Effective July 1, 2013, lower-income Vermont Gas customers may qualify for a special rate that is 20% less expensive than the standard residential rate. The rate was created as a result of a Vermont Public Service Board initiative to help lower energy costs for the most financially vulnerable natural gas customers.
Energy
Join the Vermont Home Energy Challenge
Weatherize 3% of the homes in your community and help your neighbors reduce their energy bills by participating in the 2013 Vermont Home Energy Challenge. Efficiency Vermont, in partnership with the Vermont Energy and Climate Action Network, is seeking local organizations to champion the Challenge in their communities and to sign up their towns to participate.
Task force calls for comprehensive and rapid weatherization of Vermont buildings
Investing in thermal efficiency improvements—primarily air sealing, insulation, and heating system replacements—can dramatically reduce a home’s heating energy use. An estimated 62,000 single and multi-family homes in Vermont will require energy efficient improvements by 2020, according to the state’s recent
Green Mountain Power offers discount to lower income Vermont residents
Eligible households who are customers of Green Mountain Power can get a 25% discount off the monthly charge for the first 600 kilowatt hours of energy they use. This discount will save some households a total of up to $300 each year. The program is administered by the Vermont Department for Children and Families.
Largest net zero energy community in the U.S. opens
In August 2011, the University of California at Davis welcomed the first residents of UC Davis West Village, a multi-use development that is expected to generate the same amount of energy that it consumes.
The West Village community includes commercial space and apartments for 800 students. When completed, the community will also include an energy research center.
Federal heating assistance may shrink
In states like Vermont where so many homes are heated with oil, potential cuts to the federal program that provides assistance to low-income residents could not come at a worse time. Half of all Vermont homes area heated with oil--far more than the seven percent national average.
As the cost of oil rises, Vermonters and other New Englanders have found this program, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), critical to covering winter heating bills.
Historic West Rutland buildings converted to energy efficient apartments
Senator Bernie Sanders was in West Rutland Friday to celebrate the conversion of two historic buildings-- Stanislaus School and a former convent that had been unoccupied for years--into affordable, energy efficient housing.
Not only were historic buildings that already contained four apartments preserved, but 17 new affordable apartments were created with innovative energy efficiency and renewable energy design features. The Housing Trust of Rutland County, led by Elisabeth Kulas pictured here with Sanders, developed the project.