Charlottetown neighbourhood energy project encourages greener homes
CBC
The City of Charlottetown is encouraging neighbours to learn from each other to make their homes more energy efficient.
The Better Homes Neighbourhood Energy Project started as a pilot in the fall of 2019, a partnership between the City of Charlottetown and efficiencyPEI.
The city's climate action officer, Katrina Cristall, said the project offers support to a given neighbourhood in doing energy upgrades to their homes.
"Although efficiencyPEI has all of these great energy efficiency rebates, there were still barriers to people accessing them, so we wanted to understand more about those barriers, and help people to address them," Cristall said.
"I think definitely there's a peer pressure side of things. We want people to understand that this is something that a lot of people are doing, and that it's really important."
The pilot project took place in an older neighbourhood in Sherwood, a suburb of Charlottetown, starting with a community meeting in the fall of 2019.
Cristall said the city was pleased by the results of the pilot, despite some elements having to be dropped because of the pandemic.
"COVID definitely threw a bit of a wrench in it, but we saw some really exciting results," Cristall said.
"Participants in the project were two times more likely to participate in efficiencyPEI rebate programs. And really interestingly, they were actually four times more likely to tap into the home insulation rebates, which we were really excited to see."
Cristall said there was a big jump in energy efficiency knowledge after the neighbourhood project.
"We saw a 60 per cent increase in those reporting that they had a high level of energy efficiency knowledge," Cristall said.
"I think that alone really demonstrates the success."
However, Cristall said it was challenging to measure exactly how much energy and money homeowners saved, because of the pandemic.
"With the first cohort during COVID, people were at home so much more," Cristall said.
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