Snapshot: Home Energy Rebate Program

Alaska's state government spent an estimated $110 million from 2008 to 2011 for better insulation, new furnaces and other retrofits for roughly 16,500 homeowners-about 10 percent of all homeowners statewide. That spending was under the Home Energy Rebate Program, which rebates homeowners part of what they spend to make their houses more energy-efficient and less expensive to heat.

A new analysis by Scott Goldsmith and Sohrab Pathan at the Institute of Social and Economic Research and Nathan Wiltse at the Cold Climate Housing Research Center looks at broad effects of the rebate program so far. They did the analysis for the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation, which administers the rebate program. Their findings include:

• Total spending for energy-efficiency improvements under the rebate program from 2008 to 2011 was about $185 million, with state rebates covering about 60 percent and homeowners 40 percent.
• Annual fuel use dropped an estimated 33 percent among houses retrofitted under the rebate program, and average annual fuel bills dropped an estimated 26 percent.
• Every $1 million in state spending for rebates generated 12 Alaska jobs-7 direct retrofitting jobs and 5 indirect jobs. That amounted to about 1,330 Alaska jobs from 2008 to 2011.
• Overall, homeowners who've been through the rebate program are saving an estimated $22 million annually-and if they spend those savings locally, every $1 million in new household spending generates 11 jobs throughout the Alaska economy. That currently translates into an annual average of about 240 jobs.

See the full analysis (2.8MB)