Arlington County’s Energy Lending Library program has received the Virginia Association of Counties (VACo) 2017 Achievement Award.

The award recognizes the program as an innovative effort to help residents save energy and leave a lighter environmental footprint. For 15 years, the achievement award has recognized model local government programs in Virginia. Arlington County’s Energy Lending Library program was one of 17 recipients of this year’s award.

Arlington’s Initiative to Rethink Energy (AIRE), in partnership with the Arlington Public Library, launched the first-of-its-kind Energy Lending Library program in 2016, with the goal of increasing energy awareness and encouraging residents to make their homes more energy efficient.

Through the program, residents can borrow free energy efficiency tools from their local library, along with the information needed to identify and act on energy efficiency opportunities. These tools include: a thermal camera, a sampler kit of 10 different LED lightbulbs, an energy meter to manage home electricity use, and Do-It-Yourself energy retrofit books.

Thermal cameras and LED samplers have proved so popular that cameras and bulb boxes have been added to the library to reduce the wait time. In conjunction with the lending library, Arlington County also introduced the County’s Home Energy Rebates to incent residents to insulate their homes and replace old equipment with energy efficient air conditioners, furnaces, and water heaters.

AIRE programs offer the community a variety of energy-saving resources to help rethink energy use and achieve the goals outlined in Arlington’s Community Energy Plan, which calls for a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 75 percent by 2050.

Arlington County will be presented with the Achievement Award at VACo’s 2017 Annual Conference in November.

To check out energy-saving tools and literature, visit the AIRE: Energy Lending Library webpage.

Learn more about Arlington’s Initiative to Rethink Energy.