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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Two new rebates are up for grabs to NWT homeowners and businesses who are willing to invest in lowering their home-heating costs and becoming more energy efficient.

Ray Bethke demonstrates his wood pellet burning furnace at his home on Latham Island. - Heather Lange/NNSL photo

The GNWT is now offering up to $5,000, or one-third of the cost, to homeowners purchasing wood pellet burning furnaces or wood pellet boilers - not to be mistaken with wood pellet stoves, which only qualifies for a $500 rebate - starting Aug. 1 through the Alternative Energies Technologies Program.

The other rebate is available through the federal government's ecoEnergy Retrofit - Homes program. Again, homeowners can receive rebates up to $5,000 to make their homes more energy efficient and reduce their energy costs. Only materials purchased after June 6 qualify for the program, and it runs until March 31, 2012.

Last year, just three NWT residents applied for the $1,000 rebate available to purchase wood pellet furnaces or boilers through the GNWT's Energy Efficiency Incentive Program. Because of the low numbers, the GNWT decided to switch the rebate over to the Alternative Energies Technologies Program and increase the amount available.

Ray Bethke of Yellowknife received the rebate for installing a wood pellet furnace in his home in October 2010. He said he saved $2,000 last winter by switching from an oil burning furnace to a pellet burning furnace.

Bethke said when he had an energy assessment done last year, he found his oil burning furnace was running only at about 60 per cent efficiency. Bethke and his wife, Laura Seddon, had bought the house three years prior and were looking for more efficient alternatives to the 20-year-old furnace it came with. Bethke said he spent $17,000 installing the pellet burning furnace, and would have spent $11,000 installing a more efficient oil burning furnace had he choose to go that route.

"We ended up saving just shy of $2,000 in heating costs," he said. "So, the $6,000 differential on the boiler gives us a 3 ½-year year payback, and then we will be saving at least $2,000 a year, because my guess is oil prices will go up."

Bethke said he used spreadsheets provided by Arctic Energy Alliance to calculate the total reduction of carbon emissions - and that he went from producing 15 metric tonnes of carbon emissions with the oil burning furnace to producing 0.3 to 0.4 tonnes of carbon emissions last winter with the pellet burning furnace. On average, a mid-size passenger vehicle emits 5.23 tonnes a year. Bethke said there is more work and maintenance involved with operating a pellet burning furnace. On the coldest days of winter, the furnace will burn through three bags of pellets a day that have to be fed into the furnace manually, and every five weeks it needs to be shut down and the ash cleaned out.

Still, Bethke says the investment of buying a pellet burning furnace was worth it.

"Absolutely - as long as you are willing to do all the work," he said. "The savings are certainly there now and will continue to be there - (and) we got the complete reduction in carbon emissions; it is a bonus."

Wade Carpenter, alternative energy specialist with the Department of Energy and Natural Resources, said there is also a medium renewable energy fund directed at commercial businesses. They can receive up to $15,000 or one-third of the cost of installing a pellet boiler or pellet furnace.

"The long-term operating cost as far as the fuel is concerned is cheaper," he said. "You'll get different people telling you different things, but it ranges between 30 to 50 per cent cheaper than heating oil.

"The other thing is wood, biomass or waste wood is generally considered a carbon neutral fuel," Carpenter added. "Those are the two major monetary and environmental issues." said Carpenter.

To qualify under the ecoEnergy Retrofit - Homes program, homeowners must get an energy assessment. Mike Stuhec, residential energy management specialist at Arctic Energy Alliance, said his office offers them at a cost of $157.50, and that they're worth it.

"I always push people to get the assessment because there is so much good information in there," he said. "It talks about your house; where you're losing your heat - is it through air leakage, is it through a poor heating system or any other kinds of ideas.

"People are always amazed at the quality and the amount of information you get from an energy audit," said Stuhec.

Arctic Energy Alliance does offer some free advice and can also walk homeowners through the application process and help them figure out which incentive or rebate program is best for them.

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