building decarbonization

As I expected, my water heater finally sprung a leak. The water heater was here when I bought my home almost 25 years ago, and it looked old then. The plumber who put in the new one said he had only ever seen two other water heaters this old, and thought it might even be original to the house, i.e. installed in 1965. I have been expecting it to fail for 25 years. It finally did.

In 2018, NEEP developed an Action Plan to Accelerate Strategic Electrification in the Northeast. The plan came out of an extensive process that included an ongoing steering committee, the production of a regional resource assessment, and a two day conference with over 100 people.

Energy and Environmental Economics (E3), a California based consultancy, has taken a detailed look at the economics of electrification on behalf of three California utilities. The results show that: “All new construction homes and the majority (84 percent) of existing single-family homes with A/C would save by going all-electric.” For homes with air conditioning, the efficiency of advanced heat pumps leads to bill savings that outweigh higher initial costs.

This blog was written by Mark Kresowik of Sierra Club, a Building Decarb Central partner, and represents the organization's work and approach. Building Decarb Central is meant to share different perspectives on the topic of building decarbonization. This blog is part of that dialogue.

The market of buying and selling homes is evolving, with consumers mindful of sustainability and the environment. At the same time, our homes are evolving and new technologies and practices are becoming increasingly prevalent in the real estate market. These technologies and practices make a home far more energy efficient than the housing stock to which we are accustomed.

Every city climate action plan I have ever read references moving to zero energy buildings as well as  more stringent or zero energy building energy codes. These are great plan elements and certainly are “doable” things to include in a plan. That said, zero energy buildings are not all that easy to accomplish across the broader market, and they certainly won’t happen without a substantial supportive effort.

You’ve probably seen the infamous “duck graph”, and then hopefully you’ve read “Teaching the Duck to Fly”. Well, now maybe we have the next example of zoomorphism in the energy world – the butterfly graph.

The commercial buildings market is very complex, with wildly divergent ownership, management control, and building characteristics. Buildings range from strip malls to office towers to convention centers to big box retail stores. Ownership could be local government, merchant builders (who build and then sell), local family businesses, international corporations, and fast food franchises. Each ownership category makes decisions very differently from the others. Some commercial buildings are incredibly complex, some buildings are cookie cutter simple and repetitive.

Thank you for taking the time to read the very first issue of Building Decarb Central.

You may be wondering where the idea for this newsletter came from, or why we’ve decided to tackle the issue of building decarbonization, so let us shed some light.

Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP) has just released Beneficial Electrification of Water Heating, a new paper in its excellent “Electrification in the Public Interest” series.