Vermont firm feeds state's green image with incentives

HINESBURG, Vt. -- At NRG Systems , which makes wind-power equipment, gigantic solar panels and a wind turbine provide 80 percent of the total energy for its headquarters. Many employees ride to work on bicycles or drive hybrid cars, underwritten in part by the company's $1,000 annual cash incentives to those who buy a hybrid.

And from the company's kitchen one day this week, chef Beth Sengle served a lunch of salad, fresh whole-wheat bread, and cold soup made with potatoes and roasted red peppers -- all free, a new daily perk designed to improve productivity, keep morale high, and cut down on car trips to local restaurants.

"We're in the renewable energy business," said Jan L. Blittersdorf , NRG's president and CEO . "You could say it's mission-aligned."

Much of Vermont seems on a similar eco-mission: the Green Mountain state has become as green as any in the country, attracting visitors from other state govern ments and nations as far away as China who are eager to learn about the state's best ideas to fight global warming.

The state's energy-efficiency program, called Efficiency Vermont, has been examined or copied in part by Maine, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Oregon, and the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Farmers from the Midwest have come to check out Vermont's "cow power" program, in which methane from manure is captured and turned into electricity. And dozens of delegations have flocked to NRG alone, including 15 students and professors from China, who visited on Wednesday .

"We weren't sure we were ready for the tours," said Blittersdorf, sitting across a table made by a Vermont craftsman from wood that was certified as taken from a forest in an environmentally sustainable way. "We're not like a Ben & Jerry's; you don't get an ice cream cone at the end. But we came to believe this was a good educational tool."

Now, she said, the company runs four to six tours a month.

Vermont, specialists say , is playing a complementary role in the national environmental policy debate to California, the economic powerhouse led by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican whose policies have pitted him against the Bush administration. California's most prominent case involves an attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles by 30 percent by 2016. Those regulations were also adopted by Vermont and 11 other states, leading to a court challenge by the auto industry that is being heard in Vermont.

"We have the cleanest air in the Northeast, we banned billboards 39 years ago on highways, we've had Green Up Day for 38 years where tens of thousands of Vermonters pick up trash on highways," said Governor Jim Douglas, who hangs his laundry on a clothesline.

Douglas, a Republican who is leading a delegation of Vermonters to China next month in hopes of winning contracts for environmental engineering projects, said in an interview that he believed that the state was "providing leadership that is disproportionate to our small size, but quite consistent with our history."

The state's population of 620,000 people -- California is 57 times larger -- might give it an advantage in testing new initiatives, according to some specialists .

"Vermont is small enough so you can build alternative approaches to things, like Efficiency Vermont. You can get your hands around ideas" here, said Scudder Parker , a former preacher who now is an environmental consultant. He's worked on energy issues for more than a quarter-century, starting as a Vermont state senator.

The state not only emits less carbon dioxide per capita than any other state, but it also leads the nation in spending per person on energy-efficiency programs.

Efficiency Vermont started in 2000 with funding from ratepayers, who paid for efficiency projects as part of their utility bills. That helped solve a problem faced by many states: Utilities have little financial incentive to promote efficiency programs since it means less revenue. Vermont essentially created an energy-efficiency utility, guided by state-set goals for reduction in energy usage. So far, the organization says it has helped roughly a third of Vermonters reduce energy costs and save more than $207 million.

On an outdoor deck overlooking Lake Champlain in Burlington -- which was recently named by County Home magazine as the nation's greenest city -- Beth Sachs , who helps oversee the program, said that too few people realize the importance of saving energy.

"Efficiency is the first resource we need to look at in terms of our dependence on foreign oil and our ability to reduce global warming," said Sachs, executive director of Vermont Energy Investment Corp. , a nonprofit that has won three state contracts to run Efficiency Vermont.

Yet she believes the program could be performing even better. There is a lack of investment in long-range initiatives, such as educating future contractors at technical colleges on energy-efficient methods, and there hasn't been funding to reduce the use of home heating oil and propane.

The Vermont Legislature yesterday passed a bill that would raise money for energy-efficiency measures by increasing taxes on the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant and wind energy projects. And, in the first such program of its kind in the country, the program would cover fossil fuel initiatives. Douglas has threatened a veto because he opposes the funding source.

By most accounts, the program has proved popular with residents. In Huntington, a community of 2,500 people south of Burlington, the efficiency program has helped the owners of Beaudry's general store. Bret Hamilton, a project manager at Vermont Energy Investment, suggested several improvements to the store, including better insulation and energy-efficient fans in their walk-in freezer.

For an $8,000 investment -- roughly divided among the owners and Efficiency Vermont -- the store's energy costs dropped by $1,800 last year.

"At first, I was very skeptical," said Linda Pecor , who along with her husband, Terry, has run the store for 29 years. "But, boy, I'm so glad we did it."

In Shaftsbury, in southwestern Vermont, John Williamson's family had run a dairy farm for 65 years, but he recently sold his cows to diversify operations. Now he is growing canola, mustard, and sunflowers. He will squeeze the oil out of the crops with a press and in the future hopes to sell the vegetable oil as fuel for neighboring farms.

In Westminster, also in southern Vermont, farmer Michael Collins now depends on waste vegetable oil to heat his three greenhouses in winter and spring. The oil, collected for free from a half-dozen area restaurants, has saved him roughly $25,000 over the last four years in heating costs. His investment in two new boilers was about $12,000.

"That's pretty decent," Williamson said one day earlier this week, standing among towering tomato plants that were clipped to wires. "Everyone is looking for ways to save money and not buy propane and oil."

At NRG, Blittersdorf said other heads of companies in Vermont sometimes don't appreciate her evolving line of energy-saving benefits to employees. "They sort of say, 'Oh, geez, how dare you do that.' It sort of raises that bar," she said. "But in our building, people started going out in their cars for lunch. Now they all have lunch here. It's incredible what that does for productivity."

Downstairs in the kitchen, chef Sengle said the company's 68 employees spend about 20 minutes eating lunch, a much shorter break than if they drove off the property to eat. Plus, she said, she hoped her food was better for them.

"I feel lucky enough to be their renewable energy source," she said.

John Donnelly can be reached at donnelly@globe.com.