North Country Clean Energy Hub helps communities transition from fossil fuels

Local program supports households and businesses navigating the complex world of grants to reduce heating costs and environmental impact

By Mike Lynch

As the director of the North Country Clean Energy Hub, Erin Griffin leads a team that works with residences and businesses to help them transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. 

Griffin says there are multiple benefits to clean energy: it’s better for the environment and fewer impacts on people’s health than some other energy sources, and can lead to reduced energy bills. The latter two topics often resonate with the low to moderate income residents who are eligible for public funding programs, which the hub helps them navigate. 

“Most of the households we work with are worried about basic needs,” Griffin said. “So that’s what we really focus on at the hub, is we’re thinking about comfort and affordability of people’s day-to-day lives, and we’re just trying to address those needs through using energy efficiency and clean energy opportunities.”

The organization is also working to expand the clean energy workforce.

“One of our biggest [barriers] is there are not many contractors that do this type of work in the North Country and participate in these state incentive programs,” Griffin said. 

Statewide there are 12 hubs, which are funded by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

The North Country one consists of a team of organizations that includes the Adirondack North Country Association, SUNY Canton and the Cornell Cooperative Extensions of Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties. The team serves seven counties: Clinton, Essex, Franklin, St. Lawrence, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Lewis.

Northern Lights School, a child care and early education center, in Saranac Lake is one organization the hub and ANCA assisted in recent years as they sought advice on a $500,000 project to install a clean energy heating system. 

“Every step of the way, we worked with members of ANCA and the energy hub to help guide us in terms of which energy efficiency improvement to make next,” said Northern Lights board member Ann Armstrong. 

The staff helped guide Northern Lights through the grant process, which eventually led the small school to a $332,000 state grant for insulation and replacing a fuel oil boiler with a geothermal heat system. 

“We would be plodding along if it weren’t for ANCA, but we’re in a totally new place because of the resources that they were able to share with us,” Armstrong said. 

Northern Lights is in the final stages of installing the new heating system and hopes to have it up and running this coming winter.

Photo at top: Erin Griffin, right, is North Country Clean Energy Hub director. Photo courtesy of ANCA