Efficiency First Chair Matt Golden makes the case for residential energy retrofit incentives
In a commentary published today on Forbes.com (the online presence of Forbes Magazine), Efficiency First Chair Matt Golden outlines the essential economic arguments in favor of using direct consumer incentives to spur growth in the home energy retrofit industry. Golden argues that with unemployment in the construction sector pushing 25 percent, we have a historic opportunity to put that unused capacity to work making homes more efficient and reducing energy costs for American consumers.
“Home Star is designed to stimulate private investment in home energy improvements and channel millions of dollars in new business to local contractors,” Golden writes. “The work is hands-on, site-specific labor that cannot be outsourced overseas, and employs skills that any experienced construction worker or HVAC installer can acquire with minimal training. Furthermore, the sheet metal, insulation, caulking and other materials used in home energy remodeling are overwhelmingly produced by American mills and factories, another sector of our economy with tremendous underutilized capacity”
Golden goes on to cite several examples of positive growth and investment in the Home Performance industry, and he concludes by saying that HOME STAR “will facilitate a hybrid solution in which the public and private sectors work together to support a prosperous free market for energy retrofitting services that deliver measurable and predictable energy savings, and help our nation’s economy get back on track.”
