Electric Heat Rebate Applications Encouraged

Help is available for low-income Nova Scotians who heat their homes with electricity.

The province's Keep the Heat program, announced last fall, offers financial assistance to eligible applicants who directly pay for their heat.

"So far we've processed fewer than 2,300 applications from people who heat their homes with electricity," said Barry Barnet, Minister of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations. "There are about six weeks left in the program and we encourage anyone who may be eligible to apply."

Keep the Heat offers a $100 rebate to eligible applicants who heat with electricity, coal, natural gas, wood pellets or wood. If propane or oil is used, the rebate is $250.

Everyone eligible for a rebate will receive a free energy savings kit, valued at $50, to help them achieve permanent energy savings. Oil users may also be eligible for a furnace tune-up voucher. Also, as part of a Keep the Heat pilot program, 3,000 electricity users will qualify to have thermostats in their homes replaced with more accurate models that reduce electricity use.

Application forms and more information are available at www.gov.ns.ca (click on Keep the Heat logo), or by calling 1-800-670-4357.

Families, including single-parent families, with incomes under $25,000, and single people with incomes under $15,000 are eligible. The rebate is not available to people who do not directly pay for their heat, such as renters whose heat is included with the rent.

Other eligibility requirements include consumption of 10,000 kilowatts of electricity over the past 12 months(as indicated on the power bill), or a receipt in the applicant's name and address for delivery of furnace oil, three tons of coal, three cords of wood, or 150 bags of wood pellets.

Applications must be received by Friday, March 31.