TECH Clean California 2022 Quick Start Grant Recipients Launch Programs
May 22, 2023, Oakland, CA
TECH Clean California awarded eight 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 May 1, 2023, all eight recipients have launched their pilots.
The 2022 recipients span a wide range of organizations and ideas with an emphasis on benefiting hard-to-reach communities or households with limited incomes, 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 black, indigenous, and people-of-color (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 for 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.
Goodwill Southern California – Career Pathways to Advance the HVAC Trades in Heat Pump Services will expand the base of contractors available for state-of-the-art heat pump installations. This pilot will support workforce placement and preparation efforts in the HVAC trades, with a focus on heat pump technologies.
Climate Resolve – Scaling Heat Pump Retrofits in Housing with Cost Barriers pilot will examine the range of greenhouse gas savings from the implementation of heat pump retrofits as a component of residential electrification. The pilot will also explore whether these reductions are large enough to support green financing for housing with cost barriers to heat pump adoption.
Bright Power – Aligning Utility Allowances with Electrification pilot will address barriers affordable housing residents may find by facilitating a heat pump installation in affordable housing through utility allowance research and education, and by providing learnings that can be used to overcome utility allowance barriers statewide. This pilot will provide insights into utility allowance conditions and impacts and encourage building owners to install HPs instead of gas furnaces and conventional air conditioners.
More information and details about the 2022 Quick Start Grant recipients can be found at our Quick Start Grants page.
TECH Clean California is a statewide initiative to accelerate the adoption of clean space and water heating technology across California homes, The initiative provides market incentives and workforce education and training to make it easier for distributors and contractors to stock, sell, and install low-emissions heat pump technology for residential replacement projects. TECH Clean California was designed to support both existing programs through matched incentive funding and to extend statewide incentives emphasizing access for low-income and disadvantaged communities. To find out more, email TECH.info@energy-solution.com.