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By Paul Bean
The State of Vermont will spend $62 million in federal funds to install solar power for low-income Vermonters.
On Jan 7, the parent company of Efficiency Vermont, Vermont Energy Investment Corporation (VEIC) and The Vermont Department of Public Service announced the official start of the state’s Solar for All program. Set to launch in late 2025, the initiative aims to lower electricity costs by 20% for many low-income and underserved Vermonters through solar energy projects.
VEIC is a clean energy nonprofit that is focused on “high impact” energy solutions that are based in “equity and innovation.” Its website says, “As a nonprofit organization, the company had a clear mission: to reduce the economic and environmental costs of energy use.”
In a January 7 press release, VEIC writes “Vermont’s Solar for All program is part of a nationwide effort, funded by a $62.45 million Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to deliver the long-lasting economic benefits of residential solar to more local communities. The PSD and Vermont’s State Energy Office will administer the grant funding and oversee the program.”
The program will provide incentives to lower the cost of installing rooftop solar systems on individual homes and affordable apartment buildings, while also supporting the development of large community solar arrays that enable renters and other residents to take part.
There are three ways for people to participate in the program:
- “The Residential Assistance in Solar Energy (RAISE) program to support the installation of rooftop solar for eligible single-family homes.
- The Managed Affordable Solar Housing (MASH) program to help affordable housing providers install solar on their buildings and provide residents opportunities to participate in community solar projects.
- The Affordable Community Renewable Energy (ACRE) program to create megawatt-scale community solar installations to support low-income Vermonters with a focus on renters and people who are unable to participate in the other two programs.”
“We’re excited to get this program started and can’t wait for Vermonters to see the impact,” said Vermont’s State Energy Office Director, Melissa Bailey. “Having a local and nationally recognized industry leader like VEIC on our planning team is an asset to our program.”
“This early planning and collaboration will help us maximize the full economic impacts of growing solar opportunities in the state,” added Andrew Perchlik, the state’s Solar for All Program Manager. “It’s important we build trust in our communities now so we’re ready to hit the ground running when applications launch.”
Perchlik (Washington D/P) is also a state senator. He sits on the Appropriations and Transportation committees.
When applications launch and Vermonters start to “see the impact” VDC will report on how the program is working out and what kind of impact the incentives will have on Vermont’s energy economy.
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Categories: Energy
Thanks for bringing this to our attention Paul.
I’ve just read through the Department of Public Service page. I signed up for more information and will be watching to see how the program is deployed.
At this point it looks like the details haven’t been fully worked out and I have more questions than answers.
Will it work like the weatherization programs where it is up to individuals to learn about it and apply? How will low income residents qualify for a tax credit if they don’t have enough income to pay income tax? Is there is a sufficient work force to carry it out within a reasonable period of time in order to produce a timely benefit? And is there a role for municipalities to be involved in bringing this to eligible residents of their communities?
A 20% reduction isn’t much but every little bit helps in the current climate of inflated billing.
The way to lower electricity costs for low-income Vermonters is to terminate the net-metering program’s electric rate subsidization as advised years ago by the VT Department of Public Utilities. This is just a scam to pretend to help the poor Vermonters who have been paying tens of millions of dollars in excess electric rates every year, for YEARS! STOP subsidizing solar panels with our electric bills!!!!!!
Yes John, if these are paid over market rates for their electricity, like net-metered or standard offer solar owners are today, in addition to getting free panels from other state’s taxpayers, the cost to VT ratepayers will be very high. There should be a bill in the legislature to make these installations have neutral impact for other Vermont ratepayers.
Why were we told plastering solar panels and wind turbines all over the State would lower our energy costs? After the fact, did our costs in fact rise? Why is this not deemed consumer fraud? Has anyone tallied up the total amount of storm damages versus the amount surcharged to our power bills? How much are they collecting on a monthly basis from every customer? A lot of money! Why are we surcharged for energy efficiency when the program is actually a loan program? Is it to pay for their advertising? The State of Vermont and GMP are racketeering, colluding, and committing fraud. Is anyone interested in a class action lawsuit – criminal conspiracy charges perhaps? Who owns GMP? A foreign conglomerate?
Steve, yours is a false dichotomy. There can be no ‘bill’ with a neutral impact. By definition, ‘a bill’ establishes the terms of a contract through political authority, be it to buy electricity, to buy groceries, to have your roads maintained, and so forth. But as with any one-size-fits-all governance (socialism), it never, ever, achieves its expressed goal of utopia.
There is only one form of governance ever contrived by humans that can satisfy everyone. And be it a totalitarian monarchy, or an oligarchy under the guise of a ‘direct democracy’ – i.e. ‘two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch’ – isn’t it.
As I’ve cited more often than I care to recall, and as Milton Friedman explained; “… if an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both believe they will benefit from it. Most economic fallacies derive from the neglect of this simple insight, from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.”
The problem with our current direct democratic rule is that some people would rather rob you by forcing you to abide by a contract with which you do not agree. They may not want to have you for lunch. But they do, at least, want to steal some of your lunch from you. There is no free market in their system. It’s being circumvented by the ‘tyranny of the majority’. And many (most of us, in fact) are being robbed as a result.
We’ve been warned of this tyranny for centuries. William Bradford, Governor of Plymouth Plantation, cancelled the collectivist tenants expressed in the Mayflower Compact because its prescribed socialism was causing mass starvation. The Pilgrims finally realized that the compact was the “… vanity of that conceit of Plato’s and other ancients applauded by some of later times; that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God.”
The Pilgrims replaced the Mayflower Compact with the first instance of free enterprise in the New World. They created the concept of ‘private property’. “And so assigned to every family a parcel of land,… that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves; in all other things to go on in the general way as before.”
Little did the Pilgrims know, at that time, that 164 years later, their experience would lead to the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.
Consider Henry David Thoreau’s famous quote in On Walden Pond; “There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted. It is human, it is divine, carrion. If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.” Thoreau expresses a profound skepticism toward legislated benevolence, as opposed to his deep sense of individualism and self-reliance.
The ‘corporatists’ in our legislature, the people we have been foolish enough to elect year in and year out, have convinced us that we can’t take care of ourselves, that they know better how to allocate our resources…. all along, justifying their protection racket and demanding a contribution of those resources from us for their personal benefit.
It is ‘goodness tainted’.
They have been saying for years that going solar will reduce electric rates. There are now many solar farms all over the state and electric rates are still going up. This is a falsehood they have been spewing for a long time.
They said the same thing about school mergers. Consolidate the smaller schools and taxpayers will save money. That is how the merger was sold to EWSD voters. Those savings were never realized. Although, power was consolidated in larger school districts and parents lost any say in their children’s education.
A real poor Return on Investment for the taxpayer, an excellent opportunity for solar companies and efficiency vermont to profit…bigly.
Assuredly, none of the $62,000,000.00 would be wasted, nor will the increased solar add stress to the electric grid, resulting in additional rate-payer cost…
Every time VT gets heavy rain, enormous amounts of human excrement get dumped into our waterways. You’d think our brain trust would prioritize that over these climate scams
Since this is a “62.45 million Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency” it would appear to be a prime target for DOGE to eliminate.
Sun???? What sun lol. A very poor decision foe sure!
It lowers the PRICE for some folks, but the COST is not less.
One word, SCAM.
Is this compatible for the roof of a Subaru? How about tents, does it work on tents?
People are home less because we aren’t allowing modest homes, we’ve become a really big Jersey suburb, complete with a bike path and pocket park.
62 million could bring in 310 homes free and clear. Could be a down payment for 3,100 Vermonters, about the number of homeless.
62 million could easily pay for 620 new police officers for one year! Could get us some drug runners!
62 million could help with our over burdened courts.
62 million could be tax refund of about $100 to every citizen in Vermont who is over taxed. Perhaps the best use of 62 million.
Grifters gotta grift. They know time is running short capitalizing on the biggest scam ever played upon western civilization. Climate change is the wealth transfer and reset. As we know the amount of poisons pumped into our water supply, food supply, and air supply – at least a few gullible stooges can feel good about driving their EV’s to their doctor appointments to be pumped full of petroleum based pills and other deadly chemical compounds.
See that battery storage facility plant that burst into flames in California? Breathe deeply climate warriors – the toxic fumes are safe and effective.
Follow the money and this list from the Vermont Energy Investment Corporation 2023 IRS 990 tax return.
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/30304418
Vermont Energy Investment Corporation
Key Employees and officers Compensation Related Other
Rebecca Foster (Chief Executive Officer) $315,599 $0 $14,670
Ernest Jolly (Managing Director, Dcseu) $228,997 $0 $2,254
Matthew Dooley (Man. Dir., Energy Ser.) $210,434 $0 $9,454
Brian Kealoha (Chief Growth & Impact Off.) $206,795 $0 $2,035
Lisa Harris (Chief People Officer) $206,497 $0 $6,740
Katherine Meyers (Chief Financial Officer) $200,641 $0 $9,850
Louis Hutchinson (Chief Operating Officer) $190,988 $0 $1,933
Pierre Van Der Merwe (Chief Tech. Officer) $187,385 $0 $11,937
Angela Johnson (Director, Finance, Dcseu) $186,090 $0 $9,579
Peter Walke (Man. Director, Efficiency Vt) $183,180 $0 $3,311
Stephanie Phillips (Chief General Counsel) $178,144 $0 $8,690
Consider this from the Vermont Energy Investment Corporation web site.
“As the nation’s first Energy Efficiency Utility, Efficiency Vermont has helped Vermont save more than $3.3 billion in lifetime savings and avoid over 14.1 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions since 2000.”
Do the math. 14.1 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions over 25 years equals 56,400 metric tons per year at a savings (speculative at best) of $132 Million over the average lifetime?
Question: How does eliminating 56,400 metric tons of CO2 each year in Vermont save $132 Million dollars? Put another way, according to this logic, eliminating one metric ton of CO2 saves $2340. It’s an absurd contention. Especially given the amount of money being paid to the people listed above who are perpetrating this fraud.
Hence, grifters gotta grift. They will defend that running a 24/7 laundering service, papering over racketeering, collusion, coercion, and conspiracies to commit fraud demands much dedication and effort – being in a criminal syndicate is specialized and only special cold, calculative, disordered types are up for the challenge.
Indeed.
I wonder what Lisa Harris (the Chief People Officer) adds to Vermont’s ‘Efficiency’ that commands a $200 Grand salary. From the website:
“Elisabeth “Lisa” Harris is the Head of People and Culture at VEIC. She is responsible for leading the human resources team, with a focus on creating and implementing workplace culture initiatives; expanding diversity, equity, and inclusion work across the organization; maximizing employee benefits; acquiring and retaining talent; and fostering employee relations strategies that represent the organization’s core values.”
It seems Ms. Harris’ job is to make sure the rest of the Efficiency Vermont cartel get the maximum benefits Vermont’s foolish taxpayers will provide to them. And, judging by the listed salaries, she’s doing a great job.
I can only hope that Musk and Ramaswamy, and their Dept. of Government Efficiency (DOGE), don’t go down the same rabbit hole as has the disgraceful Efficiency Vermont crowd.
The least efficient energy source as a result of the third party: the solar panels themselves: mining by children, foreign ownership of core materials and manufacturing.
It seems ‘efficiency’ now means ‘least efficient’. If it worked, they wouldn’t have to push it down our throats. We would demand it. But in VT… how many days of sun did we get so far? its not efficient and its not practical, and its unnecessary given the other alternative (like nucleaer and natural gas)s to heat (wood) and electricity.
We have lost our minds.
Another waste of our tax dollars by the Progressive- Communists running and ruining our state. I can think of a dozen better things to spend 62 million dollars on.
CARL SAGAN: “One of the saddest lessons of history is this: if we have been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back”.
“The reason those who have been indoctrinated and lied to don’t believe they’ve been indoctrinated and lied to is precisely because they’ve been indoctrinated and lied to.” — Anonymous
“Who is more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?” ― Obi Wan Kenobi
Where is the Republican Scorecard tallying how much money they’ve cut in spending?
This should be a weekly updated scorecard.
How about some accountability and transparency?
$62 Million grift bag, this is a total fraud, scam, to take our money and pocket it for the fraudsters, as well as to increase inflation and grow the debt upon the taxpayers, it’s a Marxist Plan from the get-go. Vermont is a government-run state, through and through. It is not pro-business or for the people who want to make a living here or grow wealth here. The future which is planned by the Marxist/Globalists is to make Vermont their future playground with serfs attending to their needs. They will be housed in the units provided by the taxpayers money, draining the last bit of funds the people have in Vermont before they either move out of state or become serfs.