Today’s homes consume energy directly in several forms including electricity, fossil gas, heating oil, propane gas, and wood. This energy is used to do many things including to heat our rooms, heat our water, and prepare our food.
The types of energy a home might use for each of these “end uses” might differ based on several factors like the home’s age, its geographic location, or the appliance choices of its owner.
Building electrification means replacing an appliance or machine in the home that doesn’t use electricity - and might burn wood or burn fossil fuels - with a newer machine that only uses electricity. Switching to electric-only appliances in our homes while, at the same time, the electricity grid switches to 100% clean energy will ensure that we move away from fossil fuels as soon as possible.
Building electrification is a key opportunity to implement the principles of a Just Transition, and transform our homes into regenerative places to live, play, and thrive. However, as the Climate Justice Alliance reminds us, “Transition is inevitable. Justice is not.” To ensure the transition to clean buildings is just, we must use this opportunity to build energy democracy, expand community ownership, address existing inequities, and focus on building what we need now.
This collection gathers a set of tools, research, and media coverage about the topic of building electrification from many different sources into one place. Some of these are specifically framed around equity. As a whole, they represent the technology, policy, and equity data and research available as of April 2021. Below you can click on the links directly or browse the tiles at the bottom of the page.
Electrification Technology & Policy
This includes technology explainers, data on fossil fuel uses, and policy and implementation proposals or discussions.
Technology
- Technical report on decarbonization and 100% clean energy: Deep Decarbonization in a High Renewables Future (E3 for California Energy Commission, June 2018)
- Analysis and report on cost scenarios: The Economics of Electrifying Buildings (Rocky Mountain Institute, 2018)
- Data charts about fossil fuel uses (by state): The Impact of Fossil Fuels in Buildings (Rocky Mountain Institute, 2019)
- Deep dive on specific appliances and machines by geography with an installation focus: Heat Pump Retrofit Strategies for Multifamily Buildings (Steven Winter Associates, Inc., April 2019)
- Video: Gas-free homes (Sierra Club, December 2019)
- Video: How a Heat Pump Works (This Old House, October 2019)
Energy Policy and Programs
- Landscape analysis of existing programs and opportunities in the American Midwest: Equitable Building Electrification for Rural Electric Cooperatives: Electrifying Residential Space and Water Heating in the Midwest (Environmental and Energy Study Institute, June 2019)
- How to develop equitably policy for building electrification: Equitable Building Electrification: A Framework for Powering Resilient Communities (Greenlining, September 2019)
- Technical and policy context for the gas utility system including rates, financing, and system planning: California’s Gas System In Transition (Gridworks, September 2019)
- Review of early status of building blocks, benefits, and challenges to building electrification with an energy democracy perspective: The Building Electrification Equity Project (Emerald Cities Collaborative, April 2020)
- Technical report on the need for a comprehensive transition strategy: The Challenge of Retail Gas in California’s Low-Carbon Future (E3 for California Energy Commission, April 2020)
- Guide for city agency staff on how to potentially structure a community engagement strategy for equitable electrification: Climate Equity & Community Engagement in Building Electrification Tool Kit (PODER and Emerald Cities, 2020)
- Example of a working decarbonization program for low-income multifamily: Equitable Electrification: Program Models that Work for Existing Low Income Multifamily Buildings (Association for Energy Affordability, 2020)
- Recommendations for what to ask utility regulators for: Renovating Regulation to Electrify Buildings: A Guide for the Handy Regulator (Regulatory Assistance Project, January 2021)
Housing Policy
This includes examples of housing policy proposals and other community resilience proposals that recognize the housing crisis, community stability needs, and the climate crisis together, and include building electrification as a key element of creating safe and healthy homes for all.
- Comprehensive proposal for investing in housing and decarbonization: People’s Action campaign for a Homes Guarantee (September 2019)
- Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal for a “Green New Deal for Public Housing Act”:
- Bill text (November 2019)
- Data for Progress and climate + community project’s research and analysis landing page (ongoing)
- Federal policy proposal for converting housing to community ownership and control while electrifying them at the same time: NYU Gallatin Urban Democracy Lab’s white paper “The Case for a Social Housing Development Authority” (November 2020)
- Policy requests from established affordable housing providers in early 2021 to address the COVID crisis: the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s comments on January 2021 stimulus & gaps (January 2021)
- Proposed solutions to ensure barriers are reduced for affordable housing providers in California: Prioritizing California’s Affordable Housing in the Transition Towards Equitable Building Decarbonization (March 2021)
- Ongoing research repository from University of California Los Angeles on national and global housing justice research and strategy development: The #UnequalCities Scholarship repository, supported by federal investment from the National Science Foundation (ongoing)
Schools & Communities
- A California environmental justice + labor proposal (APEN + SEIU + Blue Green Alliance) to invest in social infrastructure, community resilience hubs: “Resilience Before Disaster: The Need to Build Equitable, Community-Driven Social Infrastructure” (September 2020)
- Rep. Jamal Bowman’s proposal for “A Green Stimulus for K-12 Schools”:
- Bowman’s press release (March 2021)
- climate + community project’s research and analysis landing page (March 2021)
Media Coverage
This is a topic with new stories coming out all the time. Below are a few news articles, opinion pieces, and investigative journalism pieces about the benefits of electrification, the context of this technology rollout during the COVID crisis, and the opposition to this clean energy initiative from fossil fuel and utility companies.
- SoCalGas Admits Funding ‘Front’ Group in Fight for Its Future (KQED, July 2019)
- N.A.A.C.P. Tells Local Chapters: Don’t Let Energy Industry Manipulate You (New York Times, January 2020)
- REPORT: COVID-19 and the Utility Debt Crisis (Vote Solar, April 2020)
- The COVID-19 Eviction Crisis: an Estimated 30-40 Million People in America Are at Risk (Aspen Institute, August 2020)
- How the Fossil Fuel Industry Convinced Americans to Love Gas Stoves (Mother Jones, February 2021)
- Fossil Fueled Foolery 2.0: An Illustrated Primer on the Fossil Fueled Industry’s Deceptive Tactics (NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program, April 2021)
- Gas heat and stoves are warming the climate. Should cities start banning them? (National Geographic, April 2021)