TECH Clean California 2022 Quick Start Grant Recipients Launch Programs

February 24, 2023, Oakland

TECH Clean California awarded seven recipients with Quick Start Grants to fund targeted, innovative pilots that test approaches to overcoming market barriers to heat pump space and water heating adoption. By testing these transformation approaches, the Quick Start Grant program will promote the development and refinement of interventions that can be scaled into statewide solutions. By March 1, 2023, all seven recipients will launch their pilots.

The 2022 recipients span a wide range of organizations and ideas aimed at finding solutions to help the state of California reach its carbon reduction goals. Here are the recipients, and grant highlights:

Diversity Coalition – Developing Targeted and Inclusive Marketing and Educational Materials for Equitable Electrification will test clean energy messages and strategies that resonate with BIPOC and low-to-moderate-income (LMI) communities. The grant will also address how community-based marketing and outreach campaigns can successfully educate BIPOC and LMI communities about immediate bill reduction strategies and lead to heat pump adoption.

RHA - Heat Pump Water Heater Best Practices and Field Guide will address how to ensure quality, replicable heat pump water heater retrofits across California through a trained contractor workforce with access to just-in-time knowledge about installation methods as they work.

City of Sacramento -- The Sacramento Housing Anti-displacement and Energy Equity Pilot will address how a city, a municipal utility, and a community-based organization can partner to increase heat pump adoption and bring the benefit of whole-home electrification to low-income homeowners while simultaneously promoting neighborhood stabilization and maximizing community co-benefits.

350 Bay Area - A Fast Path to Clean Indoor Air pilot will test the cost-effectiveness of a meantime fast-path approach to heat pump deployment to provide immediate and significant improvement to health. The pilot will provide insight and data on the advisability of providing incentives for the deployment of portable heat pumps and under which conditions.

Viridis Consulting Heather Village – This grant will develop a Homeowner Association-led effort to accelerate the transition of a historically excluded community, with an aging housing stock, to heat pumps at a lower cost per unit. This pilot will fill a technical gap in understanding what it will take to electrify an entire community by using the decision-making of a Homeowner Association.

Read more about these pilots on our Quick Starts Grant page.