Daily Home Renovation Tips

Yesterday in Part 1, we looked at the participation statistics.

Today, we examine the payouts and energy savings achieved during the first two years of the ecoENERGY Residential Retrofit program ending March 31, 2009.

As before, we sincerely appreciate Media Relations at Natural Resources Canada for providing us the detailed information contained in this series of articles.

Now, curious on how much green (get it? green? ), meaning how much money has been paid out to Canadian homeowners during the first two years of the ecoENERGY program?

Here are the numbers:

                                    2007 - 08            2008 - 09                Total

# of Incentives           17,643               76,364                94,007

Average Value    $       1,068     $          1,102    $             1,095

Total Payout       $18,849,639     $84,156,995     $103,006,634

At this point the comparatives between Years 1 and 2 of the program are not really valid because, if you recall, homeowners have 18 months between the first and the second home energy audit to undertake their applicable home energy conservation renovations. It will be interesting to see the comparative payouts between years 2 and 3 at this time next year.

As absolute numbers a few things stand out to me.

First, the # of Incentives represents the number of follow-up or E energy audits within the program which resulted in grant payouts under the ecoENERGY program. The total of 94,007 is 4 less than yesterday’s 94,011 number of E energy audits, telling me that 4 participants did not acheive any energy efficiencies for which grants are applicable within the program.

Second, Average Value represents the average value of incentives paid out. So, on average, each household receiving grant payments of only $1,095 over the first two years of the program. With the $5,000 maximum amount that an individual household can receive under the ecoENERGY Residential Retrofit program, very few participating households are being limited by this program.

Third, Total Payout is the total amount of money paid out under the program. However, let’s be clear; this is the amount of money paid out by Natural Resources Canada. Most Provinces and Territories provide matching grant money of their own on a 1 for 1 basis. So, most homeowners who receive payouts end up receiving the same amount again from their Provincial / Territory government.

Is $103 million a lot of money in the big picture? Not sure. It would be good to have comparative data of any similar programs in other countries. I looked, but could not find such information.

What about the savings?  Here are the numbers: 

                                2007 - 08            2008 - 09                Total

Marginal CO2           59,471               261,174               320,645

Marginal CO2

      per House                3.37                      3.42                      3.41

Ave. Energy (GJ)        48.40                     51.60                     51.00

So, what does this mean?

Marginal CO2 represents the marginal CO2 savings in tons per year, while Marginal CO2 per Houserepresents the marginal CO2 savings in tons per year per household receiving payout under the ecoENERGY program.

Average Energy (GJ)represents just that, the average energy savings per household as measured in gigajoules.

What’s a gigajoule? According to Natural Resources Canada, a “…gigajoule is a metric term used for measuring energy use…1 GJ is equivalent to the amount of energy available from either 277.8 kWh of electricity, or 26.1 cubic meters of natural gas, or 25.8 litres of heating oil.”

So, the average energy savings per household who has completed the second or E energy audit under the ecoENERGY program is equivalent to  14,168 (51.0 X 277.8) kWh of electricity.

That’s a number I can relate to; and, seems quite good to me. Does it seem good to you?

In a few days, we take a look at the different types of energy efficiency achieved by participating households during the first 2 years of the ecoENERGY Residential Retrofit program.

To continue to the next article in this series, simply select this link to Part 3.