Building Decarbonization Coalition has advanced its Roadmap for Decarbonizing California’s Buildings by releasing a policy roadmap to the implementation of accessible financing co-authored by a team that included Clean Energy Works.
Building Decarbonization Coalition has invited stakeholder participation from the earliest stages of the project, which has been informed by the Equitable Building Electrification framework issued earlier by Greenlining Institute and Energy Efficiency For All.
Nearly 300 people registered for the online briefing on the release of the new report “Towards an Accessible Financing Solution: A Policy Roadmap with Program Implementation Considerations for Tariffed On-Bill Programs in California”. The briefing deck and recording can be found here.
The Building Decarbonization Coalition announced the release of its long sought report this way:
“On the heels of newly released data showing that California’s clean energy programs disproportionately benefit the wealthy, a first-of-its-kind roadmap outlines how low-and moderate-income and renter households across California, which together make up more than 40 percent of the state’s population, can access building upgrades that enable greater access to clean technologies that slash indoor air pollution.
Widespread participation in clean, electric home upgrades is critical to meaningfully reduce harmful building emissions, yet clean energy investments remain out of reach for many energy customers who have neither the money to afford the upgrades nor the credit necessary to borrow what they cost.
The roadmap is a tool to help policymakers craft policies that eliminate long standing barriers like high upfront costs that prevent many California households from making clean energy investments—and also support the scale of investment needed to meet California’s looming climate targets.
One innovative financing tool would expand access to cleaner, healthier electric homes using tariffed on-bill programs. These allow a utility to pay for cost-effective energy improvements at a specific residence, such as home heating and cooling units, and to recover its costs for those improvements over time through a dedicated charge on the utility bill that is immediately less than the estimated savings from the improvements.
These financing tools boost clean energy investments among low-income Californians–those most likely to be left depending on the declining gas system as wealthier customers voluntarily switch to clean energy—while at the same time expanding access to clean energy across all incomes.”
The full report can be found on The Building Decarbonization Coalition website.