March 2024 North Avenue News: Our Energy Services Team
Our Energy Services professionals work every day to help our 21,000+ residential and commercial customers save energy and, therefore, spend less on electricity.
Save Energy and Money: Request a Visit from BED’s Energy Services Team
Our mission at Burlington Electric Department (BED) is to serve the energy needs of our customers in a safe, reliable, affordable, sustainable, and socially responsible manner. BED, other City departments, and our community are focused on helping make Burlington a Net Zero Energy city. Part of this effort involves using electricity differently than before, including using it for heating and transportation instead of fossil fuels.
Even as we move toward Net Zero Energy through electrification (instead of burning fossil fuels), we still want to be energy efficient and continue our years-long work of helping all of you use less electricity where possible. To that end, our focus in this column is on opportunities for energy efficiency in Burlington buildings.
At BED, we are designated not only as a distribution utility, but also as an energy efficiency utility. Leading the charge toward helping you and your businesses realize efficiency gains is our dedicated Energy Services team. Our Energy Services professionals work every day to help our 21,000+ residential and commercial customers save energy and, therefore, spend less on electricity. Team members are available to visit your home or place of business in person or virtually to review your energy usage patterns one-on-one and help you learn about savings opportunities.
Our team has a great track record of producing efficiency gains through working with our customers to perform energy audits, as well as weatherization and ventilation improvements. In fact, energy efficiency gains essentially have flattened BED’s energy load requirement over the last 35 years. Burlington’s electricity consumption in calendar year 2022 was approximately eight percent lower than in 1989 when the efficiency programs began.
Additionally, our team provides advice about installing cold climate heat pumps, switching to a heat pump water heater or induction cook stove, and taking advantage of a multitude of rebates to help you move away from fossil fuel usage.
With more than 95 percent of our customers using natural gas for space heating needs, BED and the Energy Services team from VGS have developed a strong working partnership that benefits Burlington. For example, as heat pumps become more common in Burlington, many buildings are becoming hybrid space heaters (partial electric heat pump and partial natural gas). BED and VGS recognize that many of these buildings would benefit greatly from professional weatherization upgrades. BED and VGS have developed a streamlined process to provide the needed technical assistance and to share in providing customer rebates.
We invite our customers to visit burlingtonelectric.com/residential or burlingtonelectric.com/commercial or call 802.865.7300 to request an appointment with our Energy Services team to get help with your next project. We are here to serve. Thank you!
Get Help Paying Your Bills
BED provides support for our low-income customers who need assistance. Our Energy Assistance Program continues to provide a 12.5 percent discount for eligible customers. We encourage our low-income customers who are enrolled in the State of Vermont Fuel Assistance Program or federal Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) Program to visit burlingtonelectric.com/assistance to apply.