UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State Center for Energy Law and Policy (CELP) and the Hamer Center for Community Design in the College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School are teaming up to host a one-hour webinar at 10:30 a.m. on Dec. 1 to address the substantial challenges low-income individuals in Pennsylvania face in accessing energy efficiency programs.
Titled “Coordinating and Enhancing Access to Low-Income Energy Efficiency Programs,” the virtual workshop will explore the coordination of diverse energy efficiency and home rehabilitation programs that are offered by the government and nonprofit organizations in the state, and how to boost low-income individuals’ access to these programs.
“Weatherization and energy efficiency programs for affordable housing have recognized economic, environmental and health benefits, but adoption challenges hinder this potential,” said Lisa Iulo, director of the Hamer Center for Community Design, associate professor of architecture, and the moderator of the event. “Research undertaken by CELP, the Hamer Center, and our collaborators has the potential to address practical and policy solutions.”
The webinar is an extension of a panel discussion that was convened by CELP in May, which featured energy efficiency space experts in Pennsylvania.
According to Hannah Wiseman, co-director of CELP, the Dec. 1 workshop is “an effort to identify initial findings from the May workshop and our own research, and to help us further develop relevant research questions that shape our research and that of others.”
Webinar speakers include Elizabeth Marx, executive director of the Pennsylvania Utility Law Project; Mark Matz, construction document examiner with the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency; Selena E. Ortiz, assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Administration at Penn State; Wade Romberger, staff engineer/energy coordinator with the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency; and Wiseman, who is a professor of law, professor/Wilson Faculty Fellow in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, and an Institutes of Energy and the Environment co-funded faculty member at Penn State.
Registration for the webinar is required via Zoom.