticated energy-efficiency audit of large manufacturing companies in Wisconsin.

“The Save Energy Now program is an industrial energy-efficiency program,” Jenkins said. “The DOE certified assessors to do 20 to 30 assessments, document what improvement could be made and provide them with a list of equipment that can be used.”

The companies that will be included in the assessments use a lot of energy and want to improve their energy efficiency because it helps them save money, Jenkins said. The Office of Energy Independence uses other stimulus funds to provide companies with extremely low interest loans that assist them in the installation of energy-efficient devices, such as lighting.

Gov. Jim Doyle announced Wisconsin would not only receive $15 million toward energy efficiency funding, but also another $1 million of federal funding to advance biofuel retail availability in Wisconsin.

“Wisconsin has the resources and skills to lead the nation in clean energy,” Doyle said. “This major investment will make significant progress towards my goal of getting 25 percent of our electricity and 25 percent of our transportation fuels from renewable sources by 2025.”