Biden Announces Plan to Drive Home Efficiency
On Nov. 9, Vice President Joe Biden announced a series of measures that could open the home energy efficiency upgrade market to every middle-class American homeowner. The three-part proposal aims to save money and spur employment by confronting major barriers to home energy upgrades, most notably, lack of upfront capital and homeowner information.
"Together, these programs will grow the home retrofit industry, and help middle class families save money and energy," said Biden in a statement.
One of the most visible measures, the Home Energy Score, would allow homeowners to see their homes rated on a scale of one-to-ten, as compared with other homes in the area. The other two measures aim to provide low-interest financing and reliable technical support for home energy improvements.
Lack of Info, Money, Support: Key Barriers to Home Efficiency
The three-part proposal (PDF) will address major barriers to home efficiency improvements.
Information: The Home Energy Score
The voluntary Home Energy Score plan will provide information to homeowners on how their homes compare in efficiency and how much money they could save through home energy improvements, such as air sealing and insulation. The proposed label, which would score homes on a scale of one-to-ten, presents a significant divergence from the HERS rating, the 100+ point scale that currently leads the field in home energy rating.
The label follows a string of Obama administration announcements on energy labeling upgrades and improvements across the last few months. Earlier this summer, the Alliance submitted comments to the Department of Energy on a similar home energy rating program for homes.
Funding: PowerSaver Loans
New loan assistance through the Federal Housing Administration would attempt to overcome the up-front investment of efficiency improvements. With the PowerSaver financing program, homeowners would have access to federally insured low-interest loans of up to 20 years from private lenders.
The plan will begin as a two-year pilot and comes at a critical time for home energy financing after PACE financing, another promising home energy financing initiative, came to a halt last summer.
Technical Support: Home Energy Audits
The final component of the plan aims to allow for more low-cost, high-quality audits by streamlining the audit process. The new Department of Energy proposal would develop workforce guidelines for home energy upgrades and provide uniform guidelines for all audit professionals to follow.
The streamlined approach to energy audits would both reduce the cost of audits for the homeowner, and provide a clear career path in home energy efficiency for people of all skill levels, according to the October 2009 Recovery Through Retrofit report.
Comprehensive Approach Could Unlock the Market
By beginning to remove barriers to energy efficiency, this plan could streamline energy efficiency upgrades for consumers to drive major improvements.
“For today’s homeowners, reducing their month-to-month utility bills is still one of the best ways to keep a household budget in the black,” said Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy. “The new initiatives announced today by the Vice President will help consumers understand how to save energy in their homes and lower their monthly energy costs – even after allowing for payments on the new low-interest loans.”
“Until today,” Callahan continued, “no single major program has been able to unlock the benefits of home energy retrofits for a broad group of Americans in the ways that this set of measures is specifically designed to do.”
