by James A. Bacon
Marjorie Wilson has lived in the same 1,000-square-foot bungalow on Texas Street in the City of Richmond since 1953. Two sons and a grand-daughter share the residence with her but it isn’t easy keeping up with the bills, including the electric bill, which averages about $120 per month.
“We’d talked about insulating the attic years ago,” says daughter Diane Campbell, who helps look after her mother. But they never found the money to get the job done.
The family hit an energy conservation bonanza this year, though, when it qualified for improvements by Project:HOMES, a non-profit enterprise that makes home improvements for the poor, elderly and disabled throughout Central Virginia. Combining federal weatherization money, Dominion Virginia Power EnergyShare funds and volunteer labor, Project:HOMES was able to insulate the attic and walls, plug air-infiltration gaps, wrap the hot water heater and pipes and install LED lights for about $4,000, says CEO Lee Householder.
The goal is to shave 30% off the Wilsons’ electric bill. If the project meets expectations, that will amount to savings of about $40 per month on average or $480 per year. That’s a pretty good return on a $4,000 investment.
The Wilsons’ house was featured yesterday in one of three events held around the state marking the re-launch of Dominion’s EnergyShare program. The Richmond event was attended by Dominion Virginia Power President Paul Koonce and Richmond Mayor Dwight Jones. Governor Terry McAuliffe was the headliner at the Northern Virginia event, while Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam led off in Hampton Roads. The McAuliffe administration had pushed hard for an expansion of EnergyShare this spring when lawmakers crafted legislation in response to the Environmental Protection Agency’s crackdown on CO2 emissions from electric power plants.
Dominion has committed to spend $57 million on the program over the next five years, including $15 million that will be recouped from rate payers and $42 million to be contributed by the company itself. The $42 million, in effect, will come from shareholders of parent company Dominion Resources, said Katharine M. Bond, director of public policy. Those sums do not include additional funds contributed by Dominion customers, employees and others.
The program, said Koonce in remarks at the Richmond event, is the result of “a bipartisan effort to expand energy efficiency.” There is a broad political consensus that Virginia will have to aggressively pursue energy conservation in order to meet the strict CO2 emission goals of the Clean Power Plan.
There has been considerable debate about the merits of weatherization programs since the Obama administration’s 2009 economic stimulus plan. Government auditors found the $5 billion lavished on weatherization was riddled with waste and fraud. And in Dominion’s own analysis of alternatives for CO2 reduction, the “Income and and Age Qualifying Home Improvement Program” was judged to have the second highest cost per megawatt hour, exceeded only by off-shore wind energy. The cost of $236 per megawatt hour compares to the voltage conservation program, costing $38 per megawatt hour, or the residential appliance recycling program, costing $55 per megawatt hour, according to Dominion’s 2015 Integrated Resource Plan.
However, EnergyShare is more than a conservation program. It is designed to help the poor, elderly and disabled pay their electric bills, which explains its broad political appeal.
In its earlier incarnation, EnergyShare helped Virginians keep the lights on and also paid for weatherization. The big design change in the program is linking financial assistance with weatherization. If a customer faces a choice between paying an electric bill or a medical bill, the problem likely is not a one-time event; it is probably a chronic one. Weatherization creates a permanent reduction in a poor family’s electric bill. “That linkage has not been part of the equation before,” says Bond.
Another difference is that the revamped EnergyShare program has an educational/outreach component. Neighbors are invited to observe the improvements and learn how they might benefit.
Finally, Dominion has partnered with reputable organizations like Project:HOMES, which are in business for the long haul, not like the fly-by-night operations that sprang up in 2009 to take advantage of the federal stimulus money. Project:HOMES made improvements to about 1,000 homes last year. It also acquired, upgraded and sold 17 houses on its own account, using the profit to balance its budget and build working capital, says Householder, the president.
In the case of the Wilsons, says Householder, the family approached Project:HOMES for a wheelchair ramp. An inspection revealed that their house would be a good prospect for weatherization. The home make-over also added some new floors, as well as safety features such as a smoke and carbon monoxide detector. Cobbling together funds from different sources allowed Project:HOMES to make multiple improvements in a single job, which drives down costs.
When redesigning the EnergyShare program, Dominion consulted with more than 30 government agencies and non-profits to solicit input on how to make it better, says Bond. The end result, she says, is what the company hopes will be “a best in class program.”
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