HatSmart back, but it’s up for debate

By Collin Gallant on January 6, 2018.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com @CollinGallant

Medicine Hat’s “popular and award-winning” HatSmart program is up and running for 2018, but its future could be debated later this month by members of the new city council.

Council approved a one-year program in late December by an 8-1 vote, but after lengthy discussion about the usefulness and goals of the energy conservation rebate program.

Coun. Kris Samraj argued that since the city had shelved its own environmental goals until a new plan can be developed later this year, it didn’t make sense to continue the program that theoretically had no measurable goal.

Several councillors and staff members said the goal remains to help customers reduce their energy consumption.

Over the years, it’s distributed about $5 million.

“It’s a popular program because we’re offering rebates for things like home appliances,” said Samraj.

“I’m arguing that there’s no strategic goal … I’d prefer a pause.”

Afterwards Mayor Ted Clugston said the issue will likely be discussed at council strategic planning meetings this month.

While he supports the program, he said, he’s open to discussing its usefulness.

Also to consider is that elements of the program form the basis of the Alberta Energy Efficiency program, which now mirrors HatSmart and used the local program as a blueprint. That program is paid for with Carbon Levy funds, of which some local politicians, including Clugston, have been critical.

“It’s something we need to talk about, but for now, (HatSmart) is extremely popular,” he said, adding he prefers the local program that only charges a levy on energy use that’s considered high.

“It’s fairly simple. I think people see the alignment of burning more than 23 gigajoules of natural gas, then being helped to (burn less).”

Utility committee chair Phil Turnbull told reporters he supported the program, and that the utility department is acting responsibly to help consumers reduce their costs.

He would like to see it expand to help families protect themselves from prices he sees as becoming increasingly volatile in the future.

The city’s program was launched in 2007, when power and gas commodity prices were three or four times higher than today, and is paid for via a levy charged to those customers who use over a certain amount of gas or electricity in any given month.

That money, totalling about $200,000 each year, is then part of an incentive program paid out to customers who act to reduce energy consumption.

This year, residents can apply to defray some of the costs of buying energy-rated clothes dryers, install solar panels or have work done to seal drafty homes.

They match up with provincial energy efficiency programs for solar panels, rebates on appliances, including clothes washers, and insulation work and window jobs that would be fortified shutting out drafts.

Daygan Fowler, with the city’s utilities business support office, said the program aligns with the province’s that was announced in mid-2017.

“The incentives … (allow) residents to take advantage of both funding sources for even more savings,” he said in a statement.

This year’s program opened for applications on Jan. 2.

Successful applicants could receive up to 75 cents per kilowatt of solar panel generating capacity they have installed this year, up to a maximum of $5,000

Work to reduce unwanted drafts and airflow could receive between $500 and $700. Receipts for high-efficiency clothes dryers could be rebated up to $75. New home construction that meets national conservation standards could qualify for scaled rebate that provides $100 for every gigajoule of gas reduced from annual heating bills.

Grants are awarded on a first-come, first-served basis.

26
-25