Kentucky's 'clean energy corps' to weatherize 10,000 homes

State officials will launch a "clean energy corps" in Lexington today, seeking to provide "weatherization on steroids" to as many as 10,000 low-income households in Kentucky.

The pilot project will start with 100 homes in Lexington and rural Bourbon and Clark counties, with $1 million of existing state and private funds. But organizers say that they will take it statewide with at least $77 million in federal economic stimulus money.

Work could include far more than typical subsidized weatherization, such as weather stripping doors or adding insulation, said Jonathan Miller, secretary of the Kentucky Finance and Administration Cabinet.

It could entail replacing inefficient windows or heating systems — or even replacing drafty old mobile homes with new energy efficient ones, organizers said.

"It's really a perfect scenario," Miller said. "It saves low-income families money. It helps the environment. And it compels us to hire energy efficiency auditors and construction workers."

Organizers predict it will create 3,300 jobs in the first year.

The Kentucky Housing Corporation, which is attached to the finance cabinet, will be the lead state partner, Miller said.

Twenty percent of the funding will come from private sources through cash donations made via the University of Kentucky's Tracy Farmer Center for the Environment, or in-kind gifts of materials, appliances and supplies.

"Households with the ability to repay all or a portion of the costs will contribute what they can, and that money will be recycled to allow for more homes to participate," said Antonia Lindauer, who is working on the project out of Miller's office.

Miller said Kentucky will be the first state to use the "clean energy corps" name, which is being promoted nationally by groups such as the California-based nonprofit, Green for All, and the Washington, D.C.-based liberal think tank, Center for American Progress.

The idea is to work with existing weatherization programs across the state, such the Community Action Council in Lexington and Project Warm in Louisville, Miller said. He said he did not know when the program would be expanded, but added that the stimulus money needs to be spent by the end of 2010.

"I would hope it's something we could be a part of," said Walter Lay, executive director of Project Warm, which has been weatherizing homes since 1982.