Editor’s note: No Republicans voted for the Inflation Reduction Act. A previous version of this story incorrectly reported that fact.

Nestled under a glass dome between a humid tropical jungle and a surreal cactus landscape during the Republican National Convention last week, Republican leaders extolled a glowing clean energy future for America, and avoided mentioning nominee Donald J. Trump. 

Their message — delivered at Milwaukee’s Mitchell Park Domes botanical garden — was notably different from the tune a few miles away in the Fiserv Forum, where RNC speakers such as North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum called for American “energy dominance” based on fossil fuels.

Trump, in his speech the final night of the convention, promised to “end the electric vehicle mandate on day one” and railed against the “green new scam” — pledges echoed in the Republican party’s platform — to loud cheers. 

In interviews with the Energy News Network, Republican leaders dismissed Trump’s frequent demonization of solar, wind and electric vehicles as empty rhetoric and expressed optimism that if elected, he would embrace the job-creation and innovation potential of clean energy.

“I think he’s been tougher on mandates,” said Utah Rep. John Curtis, who is on the U.S. Senate ballot for November. “A lot of my colleagues feel like [energy] should be more market-based-driven, and I feel the same way. This should be market-driven.”

Advocates at the event from across the political spectrum also emphasized the role of states and Congress in promoting clean energy, in lieu of support from the president.

Trump’s antipathy to renewables “does give pause to those who are advocates for clean energy and wanting to address climate change,” said Heather Reams, president of Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, a nonprofit organization that works to engage with Republicans. 

“However, there are two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue — there’s the executive branch, and then there’s Congress. We’ve been spending a lot of time over the last decade working with members of Congress who are much more engaged on climate and advocacy and acceleration of clean energy. And that’s different than it was in 2016, when there was very little engagement on climate” from Republican lawmakers.

But it’s debatable whether Republican lawmakers are engaging on climate now. No Republican senators or House members voted for the Inflation Reduction Act, arguably the nation’s largest clean energy bill ever. And while the House Republican Climate Caucus has 83 members, many are ardent fossil-fuel boosters, and environmental advocates question the group’s seriousness.

Trump’s first term saw rollbacks to federal regulations governing waste from coal plants, withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, revocation of California’s ability to set stricter tailpipe emission standards, relaxed standards on oil and gas extraction, and much more. In a 2021 analysis, the New York Times counted 28 air pollution and emissions rules that Trump successfully reversed, and 12 related to drilling and fossil fuel extraction. 

Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation policy agenda Trump has distanced himself from but is promoted by prominent backers, seeks to significantly undercut the EPA’s power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, including by reducing the number of industries required to report emissions. The document refers to climate change as a “perceived threat” and routinely characterizes federal agencies’ work on climate as a politically motivated distraction.

Nonetheless, Reams said she’s hopeful Trump won’t seek to dismantle programs and incentives passed during the Biden administration, as he has pledged to do.  

“We still have governors that are benefiting from a lot of the laws that have been passed” under Biden, she said. “Congress took those votes. They’re supportive of all the economic development that’s coming into their districts. So I think there’s going to be a little bit more of a scalpel than a sledgehammer approach to some of the legislation that was passed” if Trump wins.

Invenergy president Jim Murphy said he would hope to appeal to Trump as a businessman.

“We’re here to share with them what we’re doing as a company, and as an industry, to complete this energy transition the responsible way,” he told the Energy News Network. “There’s no doubt it’s been started, so to do it in the right way. One thing that we’re observing is that the goals and the objectives of the groups are not that different. It seems we have a lot more common ground than people might think.” 

Michigan Conservative Energy Forum executive director Ed Rivet watched the RNC from afar, and noted all the blame heaped on Biden for rising gasoline prices.    

“All of that is fully expected rhetoric for these sorts of events, you’re sometimes throwing out red-meat soundbites,” Rivet said. “But the more important thing for the future if there’s a second Trump administration is, are they going to promote technology being the response to demand for climate action. Because demand for climate action is not going to go away just because we change administrations.”   

Rivet said Republicans — and Democrats — should prioritize competing with China on battery and other clean energy technology development and manufacturing.   

“The RNC is missing an opportunity to say, ‘Our response to climate is going to be unleashing the power of technology in America like no other country can do,’” he said. “Let’s build the best technology in the world. The RNC is missing the opportunity to punch right at the core of how do we really respond to our circumstances.” 

Ryan Huebsch, executive director of the Wisconsin Conservative Energy Forum, also skipped the convention and said he has resisted delving into the official GOP platform. But he is hopeful about conservative leadership on clean energy, citing the expansion of wind power in Iowa under Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, a delegate at the Republican convention. Between 2017 — when Reynolds took office — and 2022, the state’s wind power grew from 37% to 62% of its net generation, ranking second nationwide behind Texas in wind capacity.    

“They’re exporting wind energy everywhere,” Huebsch said. “Hopefully Wisconsin can be an exporter of clean and renewable energy too. We’d like to see a mix of some of President Biden’s current strategies, and see where we can come in with Trump (if he is elected). Hopefully there’s some middle ground there.” 

Polling shows little concern about climate among Republicans. A March report from Pew Research Center noted that only 12% of Republicans felt climate change should be a top priority for Congress and the president, and only 23% see it as a major threat to the country. 

Indeed, conservative clean energy proponents prefer to tout the job creation, energy independence and individual lifestyle benefits of clean energy, as opposed to the climate implications. 

Katie Bowen, a volunteer at the Republican convention and former staffer for Colorado Republican legislators, lamented that she had to give up her beloved electric vehicle when she moved to Colorado from Las Vegas. She considered Colorado “as granola as you get,” but was surprised to find few charging stations. She also became frustrated that Colorado was not doing more to promote nuclear energy, including as a way to power new data centers.

“How in the U.S. can we not only make energy clean, efficient and renewable, but also how do we power our own technology” — especially new data centers, she said. “Conservatives not only need to accept, but also get behind the whole thing of conservation is not just a political issue. It’s an everyone issue. It’s an American issue.”

Conservative clean energy advocates keep Trump’s rhetoric at arm’s length is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Along with new tax breaks for families and businesses in return for investing in clean and more efficient energy, the federal government is for the first time offering support to schools and other nonprofits that make those investments.

“Direct support” payments from the Internal Revenue Service will pay back school districts, churches and other nonprofit organizations for part of what they spend on energy renovations that cut their energy use and replace fossil fuels.

For schools the program represents an opportunity to make energy upgrades that many have had to skimp on, according to Nathan Ugoretz, secretary-treasurer of the Wisconsin Education Association Council.

As state school funding falls behind the rising costs public school districts face, “funding for maintenance and improvements have been put on the chopping block,” Ugoretz said Thursday. School districts across Wisconsin have held referendum votes to raise property taxes to support ongoing expenses.

“This leaves no resources for overhauling outdated electrical systems or investments to cut energy costs,” Ugoretz said.

Ugoretz spoke at Forest Edge Elementary School, a Fitchburg school that has been singled out for its strides in improving energy efficiency. In 2021, the school, after operating for just one year, was recognized as the first Net Zero Energy school in Wisconsin — producing and returning to the power grid as much energy as it used.

The BlueGreen Alliance, an advocacy group that combines the interests of the labor and environmental movements, chose the school Thursday for a presentation on how clean energy and energy efficiency tax credits under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act are available to more than just taxpayers, whether individuals or businesses.

Direct IRS support that passes those tax credits on to nonprofits will help accelerate the spread of green technology to more users, participants in Thursday’s event said.

“That is a really, really big deal — not only because we get to model for our students what a clean energy economy looks like, but because utility costs for schools are one of the biggest demands on school budgets,” said Kristina Costa, deputy assistant to President Joe Biden for clean energy innovation and implementation. “And when energy costs go up, that leaves fewer resources available for everything else that students need to do.”

Cutting those costs by boosting energy efficiency “frees up those precious dollars to improve our schools and in other ways to enrich our kids’ education,” Costa added.

Spurred by the Inflation Reduction Act, businesses have invested $1.7 billion on clean power projects in Wisconsin through May 2024, according to the White House.

“This is a win, win, win,” said Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Town of Vermont) — for improving education resources, for labor and “more professional job development to have good wages and benefits. Pocan praised the Biden administration for taking  “the high road,” adding, “it’s a win for the environment because ultimately we’re addressing climate change through addressing the rising cost of energy.”

Forest Edge school was built well before the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law, but as Wisconsin’s first net-zero energy school, “it’s an example of what’s possible for schools across the state,” state Carly Eaton, Wisconsin policy manager for BlueGreen Alliance.

From the start the Oregon School District facility was developed to be as energy efficient and clean-energy focused as possible, school district officials said.

A total of 1,704 solar panels line the flat rooftops of the building, providing enough electricity that the district is able to sell some of it back to the power grid, according to Andy Weiland, Oregon School District business manager. Walls of glass maximize natural light in the building, while the panes are specially treated to darken automatically in sunlight to prevent the building interior from heating up.

Geothermal energy, which draws heat from deep below the earth’s surface,  and heat pump technology warm the school — and also keep it cool when the weather outside is warm.

“For the most part we don’t have to use any fossil fuels at all,” Weiland said as he gave a tour of the building Thursday.

Had the district been able to use the Inflation Reduction Act’s direct support program when it was building the school, the savings, Weiland speculated, “would have been several million dollars.”

Beyond the savings that the act promises for people and organizations that use its incentives to upgrade their energy systems, the legislation has also been championed for provisions that require contractors to pay employees prevailing local wages on projects that qualify for the full values of tax credits. It also requires projects to employ participants in licensed apprenticeship programs.

The two requirements help stabilize the construction workforce, said Emily Pritzkow, executive director of the Wisconsin Building Trades Council, which represents about 40,000 Wisconsin members in several construction unions.

“By utilizing competitive labor standards, including an area’s standard wages, benefits and training opportunities, we are ensuring the economic impact of these projects stays in our local community for generations to come,” Pritzkow said.

Federal clean energy program unlocks benefits for Wisconsin schools is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

WEC Energy Group in southeastern Wisconsin is planning to significantly expand its capacity for natural gas electricity generation, even as it has vowed to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

In recent filings by its subsidiary WEPCO (also known as We Energies), the company has asked state utility regulators for permission to bill ratepayers for two new natural gas power plants, a liquified natural gas storage facility, and a 33-mile pipeline to supply the proposed new plants.

Altogether, the projects represent a more than $2 billion investment the utility says will be critical for balancing growing wind and solar generation but advocates say could leave customers unfairly paying for facilities that are likely to be obsolete before mid-century. 

“We hope the commission will reject these proposals, and rather direct WEC to invest in cleaner technologies as well as energy efficiency,” said Ciaran Gallagher, energy and air manager for Clean Wisconsin.  

WEC spokesperson Brendan Conway countered that the company is on track to meet its decarbonization goals, and that the gas plants play a role.

“The key to the renewable energy transition is to have quick start gas plants available for those times when zero carbon generation cannot meet customers energy needs,” Conway said by email. “As we transition our baseload power to renewable energy, these proposed plants will support our customers when solar and wind are not able to provide enough power. We have a number of options, including hydrogen, renewable natural gas and new technologies that will help us meet our 2050 goal. We expect these [new gas] plants will serve customers for decades.”

Demand and reliability

The first indication of the utility’s gas expansion plans came in a Feb. 1 filing in which WEC asked state regulators to let it start collecting $200 million from ratepayers now for supplies it expected to need later for constructing two new gas plants and an LNG facility.

That filing also cites WEC’s plans to convert two coal plants to burn natural gas: its Elm Road Generating Station in Oak Creek, and Unit 4 at its Weston plant near Wausau. 

The company said it needs more gas capacity for three main reasons. Its coal plants are retiring, driven by Clean Air Act regulations. The regional transmission organization, MISO, is giving renewables less credit toward utilities’ capacity obligations. And demand is growing, driven largely by a boom in data centers in the area. 

That means the utility needs more renewables “paired with dispatchable natural gas” and related infrastructure, the filing says. This spring, WEC proposed a 1,100 MW natural gas plant with five simple cycle combustion turbines on the site of its Oak Creek coal plant 15 miles south of Milwaukee and a 128 MW gas plant near the town of Paris in Kenosha County. 

Cover letters for the Oak Creek and Paris gas plant proposals before the Public Service Commission say each project is “a key component” of WEC’s “continued transformation of its generation fleet to ensure reliability and resiliency” and comply with MISO and EPA rules.

Critics counter that gas is not the way to increase reliability, especially since natural gas supplies have been disrupted during extreme weather in the MISO region, including with winter storms Uri in 2021 and Elliott in 2022.

“There are reliability claims dotted throughout these applications,” said Gallagher. “There’s the expectation that MISO is going to devalue or lower accreditation of gas plants because they are increasingly not showing up during these winter [weather] events. Continuing to build out the dispatchable gas plants in WEC’s portfolio is leading us to a potentially more precarious position during these winter storms, as opposed to investing in wind and storage and solar.”

Until recent years, coal made up the bulk of Wisconsin’s power supply.

An 8K form filed April 15 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) notes that WEC plans to stop burning coal entirely by 2032. The form notes that 1,100 MW of coal units at Oak Creek and 300 MW at its Columbia plant will retire by 2026, and 328 MW at its Weston plant by 2032.

The Elm Road coal plant was built in 2011, at a cost of more than $2 billion plus recent spending on upgrades. Watchdogs point to its imminent conversion to gas as a warning sign about investing in fossil fuels that may soon become unviable. Ratepayers often continue paying for power plants even after they close, as much as hundreds of millions of dollars, as with We Energies’ Pleasant Prairie plant.

“In the early 2000s, the writing was on the wall that coal was bad for our health, for the climate, and there were expected carbon regulations,” said Gallagher. Yet WEC “built some of the last coal plants in the U.S., and Wisconsinites are still paying for those coal plants with their pocketbooks as well as with their health. We’re concerned that this investment in gas power plants and infrastructure is just another cash grab for WEC and their shareholders, as likely the last large gas plants are built in the United States.” 

Grand gas plans 

In an April 5 filing, WEC seeks approval to charge ratepayers $1.2 billion for the Oak Creek gas generators. A separate filing proposes the 128 MW Paris RICE plant at a cost of $280 million. RICE refers to the seven reciprocating internal combustion engines that would make up the plant. 

The town of Paris, near the proposed plant, requested to intervene in the proceeding, noting that “while small in footprint, [the plant] may have a substantial long-term impact on the Town and its residents… The Town is already carrying a high burden of power generation for southeastern Wisconsin.” 

A proposed $456.3 million liquified natural gas facility, also at the Oak Creek site, would compress and liquefy gas delivered in pipelines, storing two billion cubic feet to be ready for gas delivery interruptions and ensuring adequate supply for the new plants, WEC says. 

The proposed new natural gas pipeline, known as the Rochester Lateral, would cost $186 million, WEC’s filing says. 

Conway said that WEC also needs advance permission to start purchasing supplies for the gas investments. 

“Due to long lead-time and high demand of some equipment, we have requested to be able to procure certain items to make sure they are available in a timely manner,” he said. Consumer advocates argue the company shouldn’t be allowed to bill ratepayers for these supplies before the new power plants are even approved. 

The company meanwhile has not yet filed with the Public Service Commission for the Elm Road and Weston gas conversions. In February, the Public Service Commission approved WEC to invest $100 million to increase its share in the combined cycle gas plant West Riverside Energy Center, which it co-owns with Alliant Energy. 

Financial costs, health costs   

Tom Content, executive director of the state’s Citizen Utility Board, said that bill increases for the new natural gas costs would come on top of a $418 million electricity rate increase that We Energies customers are already facing in 2025 and 2026, which could add up to a nearly 30% rate hike for residential customers between 2022 and 2026, according to CUB’s analysis. Those rate increases are in part to pay for three major solar farms as well as one natural gas conversion. 

In an April 12 letter to the Public Service Commission, WEC executive vice president of external affairs Robert Garvin pegged the rate increases to new wind and solar power, inflation, extreme weather, an emerald ash borer infestation that has forced tree removal near power lines, and forgiveness of low-income customer bills. 

Clean energy and consumer advocates lauded the increase in renewable investments, and said WEC Energy should focus on renewables and storage rather than spending more ratepayer money on gas. 

“Ultimately, our state needs a holistic approach to reducing carbon emissions and strengthening our electric infrastructure,” said RENEW Wisconsin Executive Director Sam Dunaiski. “New natural gas plants do not put us on a path toward a fully decarbonized economy. Other solutions to meet Wisconsin’s energy needs could include more distributed renewable generation, energy efficiency, performance-based rate-making, and the coupling of battery storage with solar and wind projects. Wisconsin needs transparent planning in order to make smart energy decisions for our future.” 

Gallagher echoed a long-time criticism of environmental and consumer advocates: that Wisconsin does not require utilities to file regular, long-range outlooks, known as Integrated Resource Plans, like those used by regulators in many states to help guide decisions. A bill introduced last fall would create such a process in Wisconsin. 

“The commission is forced into these more narrow decisions related to the need of one project or another, we’re not even seeing all four of the projects that WEC says are necessary at the same time,” Gallagher said. “There is this lack of comprehensive planning in our state, and we’re seeing the impact with these proposals.” 

Content called on the commission to protect ratepayers from being saddled with costs for unnecessary power generation, including the guaranteed return on investment that utilities get as profit. 

“It always comes back to the whole capital bias,” he said. “The build-build-build bias on the part of every public utility is front and center. The more they build, the more they earn.” 

Health concerns 

As a primary care doctor in Milwaukee, Victoria Gillet says she constantly sees patients in respiratory distress. She says she feels the pollution herself, with aching lungs when she bikes to work.  

“It really impacts people’s lives,” she said. “I know for sure when the air quality gets worse, my patients end up hospitalized.” 

Natural gas-fired plants emit far less particulate matter than coal-burning power plants, as well as less carbon dioxide. But gas plants emit other compounds harmful to public health, including nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide.

“When health is your number one focus, it has to be about just getting pollutants gone, not making them less,” Gillet said. “There is no safe number of kids having asthma attacks. The community around the Oak Creek plant fought so, so, so hard to be less impacted by the coal they’re exposed to. We shouldn’t be replacing that with something a little less worse. We should give that entire neighborhood a reprieve from being exposed to polluting industries.” 

She added that her patients include “the kind, wonderful people who want to mow their neighbors’ lawns,” or do healthy outdoor exercise, but air pollution can make such activities dangerous.  

“I’ve tried to be a lot more intentional, making people aware of how this will impact their health, looking at air quality indicators the same way you look at the weather,” she said. “That makes me sad.”

Wisconsin ratepayers, still paying off the coal plants of the past, asked for $2 billion for the gas plants of the future is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

The Midwest’s regional transmission grid operator this week announced another multi-billion dollar phase of transmission line projects as part of a four-part push to improve reliability and reduce curtailments.

The Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) unveiled plans Monday for what’s known as its “Tranche 2” portfolio, which includes plans for several 765 kilovolt transmission “highways” spanning sections of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, North Dakota and Missouri.

Many of the new lines would connect to projects being built as part of the $10.4 billion Tranche 1 portfolio, which MISO approved last year. Tranche 2 is projected to cost even more, at between $17 billion and $23 billion. A third batch of projects will focus on the grid operator’s southern territory, and the fourth will address north-south connections.

In its presentation to stakeholders, MISO officials said the investment will help manage challenges in three regions. In MISO West, which includes Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, 20% of its facilities are overloaded and annual curtailments exceed 15%.

In its Central region, composed of parts of Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri, facilities are 10% overloaded, and there’s a need for transmission to move power from west to east.

MISO’s East Region, defined as Michigan’s lower peninsula, suffers annual curtailment of over 15% and 10% of facilities are overloaded. MISO said in a presentation that transmission would help mitigate “import and export power swings between day and night.”

Beth Soholt, executive director of the nonprofit Clean Grid Alliance, said the Tranche 2 plan is  “bold” and “the direction we need to go.” The question is: does it go far enough?

The regional grid is expected to see significant growth from industries, electrification, data centers and other sources, Soholt said. 

“If load growth ramps up faster than the grid can handle, then we’re behind the eight ball again,” she said. “Now is the time to ask: Have we right-sized this portfolio?”

Mike Schowalter, senior manager of wholesale electric grid transition for Fresh Energy, said he was surprised by the lack of a High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) line.

“If we’re looking at the long-term, we’re going to need the attributes that HVDC brings,” Schowalter said.

The Energy News Network is an independent journalism program of Fresh Energy.

A 765 kV transmission line needs taller towers and a much wider corridor than HVDC or other alternatives, Schowalter said. 

“I’m a little concerned about some of the siting issues that the different states will have to deal with,” he said, noting that the map shows a 765 kV Minnesota River crossing.

Utilities have told Schowalter that the plan misses future pockets of generation that may need additional transmission. He said the reason may be because the draft report centers on reliability, not interconnection constraints.

The plan also does not venture much into North Dakota, which has plenty of wind generation, Schowalter said. The draft plan “will help with some congestion, but will it help enough?” he said. “Probably not. In terms of relative to what we need, we need a lot more than this.”

Some utilities also think deploying HVDC lines would better solve grid instability issues, especially between wind-rich Southwest Minnesota and the more populated regions to the east, Soholt said. HVDC transmits electricity more efficiently than alternate current lines, which have higher rates of power loss. 

Utilities have often had to curtail wind power from southwest Minnesota because of transmission capacity issues. Clean energy advocates and others will be closely listening to the business case MISO will make later for the choice of the transmission locations and the size of the lines, she said.

Soholt said comments are being taken now on the plan and some stakeholders will offer modifications and alternatives. Some clean energy developers and members of the Clean Grid Alliance plan to suggest alternatives. Some organizations are expected to argue that MISO does not need this much transmission and others will tender a different vision, she said.

So far, MISO has released only a rough map of where the lines would run, without much detail. A stakeholder process will refine precisely where the lines will operate, Soholt said. 

Stakeholder input and alternatives to the Tranche 2 plan will be accepted through April 5. MISO will make a final decision later this year.

Fresh Energy staff, board members and funders do not have access to or oversight of the Energy News Network’s editorial process. More about our relationship with Fresh Energy can be found in our code of ethics.

The Midwest’s grid operator is planning a massive new transmission buildout. Will it be enough? is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

A new weatherization jobs resource hub in Wisconsin is part of advocates’ effort to avoid the boom-and-bust cycle that followed previous increases in federal energy efficiency funding.

Green Workforce Connect is a program of the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC), which recently rolled out the platform in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Oklahoma with hopes to eventually expand it nationwide. The site is designed to go beyond your typical “niche job search board,” said IREC program director Pagan Poggione.

“There’s a disconnect between the key players” — including contractors, job seekers, and organizations implementing the federal government’s low-income Weatherization Assistance Program — “that Green Workforce Connect is trying to address,” Poggione said.

The federal weatherization program received $3.5 billion under the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, with additional funds promised under the Inflation Reduction Act. Advocates hoping to make the most out of that funding have looked to 2009’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as a cautionary tale.

That Obama-era law provided $5 billion over three years for the Weatherization Assistance Program, allowing the industry to train thousands of people to seal and retrofit aging homes. Many of those trainees, though, never found long-term jobs and left the sector, industry leaders say. Then in more recent years, weatherization employers have struggled to find workers.

Industry and community leaders are hopeful the structure of current programs will avoid the problems of the past, and they are trying to build organizational systems to match weatherization worker supply with growing demand. 

Larry Zarker, CEO of the Building Performance Institute that certifies weatherization training programs, said he hopes the new federal funding and efforts like Green Workforce Connect will lead to a long-term workforce training pipeline and growing industry. 

“Back in the (ARRA) era, a lot of money was thrown out there for training, everyone got certified, the money was spent and then it was gone,” Zarker said, likening a graph of the funding trajectory to an image of a snake that had swallowed a giraffe. 

“There was an incredible rise in people trained and there weren’t jobs to sustain it. Now there is money for training and certification, but it’s over a 10-year period” — rather than three years with the ARRA funding. “We can scale this as demand rises, and meet the market needs.”

An underappreciated program

Since it started in 1976, the Weatherization Assistance Program has helped weatherize 7.2 million low-income homes, about 35,000 each year, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Homes on average save $372 per year on energy bills, and the program supports about 8,500 jobs, the agency says. 

A study by Oak Ridge National Laboratory chronicled the expansion that occurred from 2009-2011 thanks to the ARRA funding, which boosted the average spending on each household from $2,500 to $6,500 and lifted the qualifying threshold from 150% to 200% of the federal poverty level. The program is administered by state energy offices, and the amount of aid each household receives is determined by various factors. 

A network of about 700 community and nonprofit organizations nationwide, including about 20 in Wisconsin, facilitate the program, enlisting residents and arranging energy efficiency audits and weatherization upgrades.

But those organizations often cannot find the contractors and direct employees needed to carry out the work, said Poggione. 

“Even though it’s been around since 1976, many people don’t know what the weatherization program is or how the program works,” Poggione said.

Organizations carrying out federally-funded weatherization often say they struggle to find contractors to do the work or employees to hire. 

“On the flip side, job seekers say it’s hard to find employers or trade programs that are vetted,” Poggione said. “The intent is to help those individuals and contractors make connections to local employers and training providers to help them make the next step.” 

Poggione said organizations have told IREC they plan to “double or triple their staffs to meet demand, and it’s not going to slow down. As funding comes online, we need more and more people trained, and we’re going to need training center expansion as well.”

An under-appreciated job 

“Weatherization” may not be a career that pops to mind often when people are considering their futures.

“The weatherization program can feel somewhat nebulous, if someone has not been exposed to it, it can be confusing,” said John Fleet, director of weatherization and housing for Partners for Community Development, which provides federally-funded weatherization in the Sheboygan, Wisconsin area. “What does weatherization even mean, what do they do?”

But experts note that weatherization is an attractive job prospect, since one can enter the field without higher education, receive free training at federally-funded centers and move up a ladder of jobs.

“I tell my staff, younger people that work for me or prospective employees: the sky is the limit in what you can do with this program,” Fleet said. “I know people that have no college education, who became very successful as a weatherization installer, then became crew leader, became an energy auditor. Someone could work with us and go start their own business. It’s a very broad industry that intersects with many others. It’s a good nurturing place for someone to get their career started.”

He said weatherization employers have faced a worker shortage for years, a problem that dovetails with a shortage of workers in the construction industry more generally. Despite the brief weatherization boom driven by the ARRA, Fleet said there’s been a longer trend affecting weatherization and related trades.

“We’ve had a lot of retirees since the Great Recession,” that followed the 2008 economic crash, he said. “People just didn’t get back into the construction industry. Even more than that, there was a push for people in the 1990s to 2000s to get away from the trades and send kids to college, as opposed to realizing that the trades are a great, exciting viable career opportunity.” 

Weatherizing a home involves a lot more than putting in storm windows or improved insulation and HVAC, experts note.

“It starts with building science principles, understanding how a house works, understanding the things that can compromise comfort, safety, energy, and durability of a home,” said Zarker. “Then we can use the diagnostic equipment, take that data, model the performance of a home and understand what kinds of savings you can achieve.”

Kelly Carey, Building Performance Institute marketing specialist, noted that while the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides 10 years of funding for the Weatherization Assistance Program, “we won’t get to all American homes in 10 years. Hopefully at the end of that time, it becomes an expectation that my home is energy efficient and it’s comfortable, I’ll expect that of my builder and renovator.”

With federal funds flowing, weatherization industry prepares to fill the gaps  is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.