Hello Partners!

Building electrification is definitely a popular buzz word these days. However, as with most buzz words, people use them without fully understanding the meaning. In this case, people sometimes use the term “building electrification” without fully understanding its impacts. Let us start with the definition of building electrification. According to the Urban Sustainability Directors Network, building electrification means, “converting building systems that use fossil fuels (gas, oil, or propane) to high-efficiency, electric equipment that can be powered by increasingly clean and renewable energy.” The term building decarbonization is also often used interchangeably.

Sounds simple enough, right?

Building electrification has many benefits. One of the most obvious benefits is the benefit to our environment. Especially, as we increase the amount of energy we are getting from renewable resources, the more we are able to reduce our carbon emissions. Another benefit is the improvement of indoor air quality. As we begin to remove combustion appliances and fossil fuels from our homes, we reduce the likelihood of those appliances emitting CO2 into the environment inside our homes.

Other benefits to building electrification are economic. For example, it is estimated that an all-electric transition, including electric vehicles, “can create up to 25 million jobs in the near term and an estimated 5 million jobs sustained over time- roughly double the number of jobs supported by today’s energy industry.”

On the other hand, building electrification may not be the silver bullet everyone believes it is. Meaning, it may not be the right solution for everyone. For example, there is a considerable portion of the population that will not be able to make the change due to financial constraints. This is the portion of our population that pays the largest percentage of their income toward energy costs. An increase in their cost would not be tolerated well, in fact, this would likely have a considerable impact on our economy.

Furthermore, the process of making everyone more dependent upon electricity will have consequences when considering the ever-increasing number of climate events each year. Why might this be? Well, climate events increase the need for Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) events. These PSPS events may very well leave some people in a vulnerable position.

While, as an organization, we support increasing the amount of renewable energy on the grid, we hope to see the transition done in a thoughtful manner that takes into account the needs of everyone that will be impacted.

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Sources:
https://www.aceee.org/research-report/b2201
|https://rmi.org/eight-benefits-of-building-electrification-for-households-communities-and-climate/#:~:text=Building%20electrification%20is%20the%20movement,that%20should%20not%20be%20overlooked.
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/so-what-exactly-is-building-electrification
https://www.usdn.org/uploads/cms/documents/city-utility_building_electrification_primer_final_pdf.