Federal government suspends ecoEnergy program

The Federal Government announced March 31 that it has suspended the ecoEnergy Retrofit – Homes program. The program was designed to encourage homeowners to undertake energy efficiency improvements on existing homes to increase energy savings and reduce greenhouse gases. It consisted of grants up to $5,000 and involved pre-retrofit assessments, retrofits and post-retrofit assessments.

The entire program was originally set to run until March 31, 2011. The government will now only process grant applications from homeowners who have scheduled or completed a pre-retrofit evaluation and who will be completing energy efficiency improvements and post-retrofit assessments prior to March 31, 2011. Such participants must apply for grants prior to that date. However, the pre-retrofit phase is now closed to new applicants.

The suspension of the program came as a surprise. In its March 2010 budget, the government announced an additional $80 million (2.2MB PDF) to support retrofits by Canadian homeowners due to “unprecedented demand”. In total, the Government provided $585 million to the program under the Economic Action Plan.

In a Frequently Asked Questions section on the Office for Energy Efficiency website, the government justified the cancellation by saying “the program is confident that all eligible homeowners who previously entered the program by scheduling or completing a pre-retrofit evaluation will still have the opportunity to apply for and receive a grant.”

The Federal Government will continue to support provincial and territorial energy efficiency for homes.