By Keith Whitcomb Jr. [email protected]
The statewide utility created to save people money on electricity is proposing a flat budget that will refocus efforts on refrigeration and weatherization projects for moderate income homeowners.
Efficiency Vermont has submitted a six-year spending plan to the Public Utility Commission, said Rebecca Foster, director of Efficiency Vermont, on Wednesday. The PUC will conduct a hearing process during which residents and other stakeholders can offer input, with a decision expected in the fall of 2020. The budget would take effect in 2021.
Foster said for the past nine years, Efficiency Vermont has proposed budgets of around $60 million. She said 80% comes from Vermont electricity utility rate payers. The other 20% comes from outside sources.
She said the $60 million in an annual budget PUC normally reviews every three years. Things have been going well, so the commission will consider a six-year review cycle, but can change it to three years if it desires.
During the summer, Efficiency Vermont had several meetings with organizations and businesses about where to focus its efforts.
“Part of what came out of that stakeholder outreach was a desire to have us delivering more than just electricity savings,” Foster said. “People said the electricity work is great. We want to see that continue, but we’re really worried about greenhouse gases.”
She said the average supermarket sees 23% leakage from its refrigeration systems per year. It’s not only a waste of money, but it harms the environment.
“Refrigerants are a lot more harmful than carbon dioxide to the environment, so that’s something we want to address,” Foster said.
Efficiency Vermont addressed refrigerant leakage in much the same way it tackles residential weatherization. While it has accounts with large entities such as supermarket chains, small businesses can also turn to Efficiency Vermont for help in this area. The group will send people to assess a business’ heating and cooling situation, identify ways to improve things and set them up with contractors who can do the work.
“The technical support we have received from Efficiency Vermont has been instrumental in helping Hannaford reduce our energy use and lower our operating costs at multiple grocery store locations throughout Vermont,” said Joshua Smith, manager of refrigeration/HVAC services for Hannaford, in a statement. “We appreciate the opportunity to share our priorities as Efficiency Vermont plans for the coming years. Partnering with Efficiency Vermont on refrigerant management has the potential to help us and many other businesses drive even greater innovation and savings as we work together to combat climate change.”
Weatherization“This past year in the Legislature, they passed Act 62, and that provided Efficiency Vermont with opportunity to put additional funds into our weatherization program and really ramped up the incentive for moderate income customers,” said Foster. “We’re trying to continue that in this next plan and do two things: one, keep the level of weatherization high. We’ve done a lot over the last six months to make investments in building our workforce for weatherization across the state, offering trainings, certifications, trying to bring more people into that industry and we also offer higher incentives if you’re a moderate income customer.”
She said right now, people with moderate incomes can get up to half a weatherization project’s cost back in the form of a rebate with a $4,000 cap.
Foster said these incentives save homeowners money, stimulate the economy and the money stays in Vermont.
A flat budget with a focus on different areas means other things are being reduced.
“The area we’re going to spend less on is lighting in the residential sector, and the reason is that we’ve done a really good job with screw-based LEDs,” Foster said. “We’ve done such a good job in Vermont and across the country promoting them that essentially there’s going to be a federal efficiency standard that should take effect. There’s some question about whether the Trump administration will roll it back, but there is an efficiency standard on the books that’s going to mean most lighting sold is going to be at the LED efficiency level going forward starting in 2020.”
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