WASHINGTON – The Government of Joe Biden will provide nearly $3.2 billion from the bipartisan infrastructure bill to help Americans cut home energy bills, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Wednesday.
Low-income Americans spend up to 30% of their salary on energy.
“This investment will help them make improvements to their homes, such as “For example, switching to better insulation and ventilation, installing energy-efficient heating and cooling systems, and upgrading lighting and appliances,” he said.
“The $3.2 billion we’re mobilizing today is about 10 times what we spend on retrofitting homes each year.”said Granholm.
“The efficiency gains will have an immediate impact, helping families save hundreds to thousands of dollars a year on energy bills,” he added.
The current government program improves 38,000 homes annually. The additional amount brings that number to 450,000 households.
The $3.2 billion will be distributed by the Department of Energy’s Weatherization Assistance Program.which receives requests from states, tribes and territories for funding to upgrade low-income homes.
In November, Biden enacted a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill That would create jobs across the country while spending billions of dollars on state and local governments to repair ailing roads and bridges and expand broadband Internet access to millions of Americans.
In 2021, the average nominal retail electricity price paid by residential customers in the United States rose at the highest rate since 2008. by 4.3% to 13.72 cents per kilowatt hour by 2020according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Prices for most types of energy products increased significantly in 2021, including the cost of fuels used to generate electricity, particularly natural gas, which EIA analysis found contributed to an increase in electricity prices.
(Edited in Spanish by Carlos Serrano)
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