Eco-grants

The ecoENERGY Retrofit Program Natural Resources Canada offers a
residential energy efficiency assessment service for homes. Owners can
qualify for federal grants by improving the energy efficiency of their
homes. The maximum grant is $5,000. For more information, visit:
oee.nrcan.gc.ca. The provincial
arm of the program, the EnerGuide for New Houses and EnerGuide for
Homes, is managed by Conserve Nova Scotia. Contact them at conservens.ca/energuide or
1-800-670-4636.

ConserveNS also runs a rebate program for installing solar heating
or solar water heating systems into your home. It provides a 15 percent
rebate of the installed cost of a solar air heating system for
residential, institutional or commercial use. The maximum provincial
rebate tops out at $20,000. Call the number above for details, or see
conservens.ca. 

If you use insured financing from the Canada Mortgage Housing
Corporation to buy an energy-efficient home and make the energy-saving
renovations detailed in the ecoENERGY Retrofit Program, you may be
eligible for a 10% refund on the mortgage loan insurance premium. Check
out cmhc-schl.gc.ca for more
information.

 The ecoAUTO Rebate Program offers Canadian drivers rebates
from $1,000 to $2,000. That could be you if between March 20, 2007 and
December 31, 2008 you bought or entered into a long-term lease (12
months or more) for a fuel-efficient vehicle that met the required
criteria. Unfortunately, the deadline to apply for the rebate was March
31, 2009, and it doesn’t apply to 2009 models. If you want the rebate
to continue, write your MP!

Clean NS is offering a post-graduate environmental research
scholarship of $2,000 a year to an environmental sciences student in
Nova Scotia. 420-7933 or email nsider@clean.ns.ca.

This article appears in Apr 9-15, 2009.