Energy Star Home
The Home Performance with ENERGY STAR programme offers a comprehensive, whole-house approach to improve energy efficiency and comfort at home, while helping to protect the environment. Contractors help consumers improve their home’s energy efficiency and make recommendations for insulation, new windows, lighting and appliances, etc. An ENERGY STAR home has 30 % lower energy bills than homes built to the minimum state energy code requirements.
Vermont is the greenest state in the United States.
Another example of the efficiency in the green state is how Efficiency Vermont reduces the interest rate for qualifying energy efficiency improvements up to 3.5 %. For example, if the interest rate of a qualifying energy efficiency improvement loan is 8.5 %, Efficiency Vermont will pre-pay the interest up to 3.5 % leaving the interest rate at 5 %.
The Vermont Department of Public Service has estimated that without the savings attributed to Efficiency Vermont, electric supply would have grown at an average rate of 1.4 %.
Energy efficiency mortgage
Banks make lending decisions based on a consumer's debt-to-income ratio, i.e. they look at how much money is coming in and how much money is going out to determine how much available cash a consumer has for a mortgage payment. By incorporating energy efficiency into a home, consumers lower the utility costs and consequently have more cash available on a monthly basis for a higher mortgage. With an energy mortgage, citizen can afford to implement extensive energy saving initiatives in their homes.
