 who you'll be hearing from in a moment. Thank you to members of the media who have joined us. We're really quite excited about this announcement. We're here because our efforts to electrify Burlington are working. In my state of the city address last April, I announced that the city and the Burlington Electric Department would launch a green stimulus initiative in order to both support our economy during the pandemic and help us transition to a more sustainable city. Today, I'm pleased to share an update that the green stimulus is working. Since the program launched on June 1, Burlingtonians have installed more than 175 heat pumps, a five-fold increase over an equivalent time period. Of those 36 customers received an additional low and moderate income rebate. Burlingtonians have also taken advantages of incentives for heat pump water heaters, electric vehicles and other technologies. I'm also pleased to announce that given that success, that the city and BED will continue the green stimulus programs into 2021 and that these programs will remain available through the year's end or until funds are exhausted, but we're pretty confident that means until the year's end. So why does all this matter? And this is a point I really think has not gotten enough attention. I don't wanna emphasize it. Strategic electrification, powering our homes, cars, businesses with 100% renewably sourced energy like we're doing here in Burlington and have been since 2014. Strategic electrification is the answer to the climate emergency. This is how we save the planet while preserving and even improving our 21st century standards of living. Burlingtonians forged tremendous progress in 2021, 2020. And if all of us get involved, we can show the world that this kind of structural change is possible. I'm pleased to announce that the city, as I said, is extending the green stimulus program into 2021 and we'll do everything we can to ensure that all Burlingtonians have access to and receive an equitable share of the economic relief and recovery resources available through the green stimulus. We really wanna continue to improve the degree to which these incentives are meeting low and moderate income Burlingtonians and being used by low and moderate income Burlingtonians. So, you know, Burlington is already ahead of just about every other community in this transition to strategic electrification because since 2014 we've had 100% renewable energy. The key now as the net zero energy city roadmap lays out is to expand the things that we use renewable energy for. And that, and namely in particular, the big bang for the buck is in our building systems and our electric vehicles. We know this transition is not gonna be easy. It's gonna take all of us thinking about efficiency and electrification every time we make an investment in our homes, businesses and transportation. That's really what our goal is about. We are envisioning 20,000 different homes turning over over the course of a decade. Thousands, tens of thousands of vehicles turning over over the course of a decade. These numbers from the first eight months of our green stimulus program helps show that this kind of structural change is possible. I encourage all Burlingtonians to reach out to the Burlington Electric Department to find out if there are green stimulus programs that would work for you, whatever your needs are. With that, I am really pleased to turn over the program for the rest of this to Darren Springer, the general manager of the Burlington Electric Department and an individual who has really been a key architect in the creation of this net zero energy city strategy and roadmap for how to get there. So Darren, take it away. Mayor, thank you so much. Thanks for your leadership. And great to be with everybody today to celebrate some progress on heat pumps on our green stimulus and on our net zero energy goals in Burlington and talk about the next steps. As the mayor mentioned, we have seen Burlingtonians adopt heat pump technology increasingly during the period of time that we've offered enhanced incentives under the green stimulus program. The green stimulus, which was launched officially at the end of May, beginning of June, 2020 was our effort to respond to COVID-19 and to the economic conditions in the community, support our customers and try to make additional progress on climate as the mayor laid out in his state of the city address. And I think we have a chart that we'll share on the screen here just in a moment, just to give a sense in just one program area of how the green stimulus changed the trajectory of our heat pump adoption here in Burlington. This is our residential tier three incentives. And we launched those incentives back in September of 2019 when the mayor and others in the city launched the net zero energy roadmap. We offered these new heat pump incentives for natural gas customers for the first time. And from September of 2019 through May of 2020, we had 41 Burlingtonians take advantage of those incentives. Obviously a period of that time was affected by the COVID stay home, stay safe orders. And when we launched the green stimulus in June of 2020, you can see that the numbers just going exponentially larger than they had been. We had now 217 customers who have taken advantage of that incentive, 5X increase. That's just one category of heat pumps overall. We have over 800 residential heat pump installations and 155 commercial heat pump installations. And those heat pumps are helping to offset 40,000 tons of CO2 annual in Burlington. And they are making a significant impact in our efforts to meet the net zero energy goals. For Burlington Electric customers, we have a preferred heat pump installer network. If you go to burlingtonelectric.com and check out our green stimulus programs, you can visit our heat pump page. We have six heat pump installers that we have vetted and can recommend to our customers if you're interested in considering a heat pump. And Olivia has a heat pump in the background in her right there. Yep, there's a heat pump. That's what the inside heat pump looks like. And there's an outdoor unit that's helping to feed warm air into the room there. The great thing about heat pumps is they're very, very efficient for heating and for cooling. Not only can they help you heat in the winter, even at temperatures below zero, they also can cool very efficiently in the summertime and can be 40% savings compared to a window air conditioner, for example. So we are excited about the technology and we're excited to help our customers. And now I wanna turn it over to Kate Ellerman, who is one of our customers at Burlington Electric, who has taken advantage of these green stimulus programs and adopted heat pumps. Kate. Thanks Darren and thanks everyone for organizing this big announcement. My name is Katelyn Ellerman and I'm a resident of the Old North And and a Burlington Electric Department customer. I thought I'd share a little bit about my story and hopefully encourage others to look into the program. Three years ago, my husband and I added our first cold climate heat pump with Vermont Energy Contracting, which included a supplier side, BED incentive available at that time. We were really thrilled with its efficiency and its ability to comfortably heat and cool our entire home. And after that extremely positive experience, another heat pump was the obvious choice to heat our downstairs living room and office space. And the very generous green stimulus rebate, this time around, made the installation a much more manageable and less stressful investment. We're efficiently heating our downstairs and further minimizing our reliance on fossil fuel. We're glad that we've been able to make our home more comfortable and help the city progress toward its net zero energy goal. We hope our story inspires other Burlingtonians to consider taking advantage of this program. And with that, I'd hand it over to perhaps Mark if he's on the line. But again, we were raving about our heat pump, our first heat pump for quite some time. And so being able to do it with the support of this program was a great opportunity. And I'm glad to hear that others are taking advantage of it and that there is that extra incentive for folks with low to moderate income eligibility. Caitlin, thanks so much for sharing your experience. And I do see, I think I see Mark Stevenson as a attendee. So if Olivia, if you're able to elevate Mark as a panelist, we're gonna hear from him next. And there I see him now. Mark, are you able to turn on your camera? Okay, here's what I'm gonna do. We're gonna come back to Mark in just a minute. We're gonna go to our next speaker. Oh, no, wait, there he is. Mark, thank you so much for being here. Mark Stevenson with Vermont Energy Contracting and Supply, one of our preferred heat pump installers in the network. We're gonna hear from you next. Mark, over to you. Oh, I think you have to unmute, Mark. I think you're still on mute. Hi everyone. Vermont Energy's been in business for 35 years and we started putting in heat pumps 20 years ago. In the past year, the heat pump business in Burlington with the stimulus has grown exponentially. We've seen just a huge increase and it really at a time when things were most troubling and difficult. So the green stimulus package really changed the landscape in Burlington and made this available for all people from every sector of the city. It's really what we saw across the board. So extremely successful program. Mark, thanks so much for being with us today and for your efforts in partnership with BED as part of that heat pump installer network. And Mark is also a former electric commissioner with Burlington Electric as well. So appreciate your long service to the city. Next, we are gonna hear from Jenna Tatum with the Building Electrification Institute and BEI is a group that we turned to at Burlington Electric to learn about the best practices nationally with building electrification and decarbonization and technologies. And we're really glad that in this virtual environment we're able to have Jenna join us today even though she's not in Burlington or in Vermont with us. Jenna, over to you. Great, thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here to celebrate Burlington's success and extending its green stimulus program and delivering incentives to customers that are helping to pave the way toward transitioning away from fossil fuels. With this program, we see that Burlington is continuing to be a leader in fighting climate change as you've proved over and over again while also providing welcome economic relief and recovering nearly a year into this pandemic. The Building Electrification Institute, as Darren mentioned works with cities across the country to support equitable strategies for moving buildings off of fossil fuels through building electrification. These strategies can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve air quality, lower housing costs and create good local jobs while also using proven technologies such as high efficiency electric heat pumps which have improved dramatically over the last several years and provide clean and reliable heating and cooling even in very cool climates like Burlington's. So by taking on the net zero 2030 goal and advancing these strong incentives Burlington is playing a leading role in addressing the climate crisis. We work with some of the most ambitious local governments in the country and we're proud to be working with Burlington which continues to lead by example for others. So we continue, we look forward to continuing to work with Mayor Weinberger and your staff on your approaches to advance innovative and thoughtful policies that advance efficient electrification in buildings. Jenna, thank you very much. Thanks for being with us today. Our next speaker is Olivia Campbell Anderson with Renewable Energy Vermont. Not only does she have a heat pump in the room with her, which is incredibly helpful but great opportunity for us to highlight that the Green Stimulus is not only about supporting our customers and supporting efforts on climate but it's also about supporting jobs in the community during this challenging time as Mark pointed out. So Olivia, thank you for you and your members' work on building the clean energy industry in Burlington and in Vermont. Absolutely and thank you Darren and Mayor Weinberger. So again, Olivia at Renewable Energy Vermont Mayor Weinberger and Burlington Electric Department of Leadership to help Vermonters save money with local renewable heating is really meaningfully propelling climate progress and our local economy. Renewable Energy Vermont members are installing efficient clean heating technologies just like cold climate heat pumps all around the state helping their neighbors stay warm and take the chill out of winter gas and oil bills. There are more than 150 local businesses now offering renewable heating solutions that Vermonters can rely on. Thanks in part to Burlington's incentives and support about 10,500 cold climate heat pumps were installed in Vermont last year. I know that many customers would not have chosen or may not have been able to make the switch off of fossil fuels for heating onto heat pumps, onto clean renewable electricity but for these types of incentives as Darren and BED have shown work. And this is the type of real leadership on climate that we need for our economy and for our neighbors. The Mayor Weinberg Screen Stimulus Initiative really is supporting and creating local jobs. We now have 1,275 Vermonters that are working in renewable heating. These are our neighbors. These are real jobs, good paying jobs. And we really, the Mayor is providing this strong leadership on climate and our economy. He gets that Vermonters can ski and chew gum at the same time. We're facing a triple-kit crisis of COVID, the economy and our climate. We can and will build back better. Mayor Weinberger and Burlington Electric Department are showing that they've proven it that it just takes political will, collaboration, public and private partnerships and investment, Vermonters working together on solutions rather than focusing on barriers. That's what the Green Stimulus is doing for Burlington. Again, I just really wanna recognize the Mayor and Burlington Electric Department's leadership, helping Vermonters save money, local renewable heating, meaningfully propelling climate progress in our local economy. And most importantly about the Green Stimulus, Burlington is really the leader in Vermont and has led nationally in increasing equity, making sure that every Vermonter, every Burlington resident has access to participate and benefit, especially for renters or low-income and vulnerable Vermonters. They have the highest need and the highest energy burden and the Mayor and Burlington Electric is tackling that head-on and recognizing that, doing intentional work around equity. And so I would just challenge now everyone to make a climate resolution for renewable heating if you're not already in 2021. Work with a renewable energy Vermont member, like Mark, we've got many others as well that we're standing by to help you. They're qualified, certified, local businesses, get more than one quote. And folks can also visit our website to learn more about renewable heating choices, areevermont.org. So thanks again. Olivia, thank you so much. And for highlighting that the reason that we're, we're tackling these programs is because thermal sector emissions are the second largest source in Vermont. And in Burlington, they're actually the biggest part of our net zero energy roadmap. And so thank you for all your great comments there. And last and not least of our speakers, Johanna Miller from Vermont Natural Resources Council. Johanna has got a nice fire going there, but also as a heat pump supporter. And over to you for some comments. Thank you so much. Well, thank you, Darren. And thank you for the opportunity to join you today and mostly just to celebrate the success of the green stimulus program and all the benefits that is providing. You are here with me in my living room in downtown Opelier, Vermont with our advanced was heating system in the background. But you are not in one of the rooms where we have a cold climate heat pump installed by Mark and his team at Vermont Energy, which has enabled us in our older weatherized home to get off of fossil fuels for over a year and a half now. So that's great. And my interest in celebrating the work that you are doing in Burlington as part of the green stimulus is to ensure that others, especially lower income or vulnerable Vermonters can avail themselves of these kinds of energy saving, cost cutting and climate benefiting solutions. So I really just wanna say that I'm excited to be here. A big part of my work running the energy and climate program at VNRC is working with local leaders across Vermont helping to coordinate and support the growing network of community based town, energy and climate action committees. These are mostly municipally appointed groups who are important partners in their communities into the state in service of working to reduce our reliance on the fossil fuels that we import 100% of and reduce that reliance in service of, again, lowering energy bills, building our local clean energy economy and providing other benefits as well. So creative programs like this green stimulus program are forward looking and they're imperative. This is a model that I really hope gains traction. We have utilities that are leading in Vermont and I think we can build from models like this to ensure that, you know, Burlingtonians, again, especially prioritizing renters, which I really appreciate in this program, more lower income, Vermonters, really accessing these programs so that they can save money, you know, make their homes more efficient, comfortable and safe and really reduce their energy bills. So, and as an environmental organization, you know, a big focus for us and we know how deeply inequitable the climate crisis is. So as Darren noted, you know, reducing the fossil fuels that we use to heat our homes and buildings is a big climate strategy. And so there are lots of benefits to the kind of innovative programs that a green stimulus program can provide. And I'm really, really grateful for the leadership that like Burlington is offering and the opportunity to build off programs like this that really maximize the benefits for residents but particularly those lower income or vulnerable Vermonters. So thank you. And I look forward to learning more and seeing how you continue to make progress, reaping so many benefits in your net zero program. Thank you so much, Johanna. And for Burlington Electric customers, we are offering as part of the screen stimulus that's continuing in 2021, up to 75% of the cost of a residential heat pump being covered by our rebates and incentives. So we have the best possible offer that we've ever made for our low and moderate income customers to help make this more affordable, make this transition accessible to all. Mayor, do you have any closing comments here before we turn it to Olivia for any questions that we might have? I just wanna thank all of our partners for being part of this announcement today. And yeah, I think let's go to the questions. Great. So reminder for members of the media who are here, if you can let me know, you have a question by just emailing me at olivia at burlingtonvt.gov. And while we're waiting to see if any questions come in, I've been trying to take a photo of this group, but it turns out it is hard to take a screenshot where everyone has their eyes open at the same time. So could we do a group photo and I'll take a Zoom screenshot for a moment? Perfect, thank you. And yes, we do have some questions coming in. So first up is Grace from VT Digger and Grace, you should be able to enable your microphone now. Okay, great. Can you hear me? Yes, we can Grace, go ahead. So Mayor, I think at the beginning, you had said that 175 people had taken advantage of the heat pump program so far through the stimulus program that was launched kind of in the beginning of the pandemic. I'm assuming that they've taken advantage of this through the form of rebates. And so I'm curious if I'm right on that, how much money and rebates have been doled out in totality for this specific part of the program? Yes, so there's 175 separate households, correct? Darren that have implemented the residential heat pump that used this residential heat pump specific incentive. The total green stimulus incentives and there were I think about a dozen different programs that we announced that you can get incentives for everything for electric vehicles, used and new lawn mowers, bikes. You add all those programs up and my understanding is about a half a million dollars in green stimulus incentives were invested over the course of the eight months of 2020. Gotcha. And so out of all of those programs, are we talking about the heat pump program today because it's been the most popular? Are there other appliances that people have invested in that have been more popular than the heat pump? My understanding is the lawn mower program has always been very significant. I think we have pretty similar charts on other programs. One of the reasons we focused on the heat pump, ultimately I think the heat pump program along with the electric vehicle program are the most impactful ones. This is where the major emissions are is in thermal systems for buildings and transportation emissions from automobile vehicles. So it's particularly encouraging to see that this level of incentive, which we hope to make sustainable, not just through 2021, but beyond, that this level of incentive creates that level of uptake that you saw in that graph, I think really bodes well for the future and the hope and mission that in the years to come as we're pursuing this net zero energy city goal, these numbers just continue to go up and expand and we see the kind of an exponential growth. I think it's a very positive early indication that we can really make an impact with this net zero energy city roadmap. Something to keep in mind is as we've seen in the solar sector is time is our friend in these efforts. The technology gets better and better and more and more competitive and so if already in the kind of early years of this roadmap when some of these technologies are just becoming viable in some sense here in this climate that we're already seeing a real impact since the announcement of the roadmap gives me a lot of hope and confidence that as we get into the succeeding years, we're gonna see this strategy goes accelerate. And so do you have any other stats on some of the other appliances that people have gotten incentives for since the stimulus was announced? Darren, can you speak to that there? Absolutely. So I would say that heat pumps as the mayor indicated, we've seen kind of the largest growth in interest in heat pumps. We also have appliance rebates that have been enhanced for residential appliances, commercial appliances. We did see continued growth in our EV and plug-in hybrid programs during the green stimulus. We had boosted those incentives as well. So we saw our numbers there go up not quite by the same percentage as the heat pump programs but one thing we did see that I think is worth noting with our electric vehicle incentives is the percentage of those incentives that are going to low and moderate income customers and going for more affordable pre-owned vehicles has been increasing and as part of the green stimulus, we now have over 20% of our incentives overall in electric vehicles are going for either low and moderate income incentives or for affordable pre-owned vehicles. So we've seen some progress as we move to increasing adoption and making those vehicles more accessible. We also have some great programs that we haven't seen as much uptake on yet that we're hopeful to see uptake on in 2021. We have a 0% commercial loan program that can help small businesses improve their ventilation, make energy efficiency investments, replace a failing HVAC or refrigeration system, for example. So we haven't had loans going through that program yet but we're hopeful we'll be able to make an impact with that program in 2021. And as the mayor mentioned, there are more than a dozen different green stimulus programs. You can learn about on BurlingtonElectric.com website. We've got it right on the front page there. Gotcha. And so I think I had read somewhere before that $800,000 was dedicated to this stimulus initiative. I just wanted to confirm that. And if so, if 500K has been used so far, does that mean that there's 300K dedicated for the remaining 2021? And does this program end when that money runs out? So, thank you, Grace. And this gets a little wonky and into the complexities of the way in which the BED is regulated. But yes, $800,000 was the maximum that was available when we announced this program. The uptake took up about over a half million dollars so of that available funding. We and Darren can speak to this in more detail. There will be at least that amount available in 2021 and really we have some flexibility around this and one would hope that our hope is that more than a half a million dollars is sought by Burlingtonians since we'll be have a whole year of this program now, not just eight months and that at least the kind of pro rata expansion of it happens in 2021. And I would hope even more between the, you know, one thing we know some Burlingtonians did is they combined their green stimulus incentives with other stimulus payments that they were getting from the federal government. There appears there's going to be an opportunity to do that again in 2021 with what has already come down from the federal government in stimulus checks so far and another, everyone knows that we're talking about another very substantial stimulus going to many, many households in the country in Burlington. So we're basically here at the beginning of the year, we can be flexible and I know it's, if there's interest in more than half a million dollars in 2021, we'll find a way to provide it. We can't, given the experience we now we had in 2020, we're not gonna, it's difficult to project an exact number, but we see this as a priority and in the way in which we can kind of manage these incentive dollars. If this continues to be appealing to Burlingtonians and sort of takes off and there's a desire for more than a half a million dollars in 2021, we'll make those funds available. Can you add to that at all, Darren? Absolutely. The other thing I would mention is we run our efficiency program on a three year budget cycle. So 2020 was the last year of the prior three year budget cycle. Now we're in the first month of the new three year budget cycle. So we do have some flexibility, as the mayor mentioned, to look at ensuring that these programs can be continuing in 2021. As part of a state law, Act 151 that passed efficiency utilities like Burlington Electric have been given some flexibility to propose new programs with the Public Utility Commission. And we've taken the experience that we've learned so far from the green stimulus. And we've seen what levels of incentives really begin to spur adoption of heat pumps and other technologies. And we have made filings and recommendations at the Public Utility Commission that would help us continue these programs, even perhaps beyond 2021, try to make some of them longer term incentive levels combined with some of our existing programs. So the green stimulus for us was not just an opportunity to boost adoption on a one time basis, but to really inform our programs and our policy over the longer run and to see what levels of incentives Burlingtonian saw as being particularly compelling in these different technology areas. Gotcha, thank you for answering my questions. That's all I have. Great, before we go to the next question, I just, when we start talking about these incentives, I always find it helpful to point out, I think sometimes people hear incentives, they kind of get this sort of image of a kind of government handout in their mind I think that this is might impact electrical affordability. One thing that has really been notable about BED's success in renewables, I think really goes to the future of these efforts is when someone switches over from a gas-powered automobile or a natural gas-powered heating system to a renewable electrical system, they become a much bigger customer of the Burlington Electric Department. They generate, we generate much greater revenues from that household into the Burlington Electric Department. And in many cases, particularly with the electric vehicles, those that demand for electricity comes at off peak hours when we have a great deal of capacity that currently goes unused. And so these incentives really should be thought of more like competitive, I think the image people should have in their mind is less sort of a government handout than a business pricing its merchandise at a level that makes sense for the business and is good for the customer and the business. And that's certainly the case here, these additional revenues flowing to the Burlington Electric Department are good for other BED customers, even the ones that are not receiving the incentives. We have found through this period going back to 2004 when we've really had a push towards increasing our renewable energy generation, sourcing our electricity from renewable energy generation. That has been a period of incredible stability in terms of pricing to customers. We have only seen, we've not had a price increase, a rate increase for customers since 2000 for 12 years. And that is a period that captures most of that period going back to 2004. So this has been something that people should not think that these are our problems, they're electric bill, they're helping us continue the financial stability and really low rates that BED is able to provide. Great, and it looks like we don't have any other questions from members of the media. Well, great. I do see we've had a number of other members of the media are with us. If you have any last moment thoughts as we're signing off here, go ahead and raise your hand. But if not, thank you all for joining. Again, thank you to all of our partners for being part of this event. And moreover, working with us as we attempt to forge this kind of uncharted progress and really transform the way Burlington is powered. And we really appreciate all of the partnership that you bring to that effort. So with that, that's all I've got. Darren, did you wanna have any final thoughts? Thanks, Mayor, you said it well and we just reiterate that a dollar spent with Burlington Electric, about two thirds of that dollar is staying in the Vermont local economy. Dollar spent at the gas station, only about a quarter of that dollar is staying in the local economy. So as you mentioned, moving to electrification for vehicles and for heating is a by local opportunity essentially for us with our energy. And I wanna echo my thanks for everybody's participation today and great to be able to continue the Green Stimulus in 2021. Great, thank you, Darren. Thank you for making sure we didn't close at that important point. Take care, everyone. We'll see you again soon. Bye-bye.