New Jersey and in some case in partnership with the US Dept of Energy (DOE) provides several programs to assist low income families to address the cost of energy. They include both utility bill assistance and energy efficiency programs.
Utility Bill Assistance
- Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)
This is a federal funded program to help very low-income residents with their heating and cooling bills. See NJ Dept. of Community Affairs (DCA) website at https://www.nj.gov/dca/divisions/dhcr/offices/hea.html for more details on eligibility.
- Universal Services Fund (USF)
This is a NJBPU ratepayer funded program managed by NJDCA that helps to make energy bills more affordable for low income customers with a cost no more than 6% of their total income. The typical assistance is approximately 50% of a customers electric or natural gas bill. See NJDCA website at https://www.nj.gov/dca/divisions/dhcr/offices/usf.html for more details on eligibility
- Lifeline
This is a NJBPU ratepayer funded program managed by the Department of Human Services Division of Aging (DHHS) that helps qualifying disable person and senior citizens to make their electric and natural gas bills more affordable. See the DHHS website at https://www.state.nj.us/humanservices/doas/home/lifelinedetail.html for more details on eligibility.
- Payment Assistance for Gas and Electric (PAGE)
This is a NJBPU ratepayer funded program managed by the Affordable Housing Alliance (AHA) to help low and moderate income customers that are experiencing a recent economic hardship and are struggling with payment of their utility bills. See AHA website at https://njpoweron.org/page/ for more details on eligibility.
- Winter (non) Termination Program
This program runs from November 15th through March 15th and prevents customers in any of the energy assistance programs and other assistance programs from having their natural gas or electric service disconnected. See NJBPU Customer Assistance website at https://www.nj.gov/bpu/assistance/index.html for more information.
Energy Assistance Programs
- Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP)
This is a federal funded program to help elderly, handicapped and low-income residents to weatherizing their homes, improving their heating system efficiency and conserving energy and assists community-based agencies in providing WAP assistance. Their annual federal budget allocation is approximately $8 million and they weatherize approximately 1,000 homes. See the NJDCA website at https://www.nj.gov/dca/divisions/dhcr/offices/wap.html for more detail.
- Comfort Partners
This is a NJBPU ratepayer funded energy efficiency program for low income customers. It is available to all utility electric and natural gas customers with significant energy usage and with a household income at or below 250% of the federal poverty level. It covers the full cost of the qualified EE installed. The FY 2020 budget was $45 million and the Comfort Partners program typically helps approximately 6,000 households saving them over $250 annually on their energy bills. The See NJBPU Clean Energy program website at https://www.njcleanenergy.com/residential/programs/comfort-partners/comfort-partners for more details on the program.