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Home Upgrades Program
The Home Upgrades Program is now open for applications in Edmonton and Calgary
Addressing Energy Poverty in Alberta
Energy poverty refers to the experience of households or communities that struggle to afford to heat and power their homes.
In Canada, we consider families spending double the national average of the percentage of their income on energy bills to be in energy poverty.
The cost of these bills takes up a larger percentage of the income for these families resulting in less money for food, clothing and other essentials.
That is about 64,000 families in Calgary and 50,000 in Edmonton.
Typically, energy-poor households live in homes that are significantly lower in energy efficiency than average homes. This is due to older appliances and poor building conditions.
Properly selected energy efficiency measures have proven to be the most cost-effective and efficient solution to reduce energy bills and relieve energy poverty.
Home Upgrades Program
To help make energy costs more affordable for low-income households, Alberta Ecotrust Foundation has partnered with Kambo Energy Group, along with a coalition of funders, to launch the Home Upgrades Program.
The program aims to help make energy costs more affordable for households experiencing energy poverty in Calgary and Edmonton.
The Home Upgrades Program offers free energy efficiency education and home upgrades to qualified families living in Calgary and Edmonton. We identify and install home upgrades based on each household’s unique needs, such as new windows, furnaces, and insulation. The program is designed to reduce energy costs and improve the comfort, safety, and efficiency of the homes of hardworking Albertans.
If you are a homeowner living in Edmonton or Calgary, and are struggling to pay your energy bills, you can apply to the Home Upgrades Program.
Our approach
Our program engagement approach will build off of Kambo Energy Group’s long-standing and successful program, Empower Me.
Empower Me is Canada’s only energy conservation and education change program designed for and delivered by members of diverse, multilingual, and hard to reach communities.
Building on previous work, best practice research, and program results, we will develop recommendations and program design principles for Alberta’s first province-wide program that is scalable and sustainable.
Our goal is also to build awareness through communications and research of the need in Alberta with local, provincial, and federal governments.
Get to know Empower Me
Thank You to Our Program Partners and Contributors
Support for the Program
We know there is a great need for this program and that our current resources will only stretch so far. In order to serve a greater number of households, we will continue to source additional funding, with plans to expand our services.