{Grants, Confusion, Oh My! } Nico from City Green Clears Things Up…

UPDATE! MARCH 2 2010.
The “LiveSmart” program will continue!  

Hello everyone.
Wow, there is a lot of confusion out there concerning the various energy grants and tax credits available to us. Thankfully, Nico teWinkle knows all about it. He’s here to clear some of it up:

ecoENERGY is Alive and Well.

  When I tell people that I’m a Certified Energy Advisor doing ecoENERGY assessments, I often get the same response: “I thought they canceled that”.

It’s true that our provincial government has discontinued most grants in the “LiveSmart” program, meaning homeowners do not get quite as much grant money as before; however, LiveSmart was only part of the funding that was available – the federal government is still going strong with its ecoENERGYprogram, and people can still receive up to $5,000 back in grant money.

Now, before you dismiss that with a frown and a wave and an utterance to the effect of  “yeah, but that ends soon”, let me clarify that ecoENERGY is completely separate from the Home Renovation Tax Credit program, which is available until January 31 2010.

The ecoENERGY program is good until March 2011, so anyone interested still has a year and several months to make upgrades and apply for the grants.

Just remember: you do have to get a “pre-retrofit assessment” of your home completed before you make any upgrades. In essence, somebody has to come check out your house so that the grant program has a starting point to base the grants on.

This assessment comes with a lot of great advice and includes energy modeling to help determine where your energy upgrade dollars will be most effective.

Even more grants are available through SolarBC for those intending to go to the next step by installing solar energy setups such as solar hot water heating.

So before you start those renovations, check out what grants may be available to you – you might be surprised!

For more information, visit LiveSmartBC.ca, ecoAction.gc.ca, and SolarBC.ca.

For details on grants still available, visit http://citygreen.ca/energy/ecoENERGY_grantchart.aspx

Nico teWinkel is a Certified Energy Advisor for City Green Solutions, living in the Comox Valley. Alternative energies and energy efficiency are his passion.

To book an ecoENERGY assessment, you can call City Green Solutions at 1-866-381-9995 and ask to book an appointment with Nico.