New Energy Efficiency Grant Available for Faith Communities in Alberta

The Alberta government has released the Energy Savings for Businesses (ESB), a new energy savings grant program that includes nonprofits and cooperatives. The great news is that faith communities qualify for this funding opportunity.

The ESB grant allows each participant to access up to $250,000 per building. An à la carte menu of eligible items indicates what percentage of the costs per item the grant covers.

Some examples of items that can have 25% of the costs covered include qualifying LED fixtures, lighting controls, and solar photovoltaic installations.

Qualifying Energy Star boilers and furnaces, and air source heat pumps can have up to 50% of the costs paid for by the grant. As well, you can access 50% of the grant for the costs of increasing your insulation to meet the standard outlined, or for installing new Energy Star windows.

Why Apply?

Incentives like this can help you reduce your overall operational costs by lowering your energy bills, as well as reducing your carbon footprint. Consider passive strategies first, such as air sealing and insulation, as once these are installed and upgraded, your savings will continue on for years. Ensuring you have LED lights throughout the entire building, inside and outside will save you money and is an easy action for most faith communities. If you are up on a ladder, consider improving ceiling fans to Energy Star new ones, so that they can push the heated, conditioned air back down, reducing the number of times the heat has to come on. Appliances can be a huge energy source, especially old fridges and freezers in your building. Upgrading your old appliance will typically pay for itself in a few months with a new Energy Star rated unit. Finally, you can also upgrade your heating system and hot water tanks from oil to air source heat pumps, and high efficiency electric.

Please click on the link to contact Emissions Reduction Alberta to get more information and to start your energy saving, operational cost savings, and planet saving plan now!

More Savings!

There are even more ways to save! For United Church of Canada properties, you can use the ESB grant to access even more energy efficiency funds from the United Church of Canada’s Faithful Footprints grant program, making your energy efficiency project very cost effective.

Faith & the Common Good (FCG) has many other helpful resources in your process, including our Energy Star Action Workbook for Congregations and our DIY Faith Building Energy Audit Guide. These and many other resources can be found on our website.

For more information on FCG programs, please contact our Building Audit Manager, Stephen Collette, at [email protected].