As part of the Intermountain Gas Company’s new Energy Efficiency Program, the natural gas utility’s Whole Home Program is offering rebates of $1,200 for builders who build homes with a HERS® Index Score of 75 or less and are certified as ENERGY STAR. The goal of the brand new Energy Efficiency program is to encourage the utility’s natural gas customers to use the natural gas resource as efficiently as possible. According to Lori Blattner, Intermountain Gas Company’s Manager of Energy Efficiency and Regulatory Process, “One of the things we are finding is that many consumers are unclear about what a HERS® score is and what it means. As part of the program, we hope to help educate our customers on programs related to energy efficiency including the HERS® score. Hopefully by educating our customers, they will begin to drive demand for more efficient homes.” The utility will be developing a new webpage focused on the Whole Home rebate that will help explain what customers should be looking for in an energy efficient home. Intermountain Gas Company is a gas utility serving approximately 350,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in 75 communities in southern Idaho. For more information, go to Intermountain Gas Company Energy Efficiency Program. Intermountain Gas Company is joining the trend across the nation where utilities rely on HERS® Index Scores for their new homes energy efficiency programs. According to the Consortium for Energy Efficiency, in 2017, 58% of utilities nationally that had new homes progams used the HERS® Index as their verification method. For more information go to Overview of Residential New Construction Programs in the United States and Canada.
