The Juneau Carbon Offset Fund (JCOF) announces our 13th lower income family home heat pump installation – just in time for the holiday season! “Merry Chrismas to us,” Ella happily stated as the first heat poured from the heat pump’s indoor air handler!

Ella and her two boys will now be able to enjoy ‘heating locally’ as their heat pump moves heat energy from just outside their home to the inside of their living space. No longer will their heat have to travel from Alaska’s north slope, to Valdez, to the PNW, and all the way back north to her old stinky diesel stove.

“I smelled your stove as I walked to the front door,” I told Ella once she had turned off the diesel heater. “You’ll probably have friends tell you that they no longer smell diesel in your home when they start to visit again. You’ve become used to the smell. I was so surprised to have people tell me that after I installed a heat pump in my house.”

Ella and family haven’t been super heavy diesel users and have relied on a mix of diesel and electric baseboards. JCOF needs to strike a balance between the cost of our projects and the amount of oil that each project eliminates on an annual basis. Because of her lower than JCOF average oil use, about 300 gallons annually, JCOF was able to arrange for Ella to pay for the electrical connection of her heat pump, saving JCOF about 25% of the project cost. ALCAN Electric has graciously agreed to allow Ella to make monthly payments for the work. The cost of these monthly payments should be less than the savings that she realizes from heating with the pump and not heating with oil. Once payments are complete, Ella’s monthly savings will increase and she’ll be that much more ahead.

Renewable energy and in this case, renewable heat, is smart in so many ways. Using local renewable energy eliminates emissions from burning diesel and eliminates the ridiculous journey that fossil fuels have to make to reach the end user. And, renewable energy saves the user money. Plain and simple, renewable energy costs less to create and costs less to use.

Could a heat pump work for your home? Why wait to find out? Renewable Juneau‘s partner, Alaska Heat Smart, has just kicked off their new Thermalize Program. This innovative and cost-saving program will purchase heat pumps in bulk and install them at a discounted price in Juneau homes. The first 150 to register for the program will receive a free energy audit of their home!