Duluth has seen a lot of changes over the last few years, some of them in energy conservation and efficiency. The Duluth Energy Efficiency Program (DEEP) focuses on getting home owners to go from just knowing about energy efficiency to acting in their own homes. DEEP’s goal is to help homeowners save money, conserve energy, and reduce their environmental impact all while simply making their homes more energy efficient, healthy, and comfortable.
The program was initiated after a wave of economic downturn, high unemployment rate, housing crisis, energy price fluctuation, and global climate change all struck at the same time. The program works to help homeowners answer the questions; “Does my home need an energy assessment?”; “What improvements should I make?”; “Who can I trust to do the improvements right?”; and “How can I pay for it?”
DEEP specializes in helping homeowners of all income levels through utility conservation improvement program (CIP) rebates and audits, the Comfort Systems loan program, ARRA funds, and additional resources provided to low-to-moderate-income families through City of Duluth Community Development Block Grant funds and the Ordean Foundation.
After the 500-year flooding that occurred in June 2012, DEEP was adapted by Ecolibrium3 within two days to respond to flood victims. Since then, DEEP has helped 125 low-income flood-affected households by applying the DEEP process (assessing a home, developing a scope of work, getting bids, financial bundling, and quality assurance).
Honors: With all these accomplishments under its belt, it was no surprise when the CEO and Founder of Ecolibrium3, Jodi Slick, was honored by the White House as a Champion of Change, or when DEEP was nominated by the 2013 Environmental Initiative Awards as a finalist.
After two years, DEEP has accomplished:
- 457 households have complete advance energy efficiency measures
- Average household savings of $646/year
- Average GHG savings of 8,124 lbs/year
- Community savings of over 1,850 tons of GHG/year and $295,000 in energy costs
- 1,926 households participated in at least one DEEP activity. Including workshops, direct installs, audits, completed protects (5% Duluth households)
- 11 home improvement retail stores attended DEEP trainings and participated in distribution of energy efficiency information and discounts to DEEP DIY’ers
- 323 multi-family energy scores were generated with 11 completed projects representing 141 units of housing (not included in GHG and other savings calculations above)
- 162 DIY audits were completed with work complete or in progress on 87% of units
- Integration of Healthy Homes and flood mitigation components into energy audits for a holistic inspection of a home
Love Duluth? Want to know more clean energy activities going on in the city? Join the NE CERTs team on June 7th for a free tour of Duluth to learn about energy efficiency efforts geared toward helping residents, local governments facilities, and business save energy, protect the environment, and strengthen the local economy—all in Duluth! To register for the free tour click here.
