Sacramento Home Energy Equity Pilot

November 15, 2024

New Quick Start Grant Report

The City of Sacramento aimed to create a scalable model for electrifying and repairing homes, maximizing household benefits, and mitigating displacement risks for low-income residents. To accomplish this, the project specifically focused on addressing barriers that prevent low-income households and residents in disadvantaged communities from adopting heat pumps, including a lack of awareness and trust in the technology, high upfront costs, and the difficult rebate processes. By collaborating with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) to install heat pumps and weatherization upgrades in income-qualified homes, the City of Sacramento demonstrates a scalable model for others to adopt in an effort to increase heat pump adoption across similar communities.

Limited awareness and confidence are some of the leading barriers that deter customers and contractors from exploring heat pump technologies as a viable option for a home. High upfront costs further discourage interested homeowners from pursuing heat pump retrofits. Moreover, the significant costs related to major home upgrades, particularly in an aging housing stock, threaten the financial well-being of vulnerable households. Compounding these challenges is the process of securing multiple rebates, which often have complex eligibility requirements, hinders the advancement of home electrification and heat pump adoption.

This project sought to increase awareness and trust among households facing significant barriers to heat pump adoption by providing a learning opportunity to understand the bill impacts and quality-of-life changes that result from electrification upgrades. The project team leveraged existing programs and processes to identify a model for municipalities, utilities, and community organizations fostering partnerships and administering holistic electrification services in tandem. Through these investments, the project demonstrates how housing stabilization and building decarbonization efforts work together.

Upon completion, this project has prompted conversations between the City of Sacramento and project partners regarding how renters or residents of multifamily buildings could benefit from residential electrification. Moving forward, SMUD has secured $3 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to fund a neighborhood-based approach to home electrification in the Meadowview neighborhood of Sacramento where lessons learned from implementing this Quick Start Grant will directly inform the City’s building decarbonization strategy and refined approaches for SMUD to electrify customer homes.

To learn more about this Quick Start Grant, read the full report.