New Law Provides Energy Loans to Oregon Homeowners

Bill offers home insulation retrofits
An Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Technology law will provide $15 million in loans in the next 2 years
 
By David Steves – The Register-Guard – August 3, 2009

How would you like to be able to add insulation that keeps your house cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter — and then pay for it with the money you could end up saving on your utility bill over the next 20 years?

It may sound too good to be true, but it’s just what new state legislation promises to deliver.

The new Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Technology bill, signed into law in Eugene by Gov. Ted Kulongoski, will provide $15 million in loans over the next two years to Oregon homeowners. Unlike conventional home improvement loans, the money can be repaid with utility bills.

The bill’s authors, including Rep. Chris Edwards, D-Eugene, say they fully expect that the reduced energy usage — and lower utility bills — will provide consumers with enough savings to pay back the loans.

Edwards was part of a bipartisan group of House members who came up with the bill and worked it through the 2009 session. It is now awaiting Oregon Department of Energy rule-making so it can be tested in a few areas.

Eugene is one of five places in Oregon to express interest in piloting the program. If it’s included as a testing area, then Eugene residents could be taking out loans and hiring contractors to retrofit their homes for greater energy efficiency or to add renewable energy components by late this year or early next year, Edwards said.

Home Energy Efficiency Upgrade Tax Incentives

New tax credits: What’s out there?
Energy efficiency upgrades can be pricey, but incentives may cover 40 to 60 percent
By Kate Ramsayer - The Bulletin - April 25, 2009

After a winter of paying high heating bills but still living in a chilly house, Tania Piper and Colin Mahood, of Bend, decided to see what they could do to make their house less drafty.

“I want our house to be efficient; I don’t want to be wasting our money or wasting resources,” Piper said. “So for me, it was obvious that it was something that needed to be a priority.”

They hired a company to do a series of tests to find the home’s problem spots and received a list of improvements that would help make the house more airtight, like adding insulation in the floors and sealing leaks around ducts — work that came with a price tag of more than $2,000. But with federal and state tax credits and power company incentives, that cost was cut by more than half.