Windham County, VT Grants Available

Windham Regional Commission is pleased to announce competitive grant funding is available to assist commercial, non-profit or public entities in installing advanced wood heating systems through the Windham Wood Heat Initiative (WWH). WWH will provide grant funding of up to 25% of the installation cost (including design, installation, and acquisition costs of AWH systems and system components (i.e. controls, thermal and fuel storage) with a maximum award of $100,000. Systems will need to be installed and commissioned by December 2021 and must be within Windham County. Awarded WWH installations will have mandatory third party commissioning of the system installed. This cost of commissioning will be covered by the WWH program. Proposals are due February 24, 2021.

WWH was established in 2015 with a group of local wood heat and building envelope experts with funding from the State of Vermont’s Clean Energy Development Fund. Currently, there have been 13 systems successfully installed, which has displaced over 78,000 gallons of heating oil in schools, non-profits, and public buildings.

“It’s so important for programs like these to support the transition of our heating load from fossil fuels to a local and renewable source,” Margo Ghia, program manager explains. “When we heat with fossil fuels, which most of our larger scale buildings do, 78 cents on the dollar leaves the region. When we can swap the fuel with wood, almost the inverse is true. The purpose of this program is to retain wealth in the local economy, support forest health (bulk pellets, semi-dry chips, and green chips are sources from low-grade lumber and forestry byproducts), and reduce reliance on fossil fuels.”

More information on the Windham Wood Heat Initiative passed projects and the program application can be found on the Windham Regional Commission website: http://www.windhamregional.org/energy/wwh.

For general information on advanced wood heat, visit www.feelgoodheat.org to see who’s “stoked” about wood heat across Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and New York.