passivhausMAINE received a big boost for its retrofitMAINE initiative last week, in the form of a large award from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Buildings Upgrade Prize (Buildings UP). The Buildings UP program is awarding more than $22 million in cash prizes and technical assistance to transform existing buildings into more energy-efficient and clean-energy-ready ones. There are 45 teams that are Phase 1 winners, and all of them are eligible to advance to Phase 2 of the competition.
passivhausMAINE has been working to kickstart its Retrofit Maine initiative for several years now, but without adequate funding it’s been an uphill slog. “It almost seemed to me as if this award was designed for retrofitMAINE,” says Naomi Beal, executive director of passivhausMAINE, adding, “Scaling high-performance retrofits is exactly what we’ve been thinking about.”
Thanks to funding from the Governor’s Energy Office, passivhausMAINE has been conducting a series of trainings in 2023 across the state, teaching roughly 300 people about how to use Passive House principles to achieve building energy code requirements and so much more. Some of their recent workshops have been focused on strategies for planning a retrofit. The Buildings UP prize will allow passivhausMAINE to create a more comprehensive, local retrofit training program, tailored for the community of Freeport where this approach will be piloted in tandem with local community organizations including community colleges, contractors, and high school-level tech programs.
“We aim to get at least 200 people going through the class from Freeport, and then we’ll develop 10 local champions, who would be local retrofit experts and would be in contact with households whose buildings most need updating,” explains Beal. She anticipates that those champions will complete 10 pilot deep energy home retrofits by 2026, which will then set the stage for another 90 retrofits by 2028. “The focus is on creating a homegrown cadre of local people who are committed to taking care of their community,” she emphasizes.
passivhausMAINE is a small organization run by Beal since its inception in 2016, and in September Beal was able to hire a program director, enlarging its staff from two to three, due to increasing support. With the Buildings UP award funds, Beal is looking forward to adding a retrofitMAINE director to manage the rollout of their scaling retrofits pilot. “Retrofits are such an equity issue,” Beal is quick to point out. “I want to make sure that people who are living in less resilient buildings, who are going to be suffering as the weather gets more extreme, that we are working to mitigate those effects as best we can. Climate mitigation coupled with adaptation—that’s what it’s all about.”
A recently released research report recommended that Maine set a goal of retrofitting 50% of the State’s buildings that were constructed before 2000 by 2040. Thanks to the support passivhausMAINE has received at both the federal and state level, it can do its part to ensure that Passive House principles will be incorporated in as many retrofits as it can.