Canary Library

Pecan Street’s new analysis explores the opportunities for policymakers and utilities to remove a significant barrier to residential electrification. By incentivizing electric service panel upgrades for existing homes and requiring larger capacity panels for new construction, we can clear the path for full residential electrification. This is also a critical opportunity to ensure a just energy transition by creating sliding incentives based on household income levels.

To address climate and equity challenges, utilities will have to transform the way they plan – ensuring that a full range of resources are considered to meet utility customers’ needs. This should include both supply- and demand-side options, as well as distributed energy resources.

One of the most important opportunities to advocate for such outcomes is via integrated resource plans, or IRPs, which regulated utilities submit to their public utility commission. PUC processes need public input, but participation has historically been limited because of the technical and legal expertise required. Participating in Power, the product of a collaboration between RAP and the Institute for Market Transformation, aims to address that barrier.

Our entire country is engaged in a broad and long-overdue examination of the roles that race and racism play in our society – our legal system, workforce, communities, politics, schools and more. Race also plays a role in energy – who has access to it, how much they pay for it, who works in the energy industry, who lives near our power plants, and who has a seat at the table to determine energy choices that town, city, state and federal governments make on our behalf.

To meet the European Union’s carbon goal of reducing emissions by at least 55% net from 1990 levels, the European Commission wants the buildings sector to take the lead. The EU’s Climate Plan Impact Assessment sees building renovations and sustainable renewable heating system replacements cutting carbon emissions in the sector by 60% by 2030. At the same time, this transformation must be equitable. 

This report makes the case that a comprehensive framework is needed to tackle the market failures and barriers to buildings sector decarbonisation. Regulatory measures and carbon pricing can help drive the demand for energy efficiency and heating system replacements. But significant efforts are needed to mitigate the impact of increased energy prices on energy-poor, vulnerable and low-income households with the worst performing buildings.

As states and cities across the United States work to cut carbon emissions from every sector, they’re starting to tackle a crucial transition: eliminating fossil fuels in buildings. Burning fossil fuels, primarily gas, to heat space and water and cook food poses a risk to climate goals and public health. Thus, spurring the shift to modern, electric appliances like heat pumps becomes critical.

To help inform these decisions, we are expanding and improving upon our previous economic analysis to give a full picture of the cost of all-electric housing, starting with new, single-family homes in seven U.S. cities.