“Homes, commercial buildings and other structures consume significant amounts of energy,” Gov. Ritter said. “One of the most effective ways to save energy is to retrofit existing buildings to make them more efficient. It saves money. It saves energy and it just makes good common sense as we transform to a clean energy future and continue to advance Colorado’s successful New Energy Economy.”
Colorado’s $25 million award will help launch a retrofit program that will stimulate economic growth and investment in Colorado through large-scale retrofits in neighborhoods and commercial districts in urban, suburban and rural areas. Delivery of retrofits will be coordinated through a "Two Techs and a Truck" program, providing on-site outreach, audit and implementation services to businesses and residential homeowners and tenants, including efficiency testing and systems installation.
The retrofit ramp-up initiative follows the Governor’s Energy Office’s launch this week of Recharge Colorado, an $18 million effort that has awarded 17,000 rebates to Coloradans for energy-efficient home appliances, water heaters, furnaces and weatherization services.
Vice President Joe Biden announced the national “ramp-up” energy efficiency campaign earlier this morning. Communities, governments and nonprofits will work together on pioneering and innovative programs for concentrated and broad-based retrofits of neighborhoods and towns - and eventually entire states. These partnerships will support large-scale retrofits and make energy efficiency accessible to hundreds of thousands of homeowners and businesses.
In addition to the $452 million Recovery Act investment, the 25 projects announced today will leverage an estimated $2.8 billion from the private sector over the next three years to retrofit hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses across the country. Grantees will employ innovative financing models to make these savings accessible, for example by offering low and no-interest loans that are repaid through property tax and utility bills. Overall, the program was eight times oversubscribed, with more than $3.5 billion in applications submitted for the just over $450 million in Recovery Act funds available, indicating significant demand for investment in energy-saving and job-creating projects like these nationwide.
The Retrofit Ramp-Up projects, which are part of the overall $80 billion Recovery Act investment in clean energy and energy-efficiency, complement the Obama Administration's 'Recovery through Retrofit' initiative, which lays the groundwork for a self-sustaining and robust home energy efficiency industry. The awards are the competitive portion of DOE's Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Program, which was funded for the first time under the Recovery Act to help state, local, and tribal communities make strategic investments in improving energy efficiency, reduce energy use and fossil fuel emissions.
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