By Maggie Molina | Thu, July 18, 24
Last month, NEEP convened thought leaders from across the Northeast region at its annual Summit in Weehawken, New Jersey. We enjoyed good company over Dinner Clubs at local restaurants, took in astounding views of the NYC skyline, and dropped in Hamilton references whenever possible (Weehawken is where Hamilton met his fate in the infamous duel). And consistent with our Summit theme - It’s Go Time - we got right to work tackling challenges and solutions to advance ambitious energy efficiency, building decarbonization, and energy affordability goals. Here are some themes that we took away from the communities, federal policymakers, and state and local leaders who spoke at the Summit, and what lies ahead for the region’s clean energy movement.
Communities Not Throwing Away Their Shot to Lead Equitable Solutions
Local organizations are leading innovative programs for building energy efficiency and community transformation. For example, Hester Street, a nonprofit that advances racial and economic justice through community-based planning, highlighted its work in New York in partnership with NYSERDA to engage external stakeholders in a way that centers equity. WE Act for Environmental Justice also shared its approach as the Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center (TCTAC) for NY, NJ, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Some of the takeaways these two organizations shared included:
- While black and brown communities typically bear the brunt of fossil fuel emissions in their neighborhoods, framing them from a deficit perspective (e.g. as disadvantaged communities) can be seen as patronizing and unproductive.
- Neighborhoods should be shaped by the people who live there, not by planners, developers, architects, owners, etc. It’s not enough just to “make space” for community-based organizations at the table – rather, we should center the table around them.
- As skilled negotiators we should put the same effort into “making a deal” with communities as we do with our for-profit business partners. This means coming to the conversation with humility, listening deeply, and being open to having your idea change. If your idea doesn’t change, you are likely not truly engaging.
- We should not shy away from conflict. Working through conflict creates opportunities to build trust.
- We must be honest with community-based organizations about the parameters of their involvement, and refrain from making promises about how their input will be used if we can’t deliver on those promises.
Indeed, communities are pivotal to successful implementation of energy justice goals from federal and state policymakers, as we heard from the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Community Engagement, and in the Future-Proofing Justice40 session, facilitated by CASA (formerly CASA de Maryland). This session featured leaders in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Delaware that are designing new environmental justice and community engagement. While many of these efforts are new, they are being called for and championed by senior state leadership and can build on the lessons from communities highlighted above.
We heard this theme of community engagement in a rate design session, in an exchange between a regulatory policymaker working on the complexities of rate design and a community leader representing the voices of consumers. Rate design reform will be a critical policy tool for equitable building decarbonization, and it must be done with honest conversations and good analysis. And we are seeing states like Massachusetts begin reform efforts such as through its Interagency Rates Working Group, which other states can follow.
Federal Legislation Creates Paradigm Shift, but Implementation is Taking Time
Leaders from the Department of Energy (DOE), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) shared updates from efforts to advance building decarbonization through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), aka our pals Bill and Ira. While each agency is charged with their own programs and rules, they shared examples of working across the federal family to design programs that can be leveraged and scaled – and often facing considerable staffing challenges. New requirements such as Justice40, community benefits plans, and market transformation plans are envisioned as so much more than one-time requirements, but to fundamentally transform practices that can endure beyond these federal programs through state and local practices.
In deep-dive sessions on the DOE Home Energy Rebates program, we heard directly from states in the session, Rebate Debate: State Playbooks for Maxing Out IRA Rebates. Officials from New Jersey, Maine, and New York shared their planned approaches, and we heard a strong focus on reaching multifamily buildings and manufactured housing. This month, DOE announced that Maine is among new states that has had its application approved for the home electrification and application rebates.
In the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) session, we heard from selected coalitions on the scale of the opportunity but also the hard truths on how implementation takes time and will face challenges. As coalitions move from selection to negotiations, we must confront the realities that while the scale of the opportunity is significant, $27 billion will only scratch the surface of the need. We will need state and local leaders to create a durable policy platform to leverage these federal funds but establish long-term opportunities for lenders.
State Leaders at the Forefront in Setting the Table for Building Decarbonization
The Summit kicked off with remarks from New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) President, Christine Guhl-Sadovy. She highlighted the opportunity to leverage federal resources to reach the state’s building decarbonization goals, the process underway to review and approve significant new 2025-2027 energy efficiency program investments in the state, and the challenges we face in educating consumers on energy efficiency and building decarbonization. New Jersey is one of 5 states in the Northeast setting major multi-year energy efficiency plans, and for the first time it is requiring utilities to file beneficial electrification plans.
New Jersey is one of several states in the region going through an evolution of regulatory structures for energy efficiency, as we heard in the Utility of the Future: Decarbonization Edition plenary session. Energy efficiency programs are being called upon to do more including building electrification, but that implementation faces real challenges with upfront costs and affordability. The session also highlighted the critical role that building performance standards (BPS) are playing in driving building decarbonization investments, and the important partnership between utilities and local jurisdictions implementing BPS (such as NYC’s Local Law 97), The Northeast is a leading region on BPS with at least seven jurisdictions having this policy. As we bust these policy silos, we must build foundational policies in their place to set the table for building decarbonization as NEEP describes in our new paper in partnership with NESCAUM and RAP.
Emerging Heat Pump Technologies and Grid-Interactive Buildings
Heat pump solutions are making major advances but much more is needed to scale market transformation and bring new solutions to meet ambitious climate goals. We tackled recent trends and tools in our “Day Zero” heating electrification working group meeting, and will continue the conversation at our Heating Electrification Workshop in November in New York State.
The Summit also elevated emerging solutions including a deep dive session on networked geothermal heating, which featured HEET and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. The session highlighted recent pilots such as the Framingham, MA project through Eversource, and inspired Summit attendees to envision the opportunities for networked geothermal to deliverable affordable and clean energy for homes and businesses throughout the region.
Buildings can serve as a resource for electricity planners, as discussed in the deep dive session on the Role of Building Decarbonization in Optimizing our Grid. We heard from the New York Power Authority about buildings as grid-interactive resources that can combine energy efficiency and storage solutions to shed and shift load when and where the grid needs it most.
Not a Moment, it’s a Movement
NEEP’s Annual Summit is just one moment in this movement to equitably decarbonize our region’s buildings and economies. We regularly convene community leaders, practitioners, technology experts, and policymakers across the fields of energy, climate, housing, and consumer advocacy because we know that no single agency or stakeholder group can problem solve on its own. These takeaways capture many but still just a fraction of the solutions and ideas for rapid and equitable building decarbonization. We look forward to continuing this hard work together!