Healthy Homes Pilot

Completed Pilot Programs & Demo Projects Healthy Homes Pilot

About the Pilot

Energy efficiency can be connected to improved health due to its ability to create healthier indoor living environments. As part of the Healthy Homes pilot, Focus on Energy sought to partner with healthcare providers in rural Wisconsin to identify homes with individuals suffering from pediatric asthma. Households would receive a no-cost healthy home assessment identifying energy-related improvements which would also improve indoor air quality. Incentives would be offered by Focus on Energy to cover a portion of the project costs, with additional funding sources being explored to help support the remaining costs.

Project Timeline: April 2022 – December 2022
Customer Segment: Residential

Pilot Objectives

Understand the connection between energy efficiency and healthy indoor environments.
Develop long-term relationships and partnerships with the healthcare industry.
Determine which energy-related improvements were most common in homes occupied by individuals who suffer pediatric asthma.

Single image healthy homes pilot Adobe Stock 146194093

Key Outcomes

The pilot was not successful in establishing a partnership with a healthcare organization therefore no customers were served and there are no significant findings to share.

Lessons Learned

Developing Partnerships: The impact of a global pandemic resulted in healthcare organizations not having capacity to support this pilot. When progress was made with recruitment, it proved most effective to start with the physicians on staff, then gain buy-in from departments concerned with improving the health and care of specific patient populations, before finally reaching the healthcare administration team.

Customer Eligibility: Limiting participation to rural ZIP codes proved to be a significant challenge as there were fewer participating natural gas utilities serving the areas most often supported by larger health care systems.

Recommendations and Next Steps

This pilot will not continue due to the challenges in securing partnerships with healthcare organizations.

Questions?

Contact the Future Focus team at futurefocus@focusonenergy.com