City Introduces Ordinance Regarding Yearly Use of Peoples Energy Settlement Funds
$4.8M to Assist Chicagoans With Continually Rising Energy Costs
Today, the City of Chicago introduced an ordinance in City Council authorizing the final acceptance of funds from Settlement Agreement among the City, the Attorney General's (AG) office, the Citizens Utility Board (CUB), and Peoples Gas.
On March 28, 2006, the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) entered an order approving the Settlement Agreement between the City, the Attorney General's (AG) office, the Citizens Utility Board, and Peoples Gas that settled several pending cases before the ICC and in Circuit Court. As part of the settlement, the City will receive up to $5 million annually for 6 years to be spent on energy conservation and weatherization projects in the City with this year’s installment totaling $4,800,000.
The proposed projects seek to extend agreements with non-profit partners that were successfully implemented with previous years’ settlement funds. All of these programs serve low and moderate income residents.
The City has used majority of these funds in years past to extend the grant agreements with its most effective partners.The programs were evaluated by an outside firm working on a pro bono basis based on the following criteria: the number of units completed as a percentage of those proposed (as a measure of implementation ability), energy savings; and associated greenhouse gas carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions reductions achieved per dollars spent (as a measure of efficiency). Those programs that ranked the highest are proposed as the recipients of this year’s funds.
DOE currently operates program that trains community based organizations, DOE’s Chicago Conservation Corps leaders and Conservation Corps school clubs to install kits in low to moderate income homes. This program also seeks to sign up assisted households for state grants to install permanent energy efficiency measures in homes.
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