With increasingly urgent need for climate action, the emphasis for home performance has shifted from energy savings to decarbonization. Energy upgrades of existing buildings through electrification is a vital part of the decarbonization process of the building stock in the US to meet climate goals. But what are the fastest and most affordable ways to decarbonize homes at a large enough scale to have significant impacts? To answer this question, we conducted a cost breakdown analysis to determine where cost reduction efforts can be focused and what approaches can be used to reduce costs. These results were combined with a survey of industry professionals to identify potential solutions that can be used by contractors to sell and justify decarbonization upgrades. The cost-breakdown used data gathered from over 1,700 energy upgrade projects and the survey included responses from 73 home performance professionals. This session will discuss measures suited to cost compression with big impacts with a focus on scalability. The session will be interactive, seeking feedback from the audience on topics such as: How they are selling electrification/decarbonization to homeowners? What is working/not? What are people's concerns with electrification technologies? Can the home performance workforce adapt to this new focus?
Learning Objectives:
By attending this session, attendees will:
Identify potential economic and technological solutions that can be implemented to quickly achieve decarbonization through electrification
Understand how the proposed economic and technological strategies are necessary for the decarbonization process of the existing building stock in the US
Improved understanding of the costs and performance of electrification as a pathway to decarbonization
