10th Consecutive Year

2010 Partner of the Year

Goal, Strategies and Accomplishments

Energy Outreach Colorado’s Goal

Energy Outreach Colorado’s mission is to help all Coloradans afford home energy.  Our strategies are focused on the goal of increasing the percentage of Colorado households that can afford their home energy bills, based on their household income.

According to the 2000 census, over 366,000 Colorado households had incomes at or below 185% of the Federal Poverty Level, 22% of all households.  In other words, more than one in five of all Colorado households in 2000 had incomes at or below the level in which they qualify for federal energy assistance.  In Colorado, 12% of all households have incomes below 100% of the Federal Poverty Level.  It seems clear that these numbers have, in all likelihood, increased in the past ten years.

Home energy is unaffordable for hundreds of thousands of Colorado’s low-income households.  The cost of home energy presents a crippling and disproportionate financial burden for vulnerable families, seniors, and disabled people.  While the average non-low-income household pays around 4% of their total income for home energy, the energy burden for low-income households is far greater.

Energy Outreach Colorado’s Strategies

Our three major strategies for achieving this goal are:

Energy assistance – provide home energy bill payments directly to utility vendors for low-income households in immediate risk of having their home energy shut off.

Energy efficiency and education – provide energy audits, energy efficiency upgrades and energy education to increase the energy efficiency and lower the energy bills of affordable housing and nonprofits that serve the low-income community.

Advocacy – represent the interests of low-income households in setting public policy, priorities and strategies that can result in affordable energy rates and adequate resources for energy assistance and energy efficiency programs. 

Energy Outreach Colorado’s Resources

For the 2009-2010 program year, EOC plans to increase the percentage of Colorado households that can afford their home energy bills through these programs:

• Provide $9.7 million in energy assistance expenditures to more than 100 Colorado emergency assistance agencies across the state, including the state Low-Income Energy Assistance Program (LEAP).  The funding is distributed locally by agency case workers and payments for overdue energy bills are credited directly to utility companies.

• Provide $3.6 million in energy efficiency upgrades to low-income multi-family homes.

• Provide $1.7 million in energy efficiency upgrades to nonprofit facilities.

• Represent low-income households before the Colorado Public Utilities Commission and the Colorado General Assembly.

EOC’s Recent Accomplishments

In our 2008 – 2009 fiscal year, Energy Outreach Colorado:

• Provided $9.6 million in energy assistance expenditures to 123,600 Colorado households.

• Provided $947,000 in grants to improve the energy efficiency of 27 low-income housing projects in Colorado.

• Provided $580,000 in grants to improve the energy efficiency of 15 Colorado nonprofit facilities, primarily in transitional housing and shelters.

• In the 2009 General Assembly, Energy Outreach Colorado was successful in influencing the legislature to maintain low-income energy assistance funding in the face of severe state budget reductions.

• At the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, Energy Outreach Colorado successfully intervened in a rate case filed by the state’s states largest utility, Xcel Energy, to preserve funding through residential late payment fees for low-income Xcel Energy customers.