by Jbs042610 g3 — April 28, 2010—Vice President Biden kicked off five days of events around the 40th anniversary of Earth Day with the announcement of the selection of 25 communities for up to $452 million in Recovery Act funding to “ramp-up” energy efficiency building retrofits.
Under the Department of Energy’s Retrofit Ramp-Up initiative, communities, governments, private sector companies and nonprofit organizations will work together on pioneering and innovative programs for concentrated and broad-based retrofits of neighborhoods and towns, and eventually entire states.
These partnerships will support large-scale retrofits and make energy efficiency accessible to hundreds of thousands of homeowners and businesses. The models created through this program are expected to save households and businesses about $100 million annually in utility bills, while leveraging private sector resources, to create what funding recipients estimate at about 30,000 jobs across the country during the next three years.
In addition to the $452 million Recovery Act investment, the 25 projects announced today will leverage an estimated $2.8 billion from other sources over the next three years to retrofit hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses across the country. DOE will use the lessons learned from these pilot programs to develop best-practice guides for comprehensive retrofit programs that can be adopted and implemented by other communities across the country.
