Robert Coffman, with AirTight Energy Audits, talks to homeowner Tony Schmidt about his home's energy loss and ways to fix the problem. The audit, which was done March 3 2011, was part of the Kansas Efficiency program and enabled Schmidt to take out a loan to make upgrades to his home. by Mike Yoder
The Kansas Energy Office is pulling funding on a state program that has lent hundreds of Kansans thousands of dollars to make energy efficiency upgrades in their homes.
Pending final approval from the U.S. Department of Energy, the money in the loan program will be redirected to three renewable-energy projects.
The program, known as Efficiency Kansas, was launched in November 2009 and was operating off the bulk of the $38 million the state received in stimulus money earmarked for energy efficiency projects.
The idea was to create a revolving, low-interest loan fund that homeowners could tap into for everything from putting insulation in the attic to replacing an aging furnace. After energy audits were performed, the loans were financed through utility companies or banks.
If approved by the DOE, more than $20 million would be redirected toward three “shovel-ready” projects in Kansas. They include:
- $5.25 for an ethanol fueling project in Wichita.
- $12 million for a biomethane production facility in Oakley.
- $4.5 million for a statewide biobased energy supply change project.
Funding those projects would leave between $1 million to $2 million in the Efficiency Kansas program, which would be enough to keep it operating for another four to six weeks, said Kansas Corporation Commission spokeswoman Cara Sloan-Ramos.
The Kansas Energy Office is working to find alternative financing sources to continue the loans, Ramos said. This week, the Kansas Energy Office sent letters to partners in the program informing them of the change.
“We have no intentions to shut the program down,” Ramos said. “We have every intention of ramping back up and keeping it a viable program.”
In 2009, the program got off to a slow start with less than 60 people taking out loans in the first 10 months.
However, momentum gathered this winter after major utilities began offering zero-percent interest loans for up to $20,000 that could be paid back over a period of 15 years through electric bills. Westar Energy received approvals to make those loans in February. Since then, 64 customers have taken out loans totaling $442,000. Another 111 loans are pending, said Kim Gronniger, manager of Westar’s consumer services.
“Customer interest has been high,” Gronniger said and noted the utility company is looking at ways it can continue the program without the stimulus money.
In Lawrence, the loan program has been popular. It kept energy auditors like Robert Coffman working around the clock during this past year.
Since the program started, Coffman has done 240 home energy audits, of which about 65 percent of homeowners have moved forward with the loans. To help keep up with the demand, he has hired four other people.
“We see by the numbers that this program is working,” Coffman said. “There is no reason to close it off in two weeks.”
He had hope to continue to make a living by performing energy audits and by doing the follow-up home repairs that were covered with the loans.
With the support of the stimulus money, the program has the potential to be self-sustaining for decades, Coffman said. He’s afraid that is impossible now.
“That is not enough money to run the program for life,” he said.
The governor’s administration directed the KCC to reallocate the money when it became clear that the full amount of stimulus money wasn’t going to be spent by the DOE’s April 1 deadline, Ramos said.
Instead of having to return millions of dollars to the federal government, these other energy projects will keep the money in Kansas, she said. The projects will be handled through the Kansas Department of Commerce.
“These are key renewable energy projects that will grow the Kansas economy and enable us to spend all those Recovery Act funds,” Ramos said.
Tagged: Efficiency Kansas, home energy audits, Westar, Kansas Energy Office
Comments
defenestrator (anonymous) says…
No to ethanol! Jeez, haven't we learned that corn gas raises the costs of groceries.
It's too bad about the Efficiency Kansas program. Went out about as fast as it came in.
merrill (anonymous) says…
Tax dollar subsides are being removed from ethanol production so I heard on radio news today.
merrill (anonymous) says…
Brownback is setting himself up for special interest campaign dollars...
DougCounty (anonymous) says…
Chalk up yet another frontier to Browback's incompetence. Instead of looking out for the little guy, let's divert the money to some political paybacks. This guy is so predictably awful that I should not be surprised, but it still shocks me how he can take a perfectly good program and blow it up.
bendover61 (anonymous) says…
If energy efficiency was such a great thing people would practice it without a government handout.
Daniel_Kirksey (anonymous) replies…
If energy efficiency were such a great thing, but had prohibitive upfront capital outlay obstacles, how would they practice it? Moreover, how is a loan a handout?
appleaday (anonymous) replies…
And if an ethanol fueling project in Wichita, a biomethane production facility in Oakley, and a statewide biobased energy supply change project were such good ideas they would practice them without a government handout.
webmocker (anonymous) replies…
+1
webmocker (anonymous) replies…
This is primarily a program of loans, not "handouts" that over time would be paid back (made even more likely because the payback mechanism is built into the power bill, so it's difficult to skip your payment.) If enough people were to do this, see the results, and share that information with people they know, we could make a very significant reduction in the need for new power plants, thereby saving everyone money, and helping to keep the air cleaner, simply by not heating the outdoors in winter or trying to dehumidify it in summer.
Or do you enjoy paying Westar to build new power generating facilities at great cost to us and a guaranteed tidy profit to them?
This week we were told that Westar will be trying to pass along over a billion dollars in anticipated fines due to excess pollution. If we use less power through efficiency, fines are lower, and we save there, too.
dragonwagon2 (anonymous) says…
I smell a rat and he has a brownback.............
just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (anonymous) says…
More likely, some folks well-connected to Brownback (Koch brothers?) saw some low-hanging fruit, and went apicking.
Godot (anonymous) says…
He should instead return the money to the treasury. We don't need no stinkin' "stimulus" money.
Made_in_China (Paul R. Getto) says…
Please don't pick on the Koch boys. They inherited billions from Dad that he got from the commies. Now they are libertarians who are using the religious nuts' platform to get what they want.......no regulations and no taxes. You can't blame them for using the existing system and they have the best interests of all Kansans and Americans in their hearts.
Solomon (anonymous) says…
If this were such a great, and needed, program you would think that more than 124 people out of nearly 100,000 would have taken advantage of it.
dstavin (anonymous) says…
Solomon: That 124 is just the Westar customers. The program is statewide.
sweetiepie (anonymous) says…
This program was never intended to be a government "handout." It was intended to stimulate the economy by providing jobs for people. And it did, but unfortunately, it was poorly publicized and poorly implemented. Once the energy audits were performed, there was little support for the homeowners in getting the work done, and once the work was done, it took a long time to get the contractors paid. It was a program that had the potential to make significant changes in employment for contractors,greatly reduce home energy use in Kansas, and increase the quality of life for people who might not otherwise be able to afford these types of home improvements. And it failed miserably. The people who ran it just didn't seem able to figure out how to make it work.
I feel bad for the people who beccame energy auditors thinking that they would have long-term work through this program. And I feel bad for all the people who could have benefited from this program if only they had been given good information about it.
wavesofgrain (anonymous) says…
The thing about the contractors and auditors is that they've spent the last several years working with the state energy office (less than 5 people) to put together a system that could handle $34 mil dollars worth of investment and reinvestments. Considering that a system was created from scratch, I'd say the system did the opposite of fail. Although it did start slow (as any project would starting from the ground), Its my understanding that the state energy office says that $250K in loans were taken out three months ago, $1mil two months ago and $1.6mil last month. A 640% increase over three months in money that is to be paid back seems like a pretty good investment to me. Why pull funding from a system that is just starting to take off?
And anyways, it's not just a government handout; IT'S OUR MONEY! Why not let us spend it where we get the most savings for it!? This is the best kind of investment: it is money spent that will pay us back and also cut costs in the future, i.e. keeps paying for itself. What could be more conservative than conserving energy? That is much more to be said about the ethanol project, for example, that the state reallocated money for. It's not proven that ethanol can even pay for itself, given production costs, concomitant rises in food costs, limits in resources, weather's impact on year-to-year crops, etc.
Pulling the plug on this program is a huge mistake. I sincerely hope the Dept of Energy realizes this fact.
And by the way if EK had not loaned out all the money by the deadline it would have been fast and easy to give the remaining amount back to the people who it belongs to... all of us. An example of this would be In the form of a Energy Efficient refrigerator. Which would save more energy for your household than filling your tank with food product.
just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (anonymous) replies…
"Why pull funding from a system that is just starting to take off?"
It wasn't pulled; it was diverted-- to the well-connected. After all, this program was poised to reward small independent contractors, not the corporate elite that Brownback represents.
Lieutenant (anonymous) says…
Welcome to Brownbackistan. We're not in Kansas anymore. Go to youtube to view the song and type in Brownbackistan in search engine.
kdevine (anonymous) says…
Missing the point here with the outrage, even if some is justified. Efficiency Kansas, as poorly as it was designed / implemented at the onset (improved after allowing contractors freedom from Bacon Act wage and accounting controls for residential jobs, plus Westar and KCK passed tariff process and came on board), is now producing improvement projects and jobs. The jobs are for auditors and contractors, well trained professionals who invested a great deal of time and energy to support conservation. And energy conservation is quantifiable, evident in every post audit. The benefits are for regular people, homeowners. The strongest aspect of the loan program's original design was the fact that it was designed to be ongoing after the stimulus money was gone. The Brownback initiative is to kill something that is now working,and would be sustainable in the future. The redirection directs money and benefits to private companies / organization that are closely held and with ample balance sheets. (Great Plains has approx $175 million in sales). At the expense of a variety of everyday people, not to mention Westar to some extent.
It is true that the remainder monies would have not been spent by April due to slow initial performance / design flaws. It's also true that the Efficiency Kansas Loan program is now working well and has commitments to keep to auditors, contractors, and homeowners. It would be a simple projection / solution to leave the program with another 10-12 million to run it's course, and create that revolving loan program. The remainder of the funds could go to Brownback's choices in the agri energy biz and no monies returned to the feds.
Greed, arrogance, lack of ethics, and seemingly no understanding of the multiplier economic factor involved conservation seem to be threatening a program that now has value and the potential for ongoing value..
The minimum that should occur is what I've outlined above.