AUGUSTA — This mild winter helped homeowners hold down their fuel costs, but with the cost of heating fuel up 300 percent in the past decade, “mild weather doesn’t help much,” the director of Efficiency Maine said Wednesday.

“The total cost to heat our homes is still too high,” said Michael Stoddard, who joined a federal official to announce a new program, PowerSaver, that will provide loans to homeowners at 4.99 percent interest for projects that meet an energy-saving threshold of 20 percent.

Terms are up to 20 years, depending on the project, and borrowers must have enough home equity to cover the loan amount.

Michael Freedberg of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development said Maine is among the first states to start a HUD-supported PowerSaver program.

PowerSaver will complement the Maine PACE home weatherization loan program, which is also run by the independent trust Efficiency Maine.

While the arrival of spring tends to ease worries about high energy prices, officials and contractors said oil prices are likely to stay at record highs in the months ahead. The majority of Maine homes heat with oil.

“Mainers should not wait until next winter to fix their homes,” said Richard Burbank, owner of Evergreen Home Performance in Rockland. “High heating oil prices and a cold winter next heating season could devastate homeowners in Maine. Now is the time to weatherize.”