WELLINGTON COUNTY — A new county-run retrofit program is offering special loans to help make home energy use a little greener across Wellington County.
Proposed by the County of Wellington, the Home Energy Efficiency Transition (HEET) program is a new initiative that would provide financial assistance to county homeowners who want to make energy-efficient upgrades to their homes but may require some financing to make that possible.
Presenting the program to Centre Wellington and Mapleton councils earlier this week, the county's climate change and sustainability manager Karen Chisholme said the program is currently focused on improving building envelopes and heat pumps.
For example, a homeowner who doesn't have access to air conditioning can replace their furnace with a heat pump through the program.
The project is planned for implementation in 2026.
"By reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the residential sector, we can move closer to achieving net-zero targets and support energy affordability," said Chisholme, in the report.
The program will use municipal Local Improvement Charges (LIC) to fund the program which Chisholme said will provide homeowners access to competitive financing and longer repayment terms.
A LIC is when homeowners borrow a certain amount of money for local improvements that is then repaid via a special charge on the property tax bill. It also means that if a resident moves, the loan is attached to the property, not the person.
Through the program, homeowners can borrow $10,000 minimum and $80,000 maximum or 10 per cent of the property value- whichever is less.
Chisholme said they plan on encouraging people to do more than one improvement through the loan to make sure they're "good value" and "meaningful" and can "balance out the cost of administration."
Staff are also looking at incentives for low-income households to help them reduce their energy costs.
As the county is expected to borrow "substantial funds" for the program, staff said it will rely on resident LIC payments to repay its loan.
The county has committed $2.7 million to the project over four years in addition to applying for an estimated $7.6 million in capital funding and $3.8 million in grant funding from the Green Municipal Funds (GMF) Community Efficiency Financing initiative.
After GMF’s funds have been fully expended, staff said an alternative capital provider will need to be identified, and the revenue streams will need to be adjusted to account for operating costs no longer covered by the grant.
Each township has the option to opt into the program. If accepted, they will be responsible for administering the LICs.
"In this way, the county’s HEET program will help to address the potential misalignment between the length of home tenure and the longer payback periods of many types of energy upgrades," said Chisholme.
The HEET program is anticipated to support up to 515 participants within the first four years.
Staff said a moderate uptake scenario suggests most municipalities will support six or seven projects annually and up to 20 projects in Centre Wellington, although program uptake could exceed projections if there is "substantial pent-up demand," existing programs "sunset," or other initiatives drive demand on local, provincial or federal levels.
The county currently has an energy poverty rate of 25 per cent.
Isabel Buckmaster is the Local Journalism Initiative reporter for GuelphToday. LJI is a federally-funded program.
