Energy to save: Homeowners save energy and money with Holland program

[Link]Jill and Scott VanderStoep pose outside their house, who participated in the Home Energy 101 Program. Image credit: Jeremy Marble, Michigan News

HOLLAND, Michigan-University of Michigan graduates Scott and Jill VanderStoep are more accustomed to assigning homework than receiving it. They're both now faculty at Hope College.

[Link]Jill VanderStoep shows pipe wrap on their water heater that the Energy 101 Program provided. Image credit: Jeremy Marble, Michigan News

Still, they light up when they talk about the simple home-improvement projects they've added to their to-do list thanks to a program called Home Energy 101.

Available for free to residents in Holland, the program has provided the VanderStoeps and hundreds of other households with easy-to-use materials to use and lose less energy. Working with community nonprofits, the program also teaches residents-at no charge-how and where to use those materials, things like insulating inserts for drafty electrical outlets and foil tape to cover seams in ductwork.

"There are lots of these little nooks and crannies, lots of places you can save energy," Scott VanderStoep said. "If you add them up, they really make a difference."

[Link]Dan Broersma, Sustainability Manager City of Holland. Image credit: Jeremy Marble, Michigan News

The program is administered by the city and the community-owned utility provider. But they've also enlisted partners within the community and across the state, including the University of Michigan, to help establish the program as a blueprint for other communities.

U-M's Graham Sustainability Institute has created a guidebook for residential energy efficiency that Dan Broersma, a sustainability manager with the city of Holland, uses to start those conversations.

"I send it out at least once a week to a municipality somewhere in the country," he said. "Most of them are in Michigan, but there are quite a few that I've talked to outside as well."

For their part, the VanderStoeps would encourage their neighbors and folks in communities who could see a similar program starting up soon to take part.

"It's a great program," Jill VanderStoep said. "I would absolutely recommend it."

Sustainable impact

[Link]Andrew Reynolds, Conservation Programs Manager City of Holland. Image credit: Jeremy Marble, Michigan News

Since its inception a few years ago, Home Energy 101-which is open to homeowners, renters and landlords-has saved participating residents, on average, more than $10 a month on their utility bills. The max annual savings was more than $900.

As of December 2023, participants saw a median electricity savings that was double that of nonparticipants. Participants are also 12 times more likely to take part in the city's utility rebate program that supports residents making more substantial energy-efficiency home upgrades.

"That's my favorite stat," said Andrew Reynolds, a conservation programs manager with Holland Board of Public Works. "It's what we would want them to do as customers. And they're doing it at a much higher rate once we've had this basic conversation about home energy science and what their home actually needs."

Working with the community nonprofits also brings a level of trust to the program that was missing from previous programs that Holland developed over the past 15 years, working toward its sustainability goals.

"It's not a contractor who sells insulation saying your home needs insulation," Reynolds said. "It's someone from, say, Habitat for Humanity, saying your home needs insulation and here's how we can help guide you with that next step."

When residents register for Home Energy 101 on the program's online portal, they select the nonprofit they would like to work with. That organization then performs the home energy assessment and creates a custom report and list of materials for each home.

The program provides training for nonprofits on how to perform those home walkthroughs, and also convenes quarterly meetings with nonprofits to share updates and experiences. The Home Energy Fund also pays the nonprofits for their time in performing the home energy assessments.

So residents get to save money and support their nonprofit of choice, while the Home Energy 101 program is able to reach more people and shrink the city's energy waste and consumption.

"So there isn't just one or two or even three winners," Broersma said. "It's the entire community benefitting from this community program."

Neighbors helping neighbors

[Link]Patricia Vera de Murillo, Holland, Michigan Homeowner and Energy 101 Program Participant. Image credit: Jeremy Marble, Michigan News

Patricia Vera de Murillo said her home wasn't in the best shape before her husband died. Afterwards, she felt alone when it came to maintaining the house, especially in ways that would provide the most benefit for the cost.

"Frankly, I don't know much about taking care of a house," Vera de Murillo said, speaking with Miguel Delao of Latin Americans United for Progress, or LAUP, who helped perform her home's energy evaluation.

The inspection and the box of supplies that arrived a couple weeks later helped seal energy leaks and save on her gas bill, she said.

"Thanks to God, I am now much, much better than before," Vera de Murillo said. "I recommend this to people because they do help."

[Link]Miguel Delao, Home Energy Adviser, Latin Americans United for Progress. Image credit: Jeremy Marble, Michigan News

LAUP is one of about 10 nonprofits working with Home Energy 101. In Vera de Murillo's case, the connection to LAUP came through a trusted channel, and Delao and his colleagues were able to tell her about it and answer her questions in Spanish, her native language.

But it's not just direct referrals that let the nonprofits educate their clients about the program. Nonprofits provide many services for their community and, as they get to know individuals' needs, they can spot when sharing more information about Home Energy 101 can be a benefit.

"For me to be able to be there and say, 'Hey, we're here to help you and this is going to help,' I get the most out of that opportunity because I know we're doing it to help the client and help the community," Delao said.

A catalyst for sustainable programs

Building partnerships with nonprofits wasn't the only advantage of Holland's longstanding commitment to sustainability.

Holland earned a gold certification from the state-sponsored Michigan Green Communities Challenge, which helps municipalities track their progress toward sustainability goals. One of the benefits of this certification is membership in the Catalyst Leadership Circle, or CLC.

Led by the Graham Sustainability Institute at U-M, the CLC creates a network of communities to share ideas, best practices and more with support from Michigan Green Communities and the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, or EGLE. The CLC also provides other perks, like connections to U-M students eager to make an impact in communities.

[Link]Sarah Lee

"With the CLC, our goal is to help build local government capacity by giving them bandwidth to accomplish more," said Sarah Lee, a clean energy engagement specialist with Graham's Center for EmPowering Communities. "Then, on the student side, the educational, real-world opportunity that partnering with a local government provides is amazing. It's a very positive experience for students."

U-M master's student Michele Appledorn, who graduated in 2024, worked with the Home Energy 101 team in Holland to develop a formal guidebook for the program as part of her capstone project.

Developing the guidebook has delivered two key benefits. First, it's helped Home Energy 101 become the best version of itself.

"It really solidified the program," Broersma said. "It really made it stronger because we went through every little piece of the program."

Secondly, the guidebook provides a roadmap for other communities thinking about implementing a similar program. To ensure it met that goal, the guidebook was developed in partnership with Traverse City Light & Power.

"I served in a sort of advisory role to give my input on what might and might not work in Traverse City," said Jacob Hardy, a sustainability and key accounts manager with the utility.

Traverse City's program is similar to Holland's, but introduces an "energy concierge," Hardy said. With that, residents will work with the same person through multiple phases of their money-and-energy saving journey-from an initial home assessment, to making simple improvements and onto finding support and rebates for more extensive upgrades.

Ryan Yip, a current U-M graduate student, helped prepare documentation for Traverse City's program as part of the CLC Fellowship Program. Like Holland, Traverse City has also earned a gold certification from the Michigan Green Communities Challenge and the benefits, like CLC membership.

"Having an additional person to help create things, especially deliverables, and provide a completely fresh perspective, it's just incredible how much that helps," Hardy said.

The connection to other communities, fostered by the CLC, is also a huge benefit, he said. And not just in seeding these programs, but in enabling them to grow and sustaining them into the future.

"We're all dealing with the same issues, so to be able to bounce ideas off of other utilities, to have those relationships, it's invaluable," Hardy said. "The more of us that are able to do this, the more successful these programs will be."