As community leaders in towns like Holland, Ann Arbor, and Traverse City ponder different ways to accelerate efficiency investments by homeowners and businesses, energy services companies-or ESCOs-are emerging as a most effective way to help not only large public buildings save energy, but also private firms with smaller buildings.
Major home energy efficiency upgrades could become a common sight in Traverse City, once leaders find a very inexpensive, long-term way to finance them.
For close to two years, more than a dozen home energy assessors, contractors, and workers from three local companies have made the city-sponsored pilot home-efficiency program tick. They’ve made more than 500 Traverse City homes-a remarkable 20 percent of the town’s owner-occupied residences-more comfortable and affordable. The success stories-and the jobs and savings they produce-could multiply dramatically if some Traverse City civic, business, and elected leaders find a way to expand TCSaves into a permanent, communitywide program.
The two-year TCSaves program was-and is-good news for Traverse City: It kept local contractors and building supply wholesalers busy. Now it’s saving energy dollars for homeowners and keeping some of those dollars in town, rather than sending them to distant coalfields. Lessons learned from TCSaves will help the community as it moves forward with a long-term energy efficiency project for Traverse City.
Fifty-six people. 27 students. 30 hours round-trip on a cramped bus. Four hours standing on the National Mall in frigid temps followed by a march to the White House. That’s what democracy looks like. It’s not always comfortable, but it sure is inspiring. On Saturday Feb. 16, I joined 55 other people on a bus in Traverse City headed for Washington D.C. to march in what was to be the largest climate rally ever held in the United States.
Our message is clear: TCL&P board members should look far and wide for a new director, attract the best candidates possible, and interview them with wide-open minds and complete transparency. Like every utility today, Traverse City’s is at a crossroads. It must choose between its business-as-usual model and the new, even revolutionary 21st-century models now emerging around the world.