Nearly 800 small businesses in five major Connecticut cities received energy education and funding through a first of its kind pilot program sponsored by Operation Fuel Inc.
Bloomfield nonprofit Operation Fuel normally provides emergency energy assistance to lower-income working families and elderly residents in financial crisis. The shift to small business assistance stems from the nonprofit’s ambition to help the greater Connecticut community, emphasizing that by helping small businesses, the benefits are felt by both the businesses and the community residents.
Project/BEST (Business Energy Sustainability Team) has ambitions to expand in the future to more cities in Connecticut and help a larger number of businesses with energy saving measures. The pilot program was conducted over the course of a year ending in May.
“If you look at job creation, small businesses employ the local community, so that the money earned by companies stays in the community,” said Pat Wrice, executive director of Operation Fuel.
Wrice believes Project/BEST is the first time a nonprofit has provided direct energy assistance to small businesses. The nonprofit gave $1,000 grants to small businesses in Hartford, Bridgeport, Waterbury, New London, and New Haven — funding by donations totaling $1.1 million from Dominion, the owner and operator of the Millstone Power Station in Waterford, and Public Service Enterprise Group.
The program specifically targeted minority and women-owned businesses, with 37 percent of participants being women business owners, and 45 percent being minority business owners.
Beyond the pilot year, Wrice said Operation Fuel wants to increase participation in the five original Project/BEST cities and expanded into two more.
“We’re very excited,” Wrice said. “This program is the first of its kind in the nation, and we learned how to establish relationships and trust with small businesses.”
Precious Ross-Ellis, the owner of Hartford-area store Uniforms and Stuff, participated in the pilot program and picked up valuable cost saving measures that has helped her business, especially in reducing lighting costs, a major part of her energy bill.
Ross-Ellis originally owned a temp agency, which took up three floors of her building on Albany Avenue in Hartford. Due to a change in the industry, however, she had to get rid of the agency and she started Uniforms and Stuff in the same space. However, she no longer needed three floors.
“We tried to rent out the second floor, but we can’t because the economy is bad,” Ross-Ellis said. “The energy cost for all three floors in this building is very high and we have to pay utilities on all three floors.”
Ross-Ellis encouraged other small business owners in her area of Hartford to participate in the project. Hartford boasted the most participants in the program at 217.
The immediate goal of the program is to give immediate relief to small businesses on their energy bill. In order to receive the $1,000 grant, small businesses had to attend a workshop that helps businesses learn how to be more energy efficient.
The retail industry had the highest number of participants at 271, with other major participating industries including restaurants, professional services, hospitality, health, education, construction, and auto sales.
Energy costs vary widely by industry — ranging from the manufacturing sector’s average monthly electric cost of $1,600 a month to education services’ electric cost of $289 a month.
The project encouraged businesses to partake in an energy audit after completing the workshop. The results of the pilot program showed a very high likelihood of participants taking action as a result of the workshops, with 90 percent of them reporting that they were somewhat or very likely to have an energy audit done. However, only 17 percent of the small businesses have actually requested an audit by September.
Of that group, 15 businesses had energy efficiency work performed, 10 are in the process of having energy efficiency work performed, and 20 businesses received an audit but have not proceeded with the recommended energy efficiency work.
Dominion originally approached Operation Fuel with an idea that would allow them to give back to New London businesses in the Millstone power plant vicinity. Because the nonprofit never had offered small business assistance, Wrice realized Operation Fuel could start a unique program that could expand to other Connecticut urban centers in the state.
“We had to start from scratch,” Wrice said. “The first thing we did was hire a small business advocate. We developed the program; we developed an advisory board that was made up of small business, utility companies, and other individuals who are in that field, and we rolled it out first in Hartford.”
Nancy Bulkeley, spokeswoman for Dominion, said Project/BEST recognized the need from minority-owned businesses for energy saving assistance. Dominion wanted to target distressed urban areas, including New London, which had 53 Project/BEST participating businesses.
“It is very important to us to help folks who can’t afford heating, and Project/BEST was initiated because a lot of minorities do not have anyone to help them conserve energy,” Bulkeley said. “This presented a way for us to offer help to small minority-owned businesses.”
