New builds abound! Meet Robyn, our 66th Climate Fund grant winner, local photographer and organizer for Spirit of Tompkins and the We are Ithaca project. As a very active community member, living in the Town of Enfield, we are so excited to help fund Robyn’s air source heat pump in her new home. Initially, she was going to install a propane tank, but Thom Mayo of Ethereal Energy suggested she install a heat pump instead – good going, Thom! We typically help homeowners convert from an existing older fossil fuel system, but for this special case, we estimated the propane consumption in a house of that square footage built to today’s energy standards and based our offset award on that. In addition to the heat pump, Robyn is also building her new home so sustainably – with passive solar and triple-pane windows, reclaimed materials, energy recovery ventilation (ERV), and lots of insulation! As a result of preventing 40 tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere, Robyn is the winner of a $998 Climate Fund award plus a $2,000 LMI Heatsmart fund award. We can’t wait to see how her new place turns out!