(HARTFORD, CT) – Governor Ned Lamont, chairman of the State Bond Commission, today announced that the commission voted at its meeting this morning to approve an allocation of $18 million in bond funding that will be used to establish the Housing Environmental Improvement Revolving Loan and Grant Fund – a new state loan and grant program that will assist in making energy efficiency upgrades at existing single-family and multi-family homes and helping residents generate savings on energy bills.
Administered by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), this program will be used to help with the retrofitting costs of items such as the installation of more efficient heating and cooling equipment, building envelope upgrades, and other similar items that produce energy savings. The program will build on the success of DEEP’s most recent barrier remediation program, the Residential Energy Preparation Services program, which recently utilized all its available funding, removing hazards in dozens of homes, clearing the path for money saving efficiency upgrades.
The establishment of the program and its related bond funding was authorized by the Connecticut General Assembly through Public Act 25-125, which Governor Lamont signed into law this summer.
“Energy efficiency improvements are a huge part of the way that savings can be generated on energy bills,” Governor Lamont said. “One of the great things about energy efficient upgrades is that they help reduce costs and increase reliability for all ratepayers – not just the person installing an energy efficient upgrade – by reducing wasted energy across the electric grid. With this funding, we’re also removing barriers that prevent people from being able to install energy efficient upgrades. Everyone should be able to realize the savings that can come from installing energy efficient upgrades in the home. Altogether, these funds will help expand affordable housing in Connecticut by rehabilitating existing housing and integrating energy upgrades that lower utility costs, improve resident comfort, and extend building life.”
“The Housing Environmental Improvement Revolving Loan and Grant Fund builds on DEEP’s commitment to addressing high utility costs for low-income residents,” DEEP Commissioner Katie Dykes said. “With housing and utility costs rising, this funding is essential to help residents and developers, who live in or own low income single and multifamily buildings, access weatherization and energy efficiency measures that can lower utility bills, increase comfort and safety, and keep housing costs affordable.”
When the program begins, $12 million from this initial $18 million allocation will be used to provide loans for developers to install energy upgrades and retrofits in existing multifamily affordable housing, including but not limited to more efficient heating and cooling equipment and building envelope upgrades.
The remaining $6 million will go toward removing barriers that prevent people in lower-income, single family homes from making their homes more energy efficient. Barriers include asbestos, knob and tube wiring, mold, and moisture. These barriers disqualify homes from state and federal weatherization and energy upgrade programs, as contractors are unable to move forward with energy audits, window and insulation installation, and other measures if such barriers are present. For example, in 2024, about 30% of Home Energy Solutions – Income Eligible units and 50% of Weatherization Assistance Program units were deferred due to health and safety barriers. Lower-income residents face the highest energy burden, or percentage of gross income spent on energy bills, and without funding for barrier remediation these homes cannot proceed with weatherization work and therefore are not able to improve their energy efficiency, which can save money on utility bills and increase home comfort.
In 2024, DEEP compiled public input related to this funding through a request for information, where respondents highlighted gaps and challenges in the affordable housing energy efficiency space, such as lack of technical assistance, difficultly accessing financing, high costs, health and safety barriers, and market confusion. Additionally, DEEP held three Affordable Multifamily Stakeholder Roundtables in June that produced similar key takeaways and sparked the creation of an interagency working group to discuss coordination among their various affordable multifamily programs.
The next steps in the establishment of the Housing Environmental Improvement Revolving Loan and Grant Fund include determining the process to recruit entities that can implement the program. DEEP hopes to solidify a process for entity selection by early to mid-2026, with the goal of initial program launch for both the grants and loans by end of 2026.
Funding complements other recent efforts to reduce energy costs
The funding and establishment of this program complement other efforts Governor Lamont has enacted recently to help reduce energy costs. These include:
- Governor Lamont signed energy affordability legislation this year that will save ratepayers at least $300 million on their electricity bills over the next two years, and more in future years.
- Public Act 25-173 was a collaborative, bipartisan effort to provide rate relief immediately and over the longer term to Connecticut residents and businesses facing costly utility bills.
- Connecticut was recently recognized for its passage of Public Act 25-173 and Public Act 25-125 by the National League of Conservation Voters in its 2025 Clean Energy Report.
- The $300 million includes savings to ratepayers of $125 million annually in each of fiscal years 2026 and 2027 by shifting hardship protection measure costs off electric bills to state bonds; and $30 million in savings in fiscal year 2026 and $20 million in fiscal year 2027 by shifting electric vehicle charging program costs off electric bills to state bonds.
- Connecticut’s Conservation and Load Management (C&LM) energy efficiency programs, implemented by Connecticut’s utilities with oversight from DEEP and the state’s Energy Efficiency Board, continue to provide significant energy and bill savings benefits to ratepayers.
- C&LM program investments in 2025 alone are expected to deliver $353 million in bill savings to Connecticut ratepayers over the lifetimes of the installed efficiency measures.
- In 2025, an individual Connecticut resident participating in the home energy assessment program through EnergizeCT is expected to receive an average incentive of $1,129, which will result in $2,068 average lifetime bill savings.
- Overall, C&LM programs returned $2.38 in benefits for every $1 invested from 2022 to 2024. Benefits are anticipated to increase to $3.30 for every $1 invested in 2025-2027.