Rental Efficiency Initiative

The Rental Efficiency Initiative is our commitment to educate Athens County renters about reducing energy use through the Smart Renter email campaign, LED light bulb distribution, and a landlord engagement campaign to improve the efficiency of rental units.

Athens County is comprised of a large renters market, with students and former students of Ohio University (Athens, OH) and Hocking College (Nelsonville, OH) moving in and out of rental homes on a one year or less lease. This brings a unique challenge in implementing energy efficiency or renewable energy projects EBAC, whereas working with homeowners, who have been living in their home for over a year or more, is much easier due to a number of factors including expendable income and financial security.


This initiative furthers UpGrade Ohio’s exempt purpose of education on energy conservation. The activity is conducted by the Rental Efficiency Committee (REC), comprised of volunteers with UpGrade Ohio staff working to bring landlords and tenants together to improve the comfort and energy use of rental units.

As you will learn on the REC page, The Smart Renter email campaign portion of this project is sponsored by Kleinpenny LLC and the LED light bulbs were donated by AEP Ohio. This activity benefits Athens County renters and landlords as well as AEP Ohio and Kleinpenny LLC (via advertising). These activities began in January 2015 and plan to continue throughout 2016.

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