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Community Energy Efficiency Program

Project Description for Funded Organizations

Agency/Organization:
Project Contact:
Address:
Telephone:
Email:
Email:
Website:
Opportunity Council
Shawn Collins, Community Energy Challenge Manager
1111 Cornwall Ave #C, Bellingham, WA 98225-5039
360-676-6099
shawn_collins@oppco.org
communityenergychallenge@oppco.org
http://www.communityenergychallenge.org/

Target Audience: Households and businesses in neighborhoods throughout Northwest Washington.

Objective: The Community Energy Challenge is an initiative to reduce consumption of electricity and natural gas by making energy efficiency affordable, accessible, and attractive for businesses and households throughout Whatcom, Island, Skagit, and San Juan counties. This project is a partnership between the Opportunity Council and Sustainable Connections.

Strategies: The Community Energy Challenge makes achieving energy efficiency as easy as possible from start to finish. We provide each participating household and business with quality information, a full energy assessment, and a customized energy action plan detailing cost-effective measures, attractive and accessible financing opportunities, cash incentives for completing the work, reliable contractors, assistance with utility and tax rebates, and quality assurance.

Goals:
Reduce Energy Use
  • Local businesses saving (at least) 5 to 15 percent of their energy use.
  • Home energy assessments performed, energy efficiency improvements in homes providing energy use savings ranging from 5 to 30 percent.
Boost Economic Development
  • Generate construction activities in excess of $10 million.
  • Save more than $1 million in energy expenditures that can be re-invested in the local community.
  • Creating (at least) 35 new green collar jobs.
Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions
  • Prevent more than 7,000 tons of CO2 emissions per year.
  • Equivalent to eliminating nearly 800,000 gallons of gasoline (equal to one less tanker truck full of gasoline every four days).
More information is available at http://www.communityenergychallenge.org/

Success Story

Opportunity Council/Sustainable Connections

Contractors participating in the program stated:

“I would likely not be in business without the Community Energy Challenge.”

“I was able to hire two employees and invest in equipment for my business because of the
Community Energy Challenge.”
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Energy improvements have saved the North Fork Brewery and Beer Shrine an average of 7.5 percent of their energy costs. They are now implementing a number of larger improvements including comprehensive air sealing, insulation and adding more than 8 kW of solar photovoltaic electricity.