About the Clean Energy Corps

In February 2009, the Beshear Administration and a broad-based coalition of public and private sector partners launched an ambitious statewide program of energy efficiency improvement for modest-income Kentucky homes.  Our goal: 10,000 homes statewide

Our Mission:

Harness the resources of the government, business, education and non-profit sectors to:

– Make these homes approximately 30 percent more energy efficient, lowering modest-income families’ utility bills, protecting the environment, and reducing demand for assistance funds currently available to help these families.
– Promote easy, everyday steps that all citizens can take to capture energy savings and reduce carbon emissions in their homes, so they can become energy managers.
– Engage Kentuckians—particularly our youngest generation—in volunteer service for their neighbors and their communities.
– Create thousands of new, good-paying “green collar” jobs in Kentucky – jobs that cannot be outsourced overseas.

Participating modest-income families will receive:
• An energy audit
• An energy efficiency rehabilitation
• Smart energy meters provided by utilities for monitoring and documenting of real-time energy usage, to track savings, with third party verification

Community volunteers will play a critical role in the Clean Energy Corps by serving as Green Education Ambassadors, spreading the gospel of energy efficiency to families statewide through education of homeowners in the program, Open Houses after project completion, and presentations to the larger community.

The Clean Energy Corps has launched a concerted and expedited public/private effort to help create and/or preserve thousands of “green collar” jobs, by:
• Designing and implementing a plan to educate, train, and certify workers
• Developing a new career development path for long-term work opportunities
• Creating a new green collar job bank that can be accessed by:
– Clean Energy Corps modest-income home projects
– Private, higher-income homeowners motivated by our Green Education Ambassadors to make their own energy efficiency improvements
– Green Bank of Kentucky financing for green construction and renovation projects: state and local government buildings, K-12 schools, and higher education facilities