Setting the Table for Building Decarbonization

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created the Clean Power Plan in 2015 to cut carbon dioxide pollution from power plants – the largest source of carbon dioxide pollution in the U.S. – by shifting how they generate energy. The Supreme Court’s recent ruling on West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), may have prevented the Clean Power Plan from going into effect, but there…

We keep hearing about devastating storms, like hurricanes and tornadoes, destroying homes and buildings across the country. We see that no building is safe. In 2019 alone, The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimated that there were 14 weather and climate disaster events with monetary losses exceeding $1 billion dollars in the United States alone. In the aftermath of these…

This blog was co-authored by Aditi Dalal, Public Policy Associate, and Erin Cosgrove, Public Policy Manager.  Welcome to the newest installment of a new blog series called Turning Policy into Performance. In this series, we'll take a look at how states can implement decarbonization and climate goals with energy efficiency programs. Pricing carbon can account for the external costs of…

As heat waves scorch the Midwest and Southeast U.S., reminding the nation of an ever-prevailing change in climate, Maryland has set one of the most ambitious climate targets in the U.S. The Climate Solutions Now Act of 2022 (“Act”), signed into law by Governor Hogan, requires the state to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent by 2031 from 2006 levels and to achieve net-zero GHG…

Welcome to the newest installment of a new blog series called Turning Policy into Performance. In this series, we'll take a look at how states can implement decarbonization and climate goals with energy efficiency programs. Cost-benefit analyses are an important step in evaluating energy efficiency programs because they ensure that ratepayer dollars provide benefits for customers, the utility…

Total Energy Pathways (TEP) For homeowners interested in home energy retrofits, there are a variety of issues they must consider, such as weatherization, HVAC, strategic electrification, and solar photovoltaics. This can mean hiring several contractors, and coordinating multiple schedules. Total Energy Pathways (TEP) is a program that bundles all of these trades and offers them to homeowners as…

Vermont’s legislature is considering the first of its kind Clean Heat Standard (CHS). A Clean Heat Standard seeks to reduce and regulate emissions from natural gas, fuel oil, and propane distributors by creating a cap-and-trade mechanism. This mechanism operates similar to California’s transportation fuel cap-and-trade initiative and Colorado’s Clean Heat Standard for natural gas, but unlike…

Last winter, staff from NEEP’s Heating Electrification Initiative and staff from NYSERDA’s Clean Heating and Cooling teams realized we shared similar ideas about how we could enable better practices related to sizing and selecting air source heat pumps. With NYSERDA’s direct support, NEEP began working to realize these visions. After about a year of conceptualizing, designing, and iterating,…

By now we’ve all heard that buildings are a big energy user and emit a large proportion of greenhouse gases in both the U.S. and the world. But do buildings need to be a climate change problem? How can off-site construction be part of the solution? What is on-site construction? It is the most common method of construction, where all of the construction materials - such as cast-in-place concrete…

I spent one recent Sunday night going to my storage unit to get a box full of dress clothes. Working from home the past two years, it has been over 14 months since I last attended an in-person conference and even longer since I have put on a suit jacket. I was very appreciative to attend the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) BuildingEnergy Boston 2022 conference hosted recently at…