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This release is available in French.
VANCOUVER -- The Honourable Gary Lunn, Minister of Natural Resources, today announced details of Canada’s New Government’s ecoENERGY Initiatives during an event at Standard Building Supplies in North Vancouver.
"Our Government has invested $2 billion in clean technology, renewable energy and energy efficiency," said Minister Lunn. "We are helping Canadians take real action to help the environment and reduce their energy bills with ecoENERGY Initiatives funding that delivers tangible reductions in energy."
Minister Lunn focused on ecoENERGY Retrofit, a program under the ecoENERGY Efficiency Initiative. ecoENERGY Retrofit provides financial assistance to Canadians who retrofit their homes and to small and medium businesses that retrofit their buildings to make them more energy-efficient. As many as 140,000 homeowners are expected to benefit from the grants available through ecoENERGY Retrofit. Depending on how much they improve the energy efficiency of their homes, individual homeowners could receive a grant of as much as $5,000.
More than 90 cents of every dollar from ecoENERGY Retrofit will go directly to retrofits, and the average grant is expected to be close to $1,100, well above the average incentive under previous programs.
ecoENERGY Retrofit incentive grants can be applied to a broad range of measures for homeowners to reduce energy consumption, including measures to reduce water consumption such as low-flow toilets. Geothermal heat pumps are covered in the new program and, for the first time, renewable energy technologies such as solar hot-water systems are eligible for grants.
Small and medium businesses also benefit since ecoENERGY Retrofit will provide financial incentives of up to $50,000 to offset the cost of energy-efficiency retrofits done by small and medium organizations in the commercial, institutional and industrial sectors.
The ecoENERGY Efficiency Initiative, which includes ecoENERGY Retrofit, is one of the following three Initiatives unveiled by Canada’s New Government earlier this year. ecoENERGY Retrofit began accepting applications April 1, 2007.
- The ecoENERGY Technology Initiative — $230 million to accelerate the development of the next generation of technologies that will allow us to produce and consume energy more cleanly.
- The ecoENERGY Renewable Initiative — $1.5 billion to grow Canada’s clean energy industry, increasing production and lowering the price of all types of renewable energy.
- The ecoENERGY Efficiency Initiative — $340 million to help Canadians become more efficient consumers of energy in their homes, businesses and vehicles.
For more information on all of the ecoENERGY Initiatives, please visit www.ecoACTION.gc.ca.
FOR BROADCAST USE:
As of April 1, Canadian homeowners can be eligible for grants of up to $5,000 under a new Government of Canada program to cut greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution launched by Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn today. ecoENERGY Retrofit will pay cash incentives to Canadians who upgrade their homes to make them more energy-efficient. Funding for energy-efficiency retrofits will also be available to small and medium organizations in the commercial, institutional and industrial sectors.
For more information, media may contact:
Kathleen Olson
Acting Director of Communications
Office of the Minister
Natural Resources Canada
Ottawa
613-996-2007
And general public may contact:
Telephone 1-800-O-Canada (1-800-622-6232)
Teletypewriter 1-800-926-9105
Facsimile 613-992-0792
The following media backgrounder is available at www.nrcan.gc.ca/media: ecoENERGY Retrofit
NRCan’s news releases and backgrounders are available at www.nrcan.gc.ca/media.