County given giant green grant from feds

Gunnison County to get more than $1,000,000

Local energy efficiency efforts got a huge financial boost this past week from federal stimulus funds and more than a million dollars will be injected into Gunnison County for residential energy efficiency programs.

The money is part of a three-year, $4.9 million grant for Gunnison, Eagle and Pitkin counties. The money will be split evenly between the three, with the Office for Resource Efficiency administering the Gunnison County funds.
“We are thrilled with the opportunity this represents for the county,” said ORE executive director Andris Zobs. “Given the climate we live in, energy efficiency is extremely important to homeowners. This will ultimately help lower energy use and energy costs to local consumers.”
Zobs said 20 grants for such energy efficiency improvement purposes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act were awarded across the country. This was the second largest grant awarded. The fact that voters in all three counties passed an Energy Smart initiative at the polls last November is one reason Zobs believes the grant was awarded to them.
“The feds saw that we were making progress with these types of programs so I think that’s a big reason we received this grant,” he said.
The counties intend to use the funds to provide energy audits, workforce training, energy resource centers and a variety of financial support to help residents save energy and money. Additionally, the grant will support the development of the financing system approved by local voters last year known locally as the “Energy Smart Loan Program.”
“We are very honored and excited to receive this grant,” said Adam Palmer, environmental policy planner for Eagle County. “The grant application was designed to complement all three counties’ Energy Smart programs and we’re looking forward to collaboratively developing these programs in each community.”
“This is incredible news for us,” said Pitkin County energy program manager Dylan Hoffman. “A grant award like this has the ability to completely redesign the way our communities use energy.”
For example, one goal of the three-county program called the Resort Communities Retrofit Program is to increase the number of retrofitted homes in each county by 10 percent (a total of 5,400 homes), lower energy use by 20 percent in each participating home, stimulate the local economy by redirecting under-employed, skilled contracts to “green” jobs, and enhance consumer education and create a sustainable financing model.
“One of our primary goals here is to make the process of making energy efficiency improvements easier for owners and renters. We want to provide a streamlined process,” said Zobs. “The three core components are to provide better access to pertinent information, help with energy efficiency financing, and work force training. Within that, a variety of funded activities from marketing and data tracking to rebates and revolving loan funds will be created.”
Eagle County will administer the overall grant while ORE will be the lead agency in Gunnison County. “We are obviously still working out the specifics but we’ll be providing some direct financial incentives to make improvements to local homes,” Zobs said. “We’ll also be providing educational resources and support throughout the improvement process.”
Zobs said, “This grant demonstrates what small rural communities can achieve by working in concert. It would not have been possible without the collaborative efforts of all three counties. This is a very fruitful collaboration and we are honored to have gotten these funds.”
The first of the funds should arrive in Gunnison County before the end of the year.