Ohio Promised Home Energy Efficiency Support, Yanked It; Now It Has Federal EE Funds - What Happens Next?

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But Petko isn’t cheering this new funding or even sure if he’s interested in participating, a sentiment that Inside Climate News found repeatedly when talking to energy efficiency practitioners. Their wariness stems from Ohio’s recent history of building an efficiency program and then abruptly getting rid of most of it through House Bill 6 in 2019, a bill best known for its nuclear bailout and the bribery scandal that helped to put the House speaker in prison.

If the new programs are just a matter of quickly spending some federal money and then walking away, then many of the people best equipped to help say they are not sure they want to adjust their lives and jobs to be part of it. They also say that the number of people and businesses that do this work has gone down in recent years, which affects the ability to ramp up new programs. “I think there’s a common misperception that there’s a bunch of workers sitting on the bench that can do this work,” said Julie Tolliver, owner of Energy Fitness for Homes, which is based near Cincinnati. “But they’re not there.”

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Ohio is among a majority of states that have obtained commitments for federal funding and are preparing to launch the programs, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. About a dozen states plus Washington, D.C., are a step ahead and have begun operating their programs. South Dakota is the only state that has refused to participate. The federal money must be spent by the early 2030s, and could be gone much sooner depending on how quickly and how many people seek rebates. The Trump administration has taken actions to stop the release of money from the Inflation Reduction Act, but doing so may be more difficult for these programs, which already have commitments for funding.

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Ohio’s energy efficiency programs grew following the passage of a 2008 state law that required electric utilities to meet targets for developing renewable energy and for helping consumers with energy conservation. As years passed, utility companies began to ask for a repeal or reduction of the requirements. They said the energy conservation benchmarks were increasingly difficult and expensive to meet as the standards moved higher. The Ohio General Assembly got rid of future steps in the requirements with the 2019 nuclear bailout law. The law’s main features were bailouts for nuclear and coal power plants, but it also phased out electricity utilities’ energy efficiency programs. Lawmakers rationalized the phaseout as a necessary removal of impractical mandates. Ohio utilities went from spending $81.4 million on efficiency efforts in 2020 to $7 million in 2021 and now rank near the bottom of the country, according to ACEEE.

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27012025/home-efficiency-pros-wary-of-ohio-federal-rebates/