Kyra, Author at Mid-Hudson Energy Transition

Mid-Hudson Energy Transition launches first-of-its-kind, ultra-low-interest loan program for home energy upgrades in Kingston

We’re thrilled to announce that our Home Energy Loan Program (HELP) is officially live! After months of planning and preparation, HELP is now ready to provide income-eligible households in Kingston with affordable loans to make their homes more energy efficient, safe, and comfortable. HELP is made possible by a coalition of partners, including Ulster Savings Bank who provide loan administration and servicing and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), who has provided a $500,000 loan loss reserve.

Even more exciting, we’ve already given out our first loan! Our very first recipient shared:

“This program is exactly what working families in Kingston need. I’ve wanted to upgrade my insulation for years and HELP made it possible. The monthly payment was manageable for my budget and MHET helped me through every step—from applying for incentives to finding a contractor. With winter around the corner, I hope to see the benefits very quickly. “

– Ethel Knox

Kingston resident + first HELP loan recipient

This milestone proves what we’ve believed from the start: with the right support, families can make the upgrades they need to save energy, lower costs, and feel more secure in their homes.

What HELP Does
HELP was designed to bridge the gap for households who need energy upgrades but face financial barriers. Whether it’s a heat pump water heater, insulation, or an induction stove, HELP offers low-interest loans (2% APR*) that make these improvements possible.

How You Can Get Involved
You can start sharing HELP with your community today! Here’s how:

Refer people to HELP. If you know someone who could benefit, please send them this interest form.
Apply for a loan. If you’d like to make improvements in your own home, fill out this interest form to start your application.

This is just the beginning. We can’t wait to see more households access the energy savings and comfort they deserve through HELP!

*Disclaimer: Annual Percentage Rate (APR): APR is a measure of the cost of credit, expressed as a yearly rate. The 2% APR rate is available to all qualified applicants who meet our underwriting criteria, regardless of credit score. Exact APR may vary between 2.0-2.5% depending on loan term and amount. This advertisement is not a guarantee of credit approval.

How Are Clean and Renewable Energy Different?

Michelle Rochniak | 8/18/2025

When people talk about eco-friendly energy, they sometimes use “clean” and “renewable” interchangeably. But they don’t necessarily mean the same thing.

Clean energy is energy that doesn’t release greenhouse gases. It includes solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal energy. It also includes nuclear energy—which doesn’t emit greenhouse gases but does create radioactive waste. Nuclear also harms the land, and Indigenous peoples generally oppose nuclear for that reason. For more on this, see Joe Heath’s (General Counsel of the Onondaga Nation) article for the Sierra Club.

Renewable energy is energy that is easily replenished. It uses resources that are essentially infinite. This category includes all of the above except nuclear. So, generally speaking, all renewable energy is clean, but not all clean energy is renewable.

As we create an energy transition that’s better for us and our planet, it’s important for the energy we use to be both clean and renewable.

Here at MHET, we’re excited for all kinds of clean, renewable energy. Our community solar program has slowly been growing over the last several months, and we’ve got our eyes on a couple of other clean energy projects. Eventually, we hope to bring agrivoltaics and thermal energy networks to the Hudson Valley.

Agrivoltaics combines farming and solar panels in one place. This allows farmers to maintain their farms and harvest clean, renewable energy at the same time. It also creates additional shade and can provide more space for pollinators.

Thermal energy networks, or TENs, use a network of pipes to distribute thermal energy for heating and cooling between buildings. The thermal energy comes from existing heat resources, like wastewater treatment plants, or from digging boreholes 500+ feet into the ground. Digging boreholes can be expensive upfront. But once the networks are in place, they’re clean, safe, and quiet. Most importantly, they can be more than 500% more efficient than current heating and cooling systems. This means they’ll allow us to use less energy and keep more resources within our community.

MHET has a lot of clean energy dreams. All of our work strives to allow the community to have energy democracy, or ownership over clean energy. It’ll take some time for it all to happen, but we’re confident that change can happen. Explore our website today to learn more and see how we can work together to help the Kingston community!

What You Need to Know About Weatherization

Michelle Rochniak | 8/7/2025

Did you know that insulating your home can help you save money on your energy bill?

It’s true — things like closing the gap between a door and the floor, wrapping pipes, and sealing windows can all keep outside air out. Keeping out heat in the summer and cold in the winter can lower your bill, which doesn’t have to be something you do on your own.

Programs like the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) have helped a lot of people save money through weatherization tactics like insulation, ductwork, and ventilation repairs. In fact, the average weatherized household saves $372 on their energy bill every year.

WAP is a fantastic option for those who need support insulating their home, but it isn’t perfect. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) shared recently that about one in five eligible households can’t get what they need from WAP. This is because WAP requires that homes get other critical pre-weatherization repairs first before using the program.

These pre-weatherization repairs aren’t small or cheap either. Leaky roofs are the main issue for a majority of homes that can’t currently use WAP. When problems like that cost $14,000 on average, making repairs to create a home that’s up to WAP’s standards can be a nearly impossible task.

The federal government created a pre-weatherization fund (PWF) in 2022 to solve this problem, but it only invested $15 million. And now, the “Big Ugly Bill” is deprioritizing programs like the WAP and PWFs. Energy costs will rise across the country by $33 billion annually by 2035. That means it will be even harder, especially for low-income households, to make critical (pre-)weatherization repairs to their homes.

When programs fail people or become nonexistent, the community has a responsibility to call and act for better.

We want to help fill in the gaps at MHET. Our community requires weather- and climate-resilient homes now. Our solutions aim to make it easier for community members across Kingston to make those homes a reality.

Our hyper-accessible Home Upgrade Grants (HUG) program and our Home Energy Loan Program (HELP) both assist people with making energy-efficient upgrades to their homes.

HUG provides free financial support to low-income households in Kingston. HELP gives ultra-low-interest loans (2% APR) to low- and moderate-income Kingston homes. We know these programs will help create healthier, safer homes for low-income and other historically marginalized communities.

National programs aren’t meeting our community’s needs, so we’re doing what we can on the local level to help our neighbors. If you are interested in taking some small steps to insulate your home on your own, we have free weatherization kits to help boost your home’s insulation. If you’re interested in getting one (or know someone who might want one), reach out to info@mid-hudson.energy or call (845) 383-1050.

Terminations and Their Outcomes

Ryann Busillo | 8/5/2025

In our previous blog, Connor summarized Final Termination Notices (FTNs) and Deferred Payment Agreements (DPAs). Here, I’ll dive deeper into terminations and their outcomes, exploring questions like: how often do terminations occur, and what happens before—and after—a shutoff?

Why Energy Is Not Just another Subscription

Receiving a Final Termination Notice is flat-out undesirable. In today’s world, energy is a basic requirement for almost everything we do, whether we realize it or not. It’s easy to forget how deeply we rely on this service when all it takes to turn on the lights is a flick of the switch. But as easy as energy is to access, it is not ours. We, the people, do not own the power plants or the transmission lines that bring electricity to our homes and businesses. Like Netflix or Spotify, we pay a “subscription” fee to use it. But energy is unique: we depend on it, and we pay for it after we’ve used it, much like a line of credit.

While services like Netflix and Spotify might offer entertainment, they don’t provide the foundation for daily life or a dignified existence. Energy does.

More Than an Inconvenience: A Day Without Power

Imagine waking up and walking to the bathroom. You reach for the light switch, but nothing happens. It’s frustrating, but the morning sunlight is enough to get by. You move through your routine and turn the shower knob to hot. It’s January in Kingston, and the cold air makes you crave warmth. You notice it was harder than usual to get out of bed. The water never heats up. The radiator is cold to the touch.

Earlier in the month, Central Hudson sent you a Final Termination Notice. But with gas, groceries, and rent already stretching your budget, you left the notice on the kitchen counter. This was your first time falling more than two months behind—winter energy bills tend to be higher due to heating, and you hadn’t anticipated the unexpected $75 increase, even while trying to limit your usage. Five days later, Central Hudson sent you a Deferred Payment Agreement. You read the terms: a 15% down payment and monthly installments at about half your usual bill. You think, I can’t afford this. I need to eat. I need gas to get to work. And keeping a roof over your head feels more urgent than the energy bill.

Your phone rings. It’s your boss. The battery is at 2%. You run to the car to charge it, skipping breakfast—your stove doesn’t work, and the fridge is no longer running.

Stories like this aren’t hypothetical, they reflect the real, everyday trade-offs thousands of customers are forced to make. And the data backs it up.

May 2025: Breaking Down The Numbers

In May 2025, Central Hudson issued 14,510 Final Termination Notices. Of those, 6,800 reached “field action” status, meaning their meters were officially eligible for shutoff. In the end, 1,109 accounts were actually terminated—about 16% of those eligible for shutoff. As shown below, only 4.9% of accounts who received an FTN were shut off.

A Note on Central Hudson’s Shut off Practices: Central Hudson’s collections team is small, so staff focus on terminating accounts with the oldest or largest debt; if another field action account happens to be along the same route, it might get shut off, too.

Understanding Your Options After an FTN

Let’s break down what’s happening. FTNs are only sent to customers who are 60 or more days behind on their energy bill. At that point, customers have two main options: enter a Deferred Payment Agreement or apply for public assistance—more on that later. A third, less realistic option is to pay the balance in full. But for customers already struggling to pay a single month’s bill, this isn’t feasible.

So, what happens to those 1,109 accounts that were actually terminated? As with the options following an FTN, customers can: enroll in a DPA, attempt to access public assistance, or pay the balance in full—again, an unlikely choice.

The Reconnection Reality: What the Data Tells Us

It’s important to note that this is a generalization—the data does not distinguish between accounts that were shut off and reconnected within the same month versus those disconnected earlier and reconnected later. Still, the takeaway is clear: Deferred Payment Agreements (DPAs) remain the primary pathway to avoid or recover from service termination.

According to Central Hudson’s report, in May 2025, 590 of the 1,109 accounts were reconnected, while 519 remained disconnected by month’s end. Of the 590 reconnected accounts, 578—about 52% of all shutoffs—were restored through DPAs. Only 12 customers, or 1.1%, were reconnected using grants from the Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP) or the Department of Social Services (DSS).

Put simply: Out of every 100 homes at risk of termination in May 2025, 84 avoided shutoff altogether. Of the 16 that lost service, 8 were reconnected through a Deferred Payment Agreement (DPA), one was restored through HEAP or DSS assistance, and 7 remained without service by the end of the month.

FTNs and Shutoffs: A Historical Look

The graph above shows the percentage of at-risk accounts that actually lost service each month from January 2020 through May 2025. In late 2020, fewer than 2.3% of eligible customers were disconnected (compared to 16% in May 2025). Then, in April 2020, New York State imposed a pandemic-related moratorium on shutoffs that lasted through December 2021. Central Hudson’s botched rollout of a new billing system in September 2021 (see: How the Number of Households in Debt to Central Hudson Skyrocketed) led regulators to pause shutoffs until April 2024. FTNs resumed in December 2023—not to immediately shut off customers, but to reopen access to financial assistance. As counterintuitive as it may sound, receiving an FTN, while stressful, is often the first step toward getting help with overdue bills.

What Happens After an FTN Is Issued?

An FTN means more than just a potential power loss. Under the Home Energy Fair Practices Act, it marks the beginning of a minimum 15-day notice period before shutoff can occur. As mentioned above, a DPA is typically offered five business days after an FTN is issued. If the terms are unaffordable, customers can call Central Hudson and ask if they qualify for a minimum payment agreement by submitting a financial statement. This step is crucial: DSS usually won’t provide assistance unless the customer is enrolled in a minimum agreement—or has no income.

Other programs—like HEAP, Emergency HEAP, and Central Hudson’s Bill Discount Program—do not require a payment agreement to apply. However, Central Hudson’s Good Neighbor Fund does require that a customer first default on a minimum payment agreement before qualifying.

Debt Relief or Debt Management? A Shifting Strategy

When we look at reconnection trends over time, a shift in outcomes emerges. In early 2020, about 23% of service restorations came from HEAP or DSS, while 28% were through DPAs. For customers in Central Hudson’s Energy Assistance Program (EAP), 62% of reconnections were through HEAP or DSS and 13% through DPAs. But by May 2025, only 1.1% of reconnections came from HEAP or DSS, while 52% were through DPAs. EAP data for the same period show 20% from HEAP or DSS and nearly 59% from DPAs.

This shift suggests a transition away from debt relief toward repayment plans that stretch out the debt over time. Across all customers, reconnections using HEAP or DSS decreased by 22 percentage points (from 23% to 1.1%), while those using DPAs increased by 24 percentage points (from 28% to 52%).

The Barriers to Public Assistance

Returning to the options available after receiving an FTN or being shut off—enter a DPA, seek public assistance, or pay in full—we see how limited the options truly are. Paying in full is unrealistic for most, and reconnection data shows public assistance rarely works in practice. As sociologist Dr. Diana Hernández documents in Powerless, energy assistance programs are often riddled with complexity. Limited funding, narrow eligibility rules, and a lack of transparency mean that even well-meaning programs can fail the people they’re designed to serve.

Some customers are excluded due to income thresholds that don’t reflect actual cost of living. Others never even hear about the programs in time. And for those who do qualify, the burden of applying—paperwork, deadlines, follow-ups—can be overwhelming when you’re already in crisis.

Closing Thoughts & What’s Next

In short, DPAs have become the only reliable path for most customers to avoid shutoff and restore service. In my next blog post, we’ll take a closer look at the trends and interactions between Central Hudson’s customers in arrears and the Deferred Payment Agreements that are supposed to assist them. If you need help navigating a Final Termination Notice or understanding your DPA, don’t hesitate to reach out. And! If you’re looking for a guaranteed way to save on your utility bills, you might benefit from our community solar program. We’d love to hear from you.

Energy Costs in Summer vs Winter

Michelle Rochniak | 6/26/2025

Winter heating and summer cooling use a substantial amount of energy in your home. But which costs more on average?

You might think this simple question would have a simple answer. But the kind of energy you use in the winter probably isn’t the same energy you use in the summer. And when looking for an average cost, your neighbors may not use the same energy as you in either season, or at all. Energy sources won’t have the answers we need — we have to observe our climate instead.

Imagine if it was over 90°F every single day for all of July this year. That’s how many “extreme heat days” (above 90°F) that Region 5 of New York may experience over the course of a year by the end of the 2020s.

The Hudson River Estuary Program estimates that, by the end of the decade, the Hudson Valley will have between 19 and 31 days that are above 90°F every single year. The number of extreme heat days is doubling from the 10-12 days above 90°F in the baseline era of 1971-2000.

On the other side, there are “cold days,” where the temperature is at or below 32°F. In the Hudson Valley, there will be less cold days by the end of the decade, with Regions 2 (orange area on map) and 5 (green area) experiencing between 108 and 136 by the end of the decade compared to their baselines of 138 and 155. That’s a loss of almost three weeks of cold days in both regions.

While that indicates we’ll need less heating in the winters, we’ll need more energy to stay cool in the summers. The Hudson Valley regions used to have 1-2 heat waves a year with 4 days each during the baseline era. But by the end of the decade, both regions could have 3 or 4 heat waves a year — with 5 days each.

In 2020, environmental health scientists at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and the University of Washington published a study that examined severe weather-driven power outages in New York State between 2017 and 2020. The study suggests that, of all urban areas outside of New York City, the Hudson Valley and Long Island had the most severe weather-driven power outages. And power outages are more likely to happen when temperatures go above 86°F in all non-NYC urban areas. That means more power outages in Kingston are more likely as we see more days of 90°F or higher per year.

Our current backup generator system is also not enough. The energy grid is relatively stable for now. But when we do need backup energy, we tend to use diesel generators. Those generators cause a lot of air pollution and can further endanger our neighbors’ health.

While everyone will feel these changes, they’ll hit historically marginalized communities the most — who have already experienced the brunt of climate change up until and including now. It’s irresponsible to create a future where this is still the case.

While it isn’t clear what will cost more, summer cooling will likely use more resources as temperatures rise with energy costs. But no one, especially marginalized communities, should have to pay this rising price. If we don’t change now, we’ll keep contributing to an unjust, exclusive energy system.

MHET Launches Community Zine!

Take a look at our first ever zine, Neighbors & Networks, here! Flip through a digital PDF, and listen to the audio version (coming soon!).

This zine is a letter of appreciation to our community here in Kingston. If you’d like a physical copy, you can find them at the Kingston Library, Curious Kingston, our office, and other places around Kingston. Don’t forget to share it with your loved ones in the area!

Read Neighbors and Networks Below!

Introduction to Termination Notices in Central Hudson

Connor Cantrell | 6/25/2025

In May 2025, fifty thousand households served by Central Hudson were over sixty days in arrears. Specifically, 51,479 of the 274,264 total households had been in debt to the utility for more than two months, with an average balance of $2,661. Central Hudson publishes these numbers monthly.

Horrific status quo aside (I wrote about it here) the arrears category is worth examining on its own. Once you’ve carried a balance with Central Hudson for over sixty days, you receive your first termination notice.

In that termination notice, you’ll find an offer for a deferred payment agreement. This is the avenue Central Hudson offers for struggling homes to make their way out of debt. Which, in some ways, makes sense. As a profit-driven business, their emphasis is on collecting payments. So, the solution to customer debt is a plan that allows Central Hudson to collect the money they are owed, rather than a plan to meaningfully address the cause of the debt.

A typical agreement starts with a large down payment and the rest of the balance is divided over the next six payment periods. You can see a sample of this deferred payment agreement here. The second page of the sample agreement lists the standard terms, where the customer is charged 30% of their total balance as the down payment. This down payment is added to any bills issued after the termination notice is sent. So, if you receive a termination notice and a month passes before entering into a payment agreement, that month’s bill is also due along with the down payment. Then come the monthly installments, which are either:

The cost of your average monthly usage, or
One-sixth of the balance—whichever is greater.

This is all in addition to upcoming bills, which are still due in full. Otherwise, the agreement defaults and the total balance becomes due again.

So, if the average debt is $2,661 in May 2025, a customer would be responsible for $798 up front, followed by six payments of $310, on top of the normal monthly energy bills. Does this sound like a solution for a household already struggling to pay?

Here’s what that looks like based on Central Hudson’s average monthly energy costs per year, including electricity and gas.

There is some leniency, to be fair. The debt doesn’t accrue interest, and if you can show financial hardship, you can negotiate for a zero-dollar down payment and $10 monthly payments instead of the initial offer.

But how many people know that? I know because I’ve been talking to social services coordinators and researching it. But Central Hudson doesn’t seem to advertise this information. The sample agreement I found mentions the possibility of negotiation in two small paragraphs, and I can’t find anything about it on Central Hudson’s website. How do you prove financial hardship? The answer is through participation in assistance programs. Which come with their own administrative barrier to entry.

The one-size-fits all price of residential energy is a major driver of these situations. Since the price of energy is fixed across users, and every household needs energy to maintain a normal standard of living, lower-income households end up paying a much higher percentage of their budget to the utility. So the cost of energy is functionally regressive. One family might pay 5% of their income toward energy, while another pays 20% for the same service.

Instead, we could institute a progressive structure, where households are billed a percentage of monthly income for energy costs. The utility would take a portion of your income, scaled to what you earn. The NY HEAT Act proposes exactly this. If it passes, bills would be capped at 6% of monthly budgets for low-income households.

Privately owned utilities have no incentive to institute similar measures on their own. As for-profit organizations, their goal is to grow revenue year after year while keeping their costs down. A big part of that commitment to revenue is the process of collecting payment.

If you can’t pay, you don’t get lights at night. You don’t get internet access. Again, being fair, there are exceptions. Customers can apply for protected status to avoid shut offs in Central Hudson, for example, if you have life sustaining equipment in your home. But this structure also puts the administrative burden onto those homes. If you’re struggling, if you’re in a difficult situation, you need to prove it. That’s the kind of accommodation you get with a for-profit system.

Instead, our utility system should be designed around care. It should meet our needs without holding us hostage for having those needs. That’s what we’re fighting for at Mid-Hudson Energy Transition and why we proudly support the Hudson Valley Power Authority Act. When power is returned to the people, rather than given to for-profit corporations, real problems are solved, basic needs are met, and the lights stay on.

If you are struggling with your utility bill, Contact Us

If you are interested in saving up to 20% on your utility bill every month, sign up for our Community Solar Program.

If this upsets you as much as it upsets us, join our newsletter.

If you have questions or just need to talk through your situation, we’re always here. Contact us.

For help with navigating termination letters and submitting complaints to the PSC, check out this guide by Communities for Local Power: CLP Termination Letter Guide.

Mayor Noble Announces Community Solar Program

KINGSTON, NY – Mayor Steven T. Noble is pleased to announce that the City of Kingston is partnering with local non-profit Mid-Hudson Energy Transition (MHET) to bring affordable, renewable energy to residents with Kingston Community Solar, a new initiative that allows residents to subscribe to a local solar farm and receive utility bill credits.

With Kingston Community Solar, project, a collaboration of MHET and PowerMarket, income-eligible participants can save up to 20% monthly on electricity, with no upfront cost, long-term contracts, or maintenance required and without the need to install solar panels.

“This is exactly the kind of innovative, community-driven solution we’ve been working toward,” said Mayor Noble. “Kingston has long been a leader in sustainability, and this partnership ensures that the benefits of clean energy are reaching the families who need them most. It’s a win for our residents and for our planet.”

Kingston Community Solar prioritizes income-eligible households to join a shared renewable solar project, which pumps clean energy into the local power grid. Participants continue to receive electricity from Central Hudson and, as the solar project produces clean energy, receive credit on monthly electric bills.

“Families are getting crushed by skyrocketing electricity bills and a fossil fuel system that puts profit over people,” said Jasmine Graham, Executive Director of MHET. “Kingston Community Solar gives our community a real solution—lower bills, cleaner energy, and long-term relief. It’s one of the few ways people can consistently save money for decades while helping to move us off dirty energy. We’re so grateful to the City of Kingston for stepping up and making this possible.”

Enrollment is now open to Central Hudson customers. More information and registration can be found here.

The City of Kingston is a leader in efforts to create a more energy-efficient and sustainable community. Kingston has taken a comprehensive approach to building a city that is equipped to meet modern challenges and embrace 21st century opportunities. The Sustainability Office manages the City’s environmental projects, initiatives, and programming, including energy, land use, climate adaptation and resiliency, transportation, recycling and environmental education. Current projects include Community Choice Aggregation, Organics Diversion, Community Preservation Planning, Waterfront Flooding Resiliency, Building Decarbonization and more. More information about the City of Kingston’s sustainability efforts at https://kingston-ny.gov/sustainability.

What the Energy Transition Really Looks Like

By Jasmine Graham

When people hear “energy transition,” they usually think solar panels, heat pumps, electric cars. But if you ask the folks doing the work on the ground — installing those panels, upgrading those homes, sitting at kitchen tables explaining it all — the story sounds a little different. It looks like this:

An 80-year-old homeowner heating their house with the oven because the boiler broke and there’s no money to fix it.
A single mom whose deadbolt froze over during a cold snap in the winter because she was using space heaters that couldn’t keep up with the freezing temperatures.
A renter who’s scared to tell their landlord the stove is broken because they’re worried the “fix” will come with a rent increase.
A working mom who can’t believe, after everything, that someone is actually offering her a new heat pump water heater for free.

We’ve been out here doing the work. And if there’s one thing I can tell you, it’s this: The transition isn’t technical. It’s personal.

Here’s some of what we’re learning, and re-learning, every day:

1. Repair is the real work.

You can’t electrify a home if the roof leaks, if the wiring’s shot, or if the foundation’s cracked. We can’t skip the basics. If we don’t fund repairs, we’re locking people out. Period. Here in New York, advocates have been pushing for the GAP Fund for exactly this reason: to make sure basic health and safety issues don’t become invisible barriers to clean energy upgrades.

2. Trust is everything.

People are tired. They’ve been promised help before. They’ve seen programs start and stop. The most important thing we do isn’t installing anything. It’s showing up, over and over, until people believe it’s real. No amount of technology can replace the work of rebuilding trust.

3. Free isn’t enough.

It doesn’t matter if it’s free if it’s too complicated to sign up, if the paperwork feels like a trap, or if people are afraid it will get them evicted. Affordability matters. But accessibility decides whether people can actually participate.

None of this is new.

Frontline communities have been saying it for a long time. But if we are serious about an energy transition that works for everybody, we have to meet people where they are, not where we wish they were.

That means funding basic repairs alongside clean energy upgrades. It means designing programs that are simple, clear, and protective of tenants and vulnerable homeowners. It means centering trust and relationships, not just transactions.

These aren’t side issues. They are the core of whether the transition reaches the people it’s supposed to serve.

At Mid-Hudson Energy Transition, we are learning these lessons every day by working directly with families, tenants, and homeowners. And we’re seeing clearly how much of the clean energy future depends not just on what we build, but how we build it — and who we build it with.

The work is slower, harder, and more complicated than a lot of headlines make it seem. But staying focused on people, not just on projects, is the only way this transition will be real.

That’s the work in front of us. And that’s the work we’re committed to doing.

Learn more about me at www.jasminecgraham.com.

No Perfect Homes, No Perfect Programs – Just Real People Trying to Stay Warm

Elisabeth Balachova | 4/21/2025

Try explaining to a neighbor why their drafty attic doesn’t qualify for help.

Or why they received just enough funding to insulate their attic– but now have to wait an entire year to finish the entire house.

Or why, despite struggling to pay their utility bills, they don’t qualify as “low-income” under the state’s rules.

We have those conversations every day at Mid-Hudson Energy Transition (MHET). And while we’re grateful for programs like NYSERDA’s EmPower+, which has unlocked life-changing funding for families across the region, we also know that good intentions don’t always translate to accessible systems. The reality on the ground is complicated. And so is getting an old house ready for a climate-resilient future.

Let’s rewind a little bit.

Through our Home Upgrade Grants (HUG) program, we help low- and moderate-income homeowners access energy efficiency upgrades such as insulation, air sealing, and water heater replacements. Our goal is to make Kingston homes healthier, safer, and more affordable to heat and cool. One of the most powerful tools we use is NYSERDA’s EmPower+ program. When it works, it really works: We’ve seen households unlock up to $20,000 in improvements over multiple phases of work.

But many homes in Kingston and the Hudson Valley are older than the programs designed to upgrade them. They need multiple rounds of support – and many homeowners fall into a gray area where they earn too much to qualify for “low-income” tiers, but not enough to cover the out-of-pocket costs of energy improvements. These “moderate-income” families currently receive just $5,000 in EmPower+ incentives. That might cover a portion of the attic insulation but not the basement, the air sealing, or the critical repairs needed before weatherization work can even begin.

To bridge that gap, MHET has been stepping in with flexible funding from other sources. But we’re a small nonprofit. And for every household we help, there are more waiting for answers in their drafty homes.

A recent change to EmPower+ added a new barrier: a one-year waiting period before a household can reapply for additional funding. That means someone who completes phase one of their upgrades now has to wait a full year to continue the work. Even if their home is still losing heat, wasting energy, or failing to meet the standards required for heat pump installation.

And here’s the catch: New York State has set an ambitious goal of 2 million heat pump installations by 2030. What they don’t tell you, is that you can’t install a heat pump in a leaky house. The building envelope needs to be sealed first, but all the red tape surrounding these programs prevents homeowners from moving forward and electrifying their homes.

We can’t ignore the mismatch between how programs are structured and how real people live. At MHET, our job is to make the system work better for those who need it most. Not by reinventing it, but by connecting the dots.

That’s what we do best:
→ We help homeowners navigate a maze of paperwork and policy.
→ We coordinate with contractors and state agencies.
→ We advocate quietly (and sometimes loudly) for practical fixes to flawed systems.
→ And when necessary, we fund the gap ourselves.

Behind every application is a person. Behind every leaky attic is a story. And behind every program is an opportunity to do better.

So if you’re a homeowner wondering how to start, or have already hit a roadblock, we’re here to help. Schedule an appointment with our team and let’s figure it out together.

And if you believe that no one should have to choose between heat and groceries, or between eligibility and equity, donate to MHET. Your support helps us do what bureaucracy can’t: meet people where they are.

Let’s keep pushing for programs that reflect real life. And in the meantime, let’s keep showing up for each other.