April 07, 2017

EEFA 2016 Round-Up

The Energy Efficiency for All (EEFA) Team was hard at work during the closing months of 2016, making great strides in energy efficiency for affordable housing.

In Georgia, working through both the Southern Company/AGL Resources Merger and the 2016 Integrated Resource Plan dockets, the EEFA-GA coalition along with key partners Southern Environmental Law Center, the National Consumer Law Center, and Columbia Residential made significant progress to ensuring better programming for low-income residents. As a result, Georgia Power Company's approved 2016 Integrated Resource Plan will dedicate $1.5 million annually for the next three years to a low-income multifamily energy efficiency program. Georgia Power also agreed to provide access to energy usage data for commercial and residential buildings to help owners measure and manage energy performance. The EEFA Georgia coalition will be working closely with Georgia Power to design both the multifamily and single-family energy efficiency programs in the coming months.

In Pennsylvania, EEFA coalition members organized stakeholder meetings with the state's four electric utilities and approximately 150 PA housing developers and property managers. The Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency also co-sponsored the meetings. The purposes of the meetings were for the utilities to unveil new multifamily energy efficiency programs and receive feedback from stakeholders to help ensure the programs will actually work for affordable housing.

In Minnesota and Missouri, NHT, NRDC, the Green and Healthy Homes Initiative, and local EEFA partners hosted two health-energy efficiency convenings attended by 45 and 47 stakeholders, respectively. The purpose of these convenings is to brainstorm how to encourage new partnerships between health and energy agencies, such as leveraging nonprofit hospitals' required community benefits spending. 

To wrap up an amazing year of work, Minnesota's utility regulator approved a $7 million increase in funds for Xcel Energy and CenterPoint Energy's join multifamily program. Throughout the next three years, the program will see an increase from $695k annual spending to $3.28 million annual spending in 2019. Both Xcel Energy and CenterPoint Energy referenced EEFA collaboration directly in their filings with the regulator.