CES Testimonial: A Worry-Free Winter

“A big THANKS is in order. We just replaced our ancient boiler with a new 95%+ efficient boiler/water heater system. We could do this ONLY because LHP&L [Linden Hills Power & Light] got us hooked up with CEE’s Community Energy Services program. With their help we got a loan and are eligible for multiple rebates/tax credit, so we could afford to replace it! No more worrying if that old thing will make it through the winter. Yea!  Thanks again. See our lawn sign below.”

Thank you Deb. P in Linden Hills for the wonderful shout-out and showing off your awesome CES lawn sign!  Keep up the good work and enjoy a warm and efficient winter.

Mayor Rybak Attends 2,000th CES home visit

From “The Mayor Blog”:

As great as it was to participate in the 2,000^th home energy audit since the program began last year in 28 pilot neighborhoods, we also announced today that the program will be soon available citywide and will serve 4,000 more households. So if you’ve taken advantage of Community Energy Services already, congratulations; if you’re in a neighborhood that’s currently eligible, don’t wait any longer; and if you live in another neighborhood, contact your neighborhood organization today and encourage them to sign up for Community Energy Services today so that you can start taking advantage of it.

Thank you, Mayor Rybak, for blogging about our program!

Our 2,000th Visit!

Minneapolis celebrated yet another milestone in converting federal stimulus dollars into real savings for its residents with the completion of the 2000^th home energy savings visit on Thursday, Oct. 14. Mayor R.T. Rybak, Council Member John Quincy (Ward 11), and representatives from the Center for Energy and Environment (CEE) celebrated the milestone at the home of Mike and Breanne Rothstein, homeowners who took advantage of the Community Energy Services program, a collaboration with the City and Center for Energy and CEE.

The program puts Minneapolis homeowners on a comprehensive path to achieving energy savings and is funded, in part, by a grant of $705,000 the City received from the Department of Energy through the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. A pilot program was launched in 2009 in 28 neighborhoods and 2,000 houses. The grant allows for the expansion of this program to all neighborhoods in Minneapolis and to conduct energy audits of 6,000 homes. This program translates to an energy savings of $762,000 annually, a CO₂ emissions reduction of more than 5,000 tons per year, and 34 new jobs.

:: City of Minneapolis

CES Testimonials

Pictures from Seward Workshop 9/14/2010

Helen readies the most important table - the treats!

Tom, Casey and Helen are ready to greet and register folks for the workshop!

Kyle, one of the fabulous CES community organizers, sets up for the workshop.

Kyle talks about next steps with our workshop participants.

Shingle Creek / Lind Bohanon Workshop

Thanks for coming out last night, Northwest Minneapolitans!  And welcome to the 16 new households who are now part of Community Energy Services.  We appreciate your questions and commitment.

CES Testimonial from Paula in Prospect Park

“We were very impressed with the CES program.  The price of the home energy visit was very reasonable, and we more than recouped that money.  The expertise of the home visit crew was excellent.  And they were very knowledgeable and patient with us answering all our questions about a very unique situation in our attic.  The recommendations we received were very helpful.

CES provided a recommended contractor list for the air sealing and insulation work, which was very re-assuring and made it so much more easy than having to go to the phone book to try and find a contractor we could trust.  G.R. Danielson did the work and they were superlative!  We were so impressed.  They showed up on time, did a great job clean up also.  They were very thorough with their work, even fixing old problems that had been done by a previous insulation company.

We would highly recommend them and the CES program to anyone!” – Paula Hendrickson from Prospect Park

Thank you, Paula!  CES is currently available to 28 neighborhoods in Minneapolis, and we have four workshops coming up in September where you can sign up for your home visit.  Learn more at the Community Energy Services website!

New CES website!

Community Energy Services has a new website!  Visit www.mnces.org to see eligible neighborhoods, check the calendar of upcoming workshops, download your registration form and see the incentives and rebates available to CES participants!

:: Community Energy Services

New Labels for Light Bulbs

From the Minnesota Energy Challenge blog:

I’ve been waiting for standard compact fluorescent light bulb labeling for a while now, so I’m really excited to hear that standard labels are coming next year! These new labels will be on all packaging for incandescents, CFLs and LED light bulbs and are modeled after nutritional facts labels.

:: Minnesota Energy Challenge blog

Southwest Journal Article on CES

“They were good,” Siegel said of Prebich and Shannon. “They were really professional and easy to have in the house. I’ll do everything they’ve told me. It was great to hear I was doing well because I’m sort of competitive.”

And Siegel echoed Reinan’s sentiment about the program.

“There’s no reason for anybody not do it,” she said frankly.

Check out this great profile of two Minneapolis homeowners who took advantage of the Community Energy Services program to reduce their utility bills and save energy in their homes.

:: Southwest Journal