Where: River Bend Career & Technical Center, Bradford, VT
When: Saturday, September 25, 2010 at 9:00am
Registration info: www.weatherizationskillshop.com or call 888-514-2151.

Home energy efficiency skills for do-it-yourselfers.
• Taught by a certified building performance instructor.
• Opportunity to quality for energy efficiency incentives and rebates up to $2,500 through DIY Pilot Program.
• Topics include: attics & air-sealing, windows & doors, and foundations & basements.

Cost of $150 includes training, safety gear, a $150 energy audit certificate from Efficiency Vermont, a foam gun, and a copy of The Homeowner’s Handbook To Energy Efficiency.

Take a class now and learn how to save money on your electricity, heating and air conditioning costs for years to come!

The funds also may be used to promote bulk buying strategies and cooperative partnerships in buying solar technologies in order to lower the costs of materials.  Community-based marketing approaches to help families save energy and money also may be funded under the grants.

The Vermont grant recipients were among 120 organizations across the country selected to receive $120 million under the U.S. Department of Energy’s Weatherization Assistance Program.

The Bennington-Rutland Opportunity Council, Inc., located in Rutland, will receive $900,000.

The Central Vermont Community Action Council, Inc., based in Barre, will receive $900,000.

The Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, Inc., located in Burlington and Hinesburg, will receive more than $1.1 million, and will undertake program management and evaluation in addition to the project.

The Northeast Employment & Training Organization, Inc., based in Derby and St. Johnsbury, will receive $900,000.

The South Eastern Vermont Community Action, Inc, located in Westminster, will receive over $900,000.

Vermont leads the nation in taking dramatic steps toward energy efficiency. By making low-income homes more energy efficient, families save an average of $437 on their energy bills, according the U.S. Department of Energy.

Contacts:
Michael Briggs (Sanders): 202 224-5141
David Carle (Leahy): 202 224-3693
Paul Heintz (Welch): 202 226-8346

You not only will have a great time, but the opportunity to learn about how you can improve your life and our planet with renewable energy – have your questions answered.  Hear from those doin’ it….

We will be participating in the “Living with Solar Panel Discussion” at 12:30 – 1:30pm
Tent #1
This presentation is a great opportunity to find out what it’s really like to live with solar – both power and thermal. Panelists will discuss their personal experiences with the planning, installation and logistics of on- and off-grid solar living, as well as give a day-to-day account of what it’s like to do all the things the rest of us take for granted.
Presenters: Steve Letendre, Greg Ullstrom, Dave Bonta, Nancy Rae Mallery, and Annette Smith

Hope to see you there!

DOE requests proposals for Weatherization Formula Grants to increase the energy efficiency of dwellings owned or occupied by low-income persons, reduce their total residential expenditures, and improve their health and safety.

WAP assists persons who are particularly vulnerable, such as the elderly, persons with disabilities, families with children, high residential energy users, and households with high energy burdens. Prime applicant eligibility is restricted to agencies responsible for administering the annual WAP formula allocation. Fifty-eight awards are anticipated.

The response due date depends on the fiscal year end of the prime applicant, with range of 2/15/10 – 8/1/10.

Learn How to Make Your Home More Comfortable and Energy-Efficient –

Weatherization Skillshop courses are designed to give you a solid understanding of building science and to teach the skills you need to accomplish specific weatherization tasks.

You will learn the core fundamentals as well as the hands-on techniques needed to begin improving building efficiency on your own.

For more information, contact Laurie Fielder, 802-476-2093 x116 or http://www.weatherizationskillshop.com/schedule

As we celebrate the independence of our country this 4th of July, I have to think that we have missed the boat.  True independence for our country will occur when we are Energy Independent, as well.  We have a long ways to go!  Too many still don’t understand this IS a real necessity that needs to happen in the very near future – NOT 2050 or 2030.  That is way too late.

Not only are we on the downside of the bell curve of Peak Oil, but we need to reduce our current CO2 which is 387 ppm and rising way too fast. We are already over the safe 350 level, and it must be lowered. Catastrophic results will happen from the melting of the polar and glacial ice. We need to not only reduce our emissions, but also find ways to remove the damages that have already occurred!  We could go on and on about how, but will leave that to our quarterly publication and subsequent postings.

For now, you need to understan that Clean Energy can meet our needs.  It is affordable to ANYone who wants to truly stop talking and start walking. Let’s walk that talk people!  Let’s all work together to move on up to Renewable Energy in al of our lives!

Of course, this will require that your needs must be reduced.  It does not mean you have to give up you comforts.  This can all be accomplished.  We went from using the average 20+ kW/day, planning to reduce that number down to 10.5 to 11 kWh/day and ended up accomplishing way more… now using, on the average: 3.5 kWh/day!

Did I give up comfort?  No!  We have a dishwasher, microwave, even a jacuzzi tub in the bathroom; an Amana refrigerator, Crosley Freezer, Premier Cookstove that does not have a glow-bar in it or an electric clock (phantom load) – in fact, all of my clocks are battery operated.  We use a front loading washing machine and dryer (but choose to hang my clothes 99% of the time.  A soft start Grund-fos well pump which runs on electric, pulls the water from the 170’ deep well, which leads to an oversized pressure tank, and on to a preheat tank for our Solar Hot Water …and on to the Rinnai On-demand Hot Water tank (propane). The on-demand system supplements the SHW in the winter and/or super cloudy days. We use a vacuum cleaner! – imagine that?!  I DO try to do the vacuuming on sunny days and am not afraid of a broom or a dustmop (remember them?).  I even use a toaster which i might think twice about using on cloudy stretches and then will fry my bread if i have the urge for toast.  My microwave is on a wall switch that is turned off after use, reducing the phantom load.

The office includes an iMac that is made with some recycled material and uses low energy.  It is on all day long. The fax and printer are turned off when not in use.  The ceiling energy star fans and open windows (we live in VT & NH!) keep it nice and cool in here, along with the design of the structure.*

All of this and probably many things I am forgetting to mention – (like the stereo and television, that are connected to a wall switch that addresses the phantom load issue that really add up. Energy efficient lighting that anyone and everyone should have changed by now is a given (shame on you, if you haven’t replace yours!)
All of our electricity is produced from SOLAR!  In fact, we do not even come close to using all that it produces or could produce.

Our system was designed, as I stated in the beginning, to meet our needs if we were to use 10.5-11 kWh/day:
• 24 160W panels = 3,840W system or 3.8 kW,
12 250 lead acid deep cycle batteries for storage (28.8 kW storage capacity).
So …part of the charge controller’s job is to avoid overload and thus it stops the system from taking in any more electric when the batteries are at full capacity.  This is usually accomplished by 9:30 every morning – maybe 10:30 on a cloudy day.  We can go up to 5 days before the propane generator will come on! (You must have guessed that we are off-grid**) It came on 3 times last year and 2 times in 2008. We use 65 gal. of propane a year. (Gotta work on lowering that – it’s a fossil fuel)

The point of telling you all of this is to show you that YOU ALL can do this, too! It will take a LOT of work by us all, but just going solar and using renewable energy CAN lead to a truly Independent country – an Energy Independent Country where we will, hopefully, be able to celebrate as such on the 4th of July in our near future!

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY (Independence Day, 2010) to you all!

*The structure is passive solar with SIP’s (R-38 walls, R-47 roof); triple pane doors and windows, with 4 foot overhangs to keep it cooler in the summer on the south and a porch on the west; breezeway & garage on the north to get some relief from the elements in the winter; basement walls are Insulated blocks that give us an R-25 against the earths insulating value, as well…

** We would love to be on-grid, if we could afford the $30,000 to bury lines to connect. Maybe Washington Electric would like to donate that to us so that we can send our extra energy back to the grid, to help others and not waste what we could produce, if only given the chance.

Retrofitting Rutland County homes with a $4.5 million grant for innovative energy efficiency and renewable energy programs will create roughly 350 jobs. “Working with our partners we will be able to retrofit 40 percent of the homes in Rutland County for energy savings, create an estimated 352 jobs, and show the entire country what a single county in Vermont can do with resources and the determination to get it done, ” said Ludy Biddle, executive director of NeighborWorks.

The money is available through a program Bernie created in 2007:

Energy and Environment.  As the only a member of the Senate majority to sit on both the Environment and Public Works and the Energy and Natural Resources Committees, Senator Sanders is uniquely positioned to fight for progressive energy polices and increased environmental protection – issues of great importance to him and to all Vermonters.  Sanders has been a leading voice on the need to address global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The first bill he introduced as a member of the U.S. Senate was a greenhouse gas emissions reduction bill, and he continues to press for action to move our nation toward energy independence. He also believes that by increasing our energy efficiency and use of sustainable energy, our nation can create millions of new, good-paying jobs in America.

During the 110^th Congress (2007-2008), Senator Sanders’ Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, introduced in 2007, offered the most progressive and comprehensive solution to reduce greenhouse gases across the nation of any bill debated in Congress at that time. Sanders also introduced bi-partisan legislation (S. 3224) to put solar panels on ten million roofs across the nation, modeled on a similar initiative in California.  Sanders was also very involved with the writing of the energy bill that was signed into law on December 19, 2007.  He worked with his colleagues to ensure that the bill included a green jobs workforce training program (the Green Jobs Act, Title X of P.L. 110-140, co-authored with then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton), a block grant program to support the efforts of state and local governments to reduce energy use and fossil fuel emissions (Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program, Section 541 of P.L. 110-140, co-authored with Sen. Robert Menendez), and a grant program to support public institutions, including our colleges and universities, as they engage their students in campus efforts to become more energy efficient and install renewable energy technologies (Section 471 of P.L. 110-140).

The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program and Green Jobs Act were funded through the 2009 economic recovery package (aka the stimulus plan). The State of Vermont and its cities, towns and counties received almost $12 million to invest in making buildings and transportation more energy efficiency through the block grant program. Also as part of the stimulus package, Vermont received a grant of nearly $69 million for utilities to install smart meters and other smart grid technology that will help consumers learn more about their energy use and save on their energy bills.

In the 111^th Congress (2009-2010), Senator Sanders worked to shape energy and global warming legislation. He successfully offered several amendments to the American Clean Energy Leadership Act (S. 1462) in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, including an amendment to help homeowners and renters finance energy efficiency retrofits and an amendment to promote renewable energy development on brownfields.

On the Environment and Public Works Committee, Sanders worked with Chairman Barbara Boxer and others to strengthen the Kerry-Boxer (S. 1733) Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act. Among the provisions Sanders fought for and which were included in the committee-approved legislation are:

• Emissions Reduction Target is 20 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 (House bill includes a 17 percent reduction);
• Retaining EPA’s authority to regulate the oldest and dirtiest power plants under Clean Air Act;
• International Offsets reduced from 1 billion tons annually in House bill to half a billion tons annually in Senate bill;
• Funding for renewable energy and energy efficiency programs is significantly increased, from 9.5% in year 1 in the House bill (which also included transportation), to nearly 11% in year 1 in the Senate bill (not including transportation, which gets separate additional funding);
• Funding is provided for utility-scale renewable energy projects such as solar thermal, wind, and biomass, through a 15 percent carve-out of the renewable energy and energy efficiency funds;
• Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program (created by Sens. Sanders and Menendez) for local governments gets 25% of efficiency and renewable funding;
• Thermal Energy Efficiency Act, S. 1621, introduced by Sens. Sanders and Merkley, gets 10 percent of state energy efficiency funding;
• Transportation Low Emissions Energy Plan, S. 1721, introduced by Sen. Sanders, is included and gets funding for Dept. of Transportation to map out electric vehicle recharging stations on roads and highways, and fund pilot programs including for freight and in rural areas;
• Green Jobs Act (written and passed by Sen. Sanders and then-Sen. Clinton) gets funding for 2012-2015 (in House was only 2 years);
• Leading states such as Vermont get an incentive in the form of increased state funding if they continue to be more energy efficient;
• Small rural cooperative and public power customers receive more consumer assistance to help with their energy bills (double the percentage in the House bill);
• Farmers and forest land owners will receive incentives to manage their land in a way that reduces or avoids greenhouse gas emissions; and
• A new program to provide financial assistance to replace old and inefficient wood stoves with newer, cleaner units.

In addition to energy and global warming legislation, Sanders has been working as chairman of the Green Jobs and New Economy Subcommittee to highlight the economic and job creation opportunities of progressive environmental policies. Sanders chaired a joint subcommittee/full environment committee hearing on green jobs in states and cities on July 21^st, 2009. The hearing included testimony from the Governors of Washington, Colorado, New Jersey, and North Dakota, as well as the Mayors of Burlington, Vermont, Newark, New Jersey, and Alexandria, Virginia. In addition, Sanders chaired a field hearing of the subcommittee in Montpelier, Vermont, on August 20^th, 2009, to examine Vermont’s leadership on energy efficiency and ways to increase the use of sustainable energy in Vermont, all with an eye towards job creation.

The subcommittee’s efforts will likely focus on solar energy  and economic benefits of moving towards an increase in solar energy in the United States. While the U.S. invented the solar cell, our nation now imports nearly half our solar panels and has fallen behind Germany and Spain in solar energy installations.

To read an Associated Press story on the Rutland project, click here.

The Rutland County nonprofit housing lender was awarded the grant – one of only 20 nationwide – for its proposal to save energy and create jobs retrofitting homes and municipal buildings.

The award comes through a nationwide energy efficiency block grant program created in legislation authored by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) played critical roles securing the grant funded by the economic stimulus bill that Congress passed last year.

“This is exactly why I helped write the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant program, to help communities invest in energy efficiency in homes and businesses and public buildings,” said Sanders, chairman of the Senate’s green jobs subcommittee. “Today’s announcement of nearly $4.5 million for Rutland County will help make thousands of homes and buildings more energy efficient, reduce energy bills, save money, cut greenhouse gas emissions and create jobs.”

“This project with multiple benefits is exactly the kind of project we had in mind for the economic recovery plan.  This collaborative, community-based effort puts people back to work while advancing a new green economy,” said Leahy, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee that led in writing the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.  “NeighborWorks of Western Vermont has designed an innovative project that will have a real impact in energy conservation and clean energy generation.”

“This grant is a recognition of NeighborWorks’ innovation, creativity and dedication to helping Rutland County families save energy and save money. This organization has worked hard to marshal the resources of the Rutland community, partnering with public and private entities to design a program that works for this region,” said Welch, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “With this significant federal investment, NeighborWorks will be able to achieve its goal of creating quality jobs and saving families money.”

The grant was awarded by U.S. Department of Energy under the block grant program Sanders created in the 2007 energy bill. The initial $3.2 billion in funding for the nationwide program was appropriated in the economic stimulus bill. It set aside $454 million for the competitive grants.

“Working with our partners we will be able to retrofit 40 percent of the homes in Rutland County for energy savings, create an estimated 352 jobs, and show the entire country what a single county in Vermont can do with resources and the determination to get it done, ” said Ludy Biddle, executive director of NeighborWorks.

Over the three-year grant period, the West Rutland nonprofit plans to serve up to 40 percent of eligible households in the county – 7,300 customers altogether – with home visits on ways to lower energy costs. It will conduct at least 2,000 comprehensive energy audits and help 1,000 residents complete substantial retrofits. The total energy savings projected to be achieved over the first six years alone will total about $8.7 million.

Key partners in the project include Central Vermont Public Service, Efficiency Vermont, five local banks, Green Mountain College, the Rutland Regional Planning Commission, local retailers, local governments, and community volunteers.

Previous grants totaling almost $12 million were distributed to Vermont counties through regional planning commissions, to schools throughout the state, and directly to Vermont’s 10 largest municipalities.

Contacts:
Michael Briggs (Sanders): 202 224-5141
David Carle (Leahy): 202 224-3693
Paul Heintz (Welch): 202 226-8346
Ludy Biddle, NeighborWorks of Western Vermont: 802-438-2303 x221

June 2, 2010

Four Rhode Island Communities to Share Nearly $500,000 Climate Showcase Communities Grant from EPA

(Boston, Mass. – June 2, 2010) – Four Rhode Island communities, Warwick, North Providence, East Greenwich and South Kingstown, have partnered to receive a Four Rhode Island Communities to Share Nearly $500,000 Climate Showcase Communities Grant from EPA

The project was one of two projects in New England and 25 nationwide to receive grants as part of a $10 million competitive grant program to assist local and tribal governments in establishing and implementing climate change initiatives. The goal of the Climate Showcase Communities grant program is to create replicable models of sustainable community action that generate cost-effective greenhouse gas reductions. Successful models will also improve the environmental, economic, public health, or social conditions in a community.

“Nationwide, EPA is working with communities on innovative, win-win strategies that reduce greenhouse gases and cut energy bills for families and businesses,” said EPA regional administrator Curt Spalding. “These Rhode Island communities are taking important actions on climate change, and they are showing real leadership. EPA is proud to be working with these cities to take steps to address climate change.”

“The looming threat of global warming poses a distinct danger to the economy and landscape of our Ocean State,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a member of the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee. “I commend our local governments for taking the lead on innovations that will lower energy costs, reduce pollution, and put Rhode Island at the cutting edge of the emerging clean energy economy.”

The four municipalities, led by Warwick in partnership with the University of Rhode Island Energy Center, will begin their energy efficiency projects by measuring energy performance in municipal buildings, schools, and water treatment facilities. With support from Energy Service Companies (ESCOs), municipalities will develop energy management plans to implement energy efficiency and conservation measures, and develop energy policies and guidelines. To address behavioral changes that can lead to lower energy use, the four municipalities will conduct training and outreach programs to identify barriers to saving energy. Based on these results, the project will provide a suite of training programs for municipal employees and residents.

Energy prices in Rhode Island are among the highest in the country. On average, Rhode Islanders pay 28 percent more for energy than the nation as a whole. Because almost all of the state’s energy supply comes from imported fuels, the money Rhode Island spends on energy flows out of the state’s economy. By improving energy efficiency, the four participating communities will both save money and strengthen the regional economy.

The project’s environmental benefits include reduced energy and water use, solid waste generation and GHG emissions. The municipalities anticipate a combined savings of 3080 metric tons of CO2 emissions and 1913 MWh of electric use per year. This is equivalent to removing 534 cars from the road each year.

The Climate Showcase Communities Grant Program is administered by EPA, providing technical assistance, tools, and guidance to help state, local, and tribal governments implement policies and programs to mitigate climate change.

More information:  Climate Showcase Communities grants and the grant recipients (www.epa.gov/statelocalclimate/local/showcase/)

From EPA June 2010 Monthly Updates

Last updated on 06/03/2010