Efficiency Vermont

Efficiency Vermont was established as the nation’s first statewide energy efficiency utility. Efficiency Vermont provides technical and financial assistance to help Vermont households and businesses reduce their energy use and costs with energy efficient buildings, equipment, and lighting. Efficiency Vermont is receiving ENERGY STAR® Partner of the Year recognition for building on its practice of using ENERGY STAR as a brand and messaging central platform in its Efficient Products Program, its implementation of Home Performance with ENERGY STAR (HPwES), and for its ENERGY STAR for Commercial and Industrial Buildings and ENERGY STAR Certified New Homes programs. Key 2014 accomplishments include:

• Sustaining high participation in the HPwES program as a result of adjustments to the program in 2013 for a complete market turnaround in 2014.
• Implementing the Vermont Home Energy Challenge campaign, encouraging competition between towns to reduce energy consumption and increase HPwES projects, resulting in a 178-percent increase in projects over projected numbers.
• Launching a program to include the U.S. Department of Energy’s Home Energy Score with each HPwES project, a first step towards quantifying the value of energy efficiency upgrades.
• Continuing to transform key commercial markets by benchmarking energy performance with ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager® and striving, along with customers, to achieve ENERGY STAR certification for high performing buildings. K-12 schools in Vermont participated in the first-in-the-nation voluntary, statewide benchmarking initiative and collectively scored well-above average on the Portfolio Manager scale, with roughly thirty schools earning ENERGY STAR certification.
• Supporting more than 130 ENERGY STAR certified homes and sharing over 900 program enrollment brochures with consumers interested in new housing starts.
• Delivering more than 21,000 megawatt hours of energy savings, nearly 2,700 kilowatts (kW) of summer demand savings, and nearly 4,900 kW of winter demand savings through its Efficient Products Program. These savings, secured through the third quarter of 2014 alone, represent increases of 15 – 23 percent over the same period in 2013. In addition, Efficiency Vermont secured 15 million gross impressions through advertising, and 163,000 website views. The volume of in- and outgoing calls, emails and chats that Efficiency Vermont engages in as a result of their efforts increased by almost 148 percent since 2013.