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Federal program to assist Arizonans with energy efficiency upgrades faces delays

Gov. Katie Hobbs announces a new federally funded program to provide energy efficiency rebates to low- and middle-income Arizonans at an event in Phoenix on Aug. 29, 2024.
Katherine Davis-Young/KJZZ
Gov. Katie Hobbs announces a new federally funded program to provide energy efficiency rebates to low- and middle-income Arizonans at an event in Phoenix on Aug. 29, 2024.

A federal program that was supposed to bring a total of $153 million to low- and middle-income Arizonans for air conditioning replacement or other household energy efficiency upgrades is facing delays.

The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act allotted nearly $9 billion in federal funding for states to set up home energy rebate programs. At an August event with U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk, Gov. Katie Hobbs announced Arizona would be one of the first states to launch such a program, calling it Efficiency Arizona.

The program would roll out in multiple phases, Hobbs said. The first phase, which was set to begin immediately, would prioritize lower-income households, covering costs to repair air conditioners or replace broken units with energy efficient heat pump cooling systems.

The need was urgent, Hobbs said.

“For many families, replacing or getting these systems fixed is out of reach financially. When these systems go out in the middle of the hot summer, they need to be replaced as soon as possible,” Hobbs said.

Hobbs described this as “lifesaving work.” That’s not hyperbole — in Maricopa County 156 people died indoors from heat-related causes last year. In 75% of those cases, the air conditioner was not functioning.

But nearly three months after the Efficiency Arizona program was announced, the Governor’s Office of Resiliency would not say whether the federal funding has paid for cooling systems for any low-income Arizona families so far.

The office declined to provide an on-the-record interview for this story, but in a statement emailed to KJZZ, a spokesperson said, “We are working through some unexpected administrative and funding delays in implementing the initial A/C replacement pilot of the Efficiency Arizona program.”

The organization Wildfire partnered with the state to distribute the funding. Wildfire executive director Kelly McGowan told KJZZ News that cumbersome requirements from the U.S. Department of Energy for determining eligibility for the funding have stalled progress.

“There’s a lot of logistical challenges there that we’ve been working on with all of the various partners,” McGowan said. “With any big federal program like this — you saw this in a lot of the COVID programs — you have to just get creative and work the best to get the money out into the community.”

McGowan said, for example, many Arizona homes already use energy efficient heat pump cooling systems. But the federal funding is meant to replace traditional air conditioning units with these more efficient models, so homes that already have them installed don’t qualify to have them replaced, even if they’re nonfunctional, she said.

The U.S. Department of Energy declined to provide an interview for this story. In a statement to KJZZ News via email, a spokesperson said the department had delivered funding to the state of Arizona in July and denied that federal requirements would be to blame for delaying distribution of the money.

McGowan said her organization and the community action agencies it works with have still been able to use other funding sources to help low-income Arizonans seeking assistance with air conditioning repair and replacement this year. And she said planning for the Efficiency Arizona program is ongoing.

“We’re slated to get something up and running and we’ve still been in active communications,” McGowan said.

Following the initial phase of air conditioning replacements for low-income Arizonans, a second phase of the Efficiency Arizona program was supposed to open to middle-income Arizonans to offer significant rebates for household energy efficiency upgrades, including installing insulation, heat pump systems, electric stoves or other energy efficient appliances.

The Efficiency Arizona website had originally said the second phase of the program was set to begin this fall, but the website now says it will begin, "Quarter 1, 2025."

“We are intently working on developing the broader Efficiency Arizona program. We look forward to making the broader program available, but we do not have a date for Phase II launch at this time,” the spokesperson said via email.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been updated to clarify that the Governor's Office of Resiliency declined an on-the-record interview, and to specify that the timeline to begin the second phase of the program, according to the Efficiency Arizona website, is now Quarter 1 of 2025.

Katherine Davis-Young is a senior field correspondent reporting on a variety of issues, including public health and climate change.
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