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Federal officials recognized high-growth potential in the Portland area’s clean technology industry today with a $2.15 million award aimed at pushing the regional cluster into bigger markets.

The Portland Development Commission and local nonprofit will each receive $1 million, and the Oregon Microenterprise Network will bring in $150,000 through the .

The Portland-Vancouver clean tech industry is one of 20 winners of the nationwide Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge, which was funded by three federal agencies.

The grant is set up to promote regional collaboration, although each local agency will use the funds to support different types of activities. The PDC will foster the commercialization and supply chain needs of new products; Worksystems will focus on workforce development; and OMEN will engage small, emerging and minority-owned clean tech businesses.

Greater Portland Inc. pulled together more than 20 organizations from across the region to apply for the grant, which was a challenge in itself.

鈥淲e celebrated after just getting the application done and sending it in – to actually receive it is quite an honor. The next step is to reconvene and start to perform,鈥� said Pamela Treece of Greater Portland Inc.