The Energy News Network is powered by readers like you. Please give today and help us keep our news open and accessible to everyone.
Every morning, the Energy News Network collects the top news on the clean energy transition and delivers it to your inbox for free. Login Now!
Regions Energy News Midwest Energy News Southeast Energy News Northeast Energy News West Energy News USA Energy News Weekly
A new grant program in Maine aims to accelerate the transition to electric heat pumps in the state’s smallest towns.
In August, Efficiency Maine announced a $4 million program to help cities with fewer than 5,000 people reduce energy use in public buildings.
Although the program is modest, organizers hope it will help accelerate the state’s transition from fossil fuels to electrical heat.
“We just need to drive this market transformation,” said Michael Stoddard, chief executive of Efficiency Maine. “These government funds help a lot with that.”
This program, funded by the federal American Rescue Program, is part of the recent Efficiency Maine program to help low-income communities take advantage of energy efficient and clean energy technologies. This summer, the agency announced an $8 million program to help pay for electric vehicle chargers in rural areas.
The latest plan addresses a particularly pressing issue in Maine: the need to switch to cleaner heating fuels. The state endures harsh winters – temperatures often drop below freezing – and about 60 percent of homes in the state use fuel oil for heating, the highest of any state in the country. Heating oil, one of the dirtiest heating fuels, has fluctuated in price for a long time, doubling in the last year.
Energy News Network wants to hear your ideas so we can improve our coverage and newsletter. Help us solve the problem by taking part in this short survey.
{{#message}}{{{message}}}{{/message}}{{^message}} Your submission failed. The server responded with {{status_text}} (code {{status_code}}). Please contact the developer of this form handler to improve this post. Read more{{/message}}
{{#message}}{{{message}}}{{/message}}{{^message}} It looks like your submission was successful. Even if the server responds normally, the submission may not be processed. Please contact the developer of this form handler to improve this post. Read more{{/message}}
The widespread adoption of electric heat pumps is an important part of the state’s environmental agenda. The only emissions associated with heat pumps come from the electricity that powers them. The cost of using a heat pump is usually much lower than using fuel oil. In 2019, Maine set a goal of installing 100,000 heat pumps by 2025, and that goal is being met.
As adoption continues to grow, Maine Efficiency wants smaller cities to be able to reap economic and environmental benefits.
“Smaller cities face some other or more obvious hurdles,” Stoddard said. “With this move, we think we will first target some cities that we think are facing a lot of these barriers due to their size.”
It may be harder for smaller cities to get contractors to bid, Stoddard said. They may have fewer staff, making paperwork or funding arrangements difficult. In cities with lower median incomes, residents may resist them, wondering why their tax dollars should be spent, said Richard Labelle, mayor of Norwich, a community in central Maine, to pay for benefits they can’t afford to buy on their own. Houses. The population is about 3300 people.
It’s also possible that cities simply have too many competing claims for limited income, said Neil Goldberg, legislative advocate for the Maine Association of Municipalities.
“They have other cost centers that need attention,” Goldberg said. “Is this the year to install heat pumps, or is this the year to buy enough salt to keep the roads safe?”
To help small towns overcome these barriers, the new program offers significant financial incentives to pay for projects that cut municipal energy bills and carbon emissions. Efficiency Maine expects the majority of entrants to be involved in heat pump retrofits, although LED lighting projects, cooling system retrofits, and other heating and ventilation equipment projects are also eligible.
Eligible buildings include city halls, community centers, public safety buildings, public works facilities, and libraries. Schools, outbuildings and temporary buildings are not eligible. Incentives vary by project type, but municipalities can receive up to $2,800 to install new high-efficiency air source heat pumps in existing buildings, up to a maximum of 90 percent of the total project cost.
Norridgewock has taken advantage of previous Efficiency Maine incentives and looks forward to taking advantage of the new offer, Labelle said. According to him, Norridgewock, being a city inland, did not have a large tourist flow that could generate income. Thus, these incentives make it easier to demonstrate to residents that they will benefit from investing in energy efficiency projects.
In recent years, the city has replaced much of the lighting in municipal buildings with LEDs and installed heat pumps at some sites, including the library and fire station. LaBelle expects to use the new program to support the deployment of heat pumps in more buildings.
“We are committed to improving efficiency in every possible way,” he said. “As we see national trends and energy costs for fossil fuels, naturally we are more and more concerned about this.”
Recognizing that small towns may not have enough staff to complete complex or competitive application procedures, the Maine Institute for Efficiency has made these grants non-competitive and attempted to simplify paperwork as much as possible. These efforts are having an impact, Labelle said.
“Often, city officials can be intimidated into applying for grants because of the administrative burden,” Labelle said. “They really, really minimized it.”
To apply for these latest grants, the community simply selects the type of project it plans to implement and fills out a basic Efficiency Maine form to qualify. The agency also offers virtual consultations for cities that need to determine which projects make sense for their facilities.
“When you’re on a tight budget, cities with deep pockets tend to burn through most of it faster if you’re just on a first come, first served basis,” Stoddard said. “By the time small towns have permanent access to funding, there may be none left.”
Sarah is a seasoned reporter covering business, technology, sustainability and where they meet. She reports on the government of a small town in New Hampshire, what alleged scammers and charlatans are up to, and details about the local food system. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, The Boston Globe, TheAtlantic.com, Slate, and other publications. Sarah is based in Gloucester and works in the New England area.
Regions Energy News Midwest Energy News Southeast Energy News Northeast Energy News West Energy News USA Energy News Weekly
Energy News Network makes our original news available for reprint by approved news outlets under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Please note that this license does not cover articles we republish from other publications, AP images, or any other material governed by a separate copyright agreement. You can publish articles individually – you cannot publish our work in bulk or automatically.
Contact Katherine Krawczyk for more information or to be added to our list of approved partners who will receive updates whenever we post related content.
This article first appeared on Energy News Network and published here under a Creative Commons license.