On the heels of Seattle’s green jobs failure earlier this week, the Department of Commerce says it has good news in job creation.  A close look at the data, however, show the program falls far short of promises for jobs and energy savings.

This morning the state’s Department of Commerce is touting the success of its low-income weatherization program.  In its press release the Department highlights the findings from its weatherization report, “Washington State Low-Income Weatherization Program Evaluation Report for FY2010,” which claims that 7,474 households will benefit from $1.4 million in direct energy savings as a result of a record number of homes being weatherized between July 2009 and June 2010.

According to Commerce, “… the Weatherization Program benefits exceed program costs by 50 percent; that is, for every dollar invested there is a dollar and a half returned.”

In addition, Commerce claims that approximately 180 jobs were created and retained as a direct result of these weatherization projects.

The claims of program benefits and job creation from Department’s weatherization press release deserve further scrutiny.

Consider the claim that the program benefits exceed costs.  Commerce claims the average weatherized household will receive nearly $385 in economic benefit.  But less than half of the economic benefit is from direct energy savings, which amounts to roughly $189 per year. 

The rest of the economic benefit, $196 per year, comes from speculative, non-energy related benefits.  These ancillary benefits include decreases in delinquent bills, improved comfort and value and emission reductions.  Even the authors of the Commerce report are uncertain of the actual benefit from these ancillary savings.  In the report they note:

“Because non-energy benefits are difficult to measure, there is some uncertainty in our estimates.  However, the results of this analysis and others show these benefits are important.  They make significant contribution to Program cost effectiveness.”

The average weatherization project cost $6,070 to complete.  That means that even with the questionable non-energy benefits counted, it would take nearly 16 years for the benefits to exceed the costs.  Without the ancillary benefits the pay back on these projects is more than 32 years, equivalent to a project installed when Ronald Reagan was elected finally paying off next year.  The Commerce report authors also note that the energy savings from the weatherization program will not exceed the costs.  The report states:

“Note that energy benefits alone do not exceed Program costs for any of the scenarios.”

Based on these results, the weatherization program hardly seems like an efficient way to achieve energy savings.

The Department of Commerce also claims success in creating and “retaining” 180 full-time jobs during the same reporting period.  These jobs were reported using quarterly reports required because federal stimulus funds, from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, were used to fund these projects.

In total, the weatherization program spent $42 million to create the 180 full-time jobs.  This means that Commerce spent about $233,000 to create each job. We have previously discussed what a living wage “green job” means when reviewing job creation claims.  A high number, like the one seen here, indicates that the project is simply not viable without major public funding.

As we have seen with other weatherization programs (“Green” weatherization claims don’t add up), the claims of success in energy savings and job creation often fall short of the promises made.  Yet again this appears to be the case with the state’s low-income weatherization program.

If the goal is to help low-income households with energy costs, perhaps the program can tout successes, but if economic stimulus through energy efficiency and job creation was the goal, the state missed the mark again.