This report examines how budget-constrained households balance spending on air conditioning versus other essentials like food and clothing during hot weather. Using banking data from Houston, Los Angeles, and Chicago, it finds that low-income households often cope with high electricity bills by reducing air conditioning use and enduring more heat. The findings aim to help policymakers identify strategies to better support these households and improve their welfare amid rising temperatures.

Electrifying heating systems with air-to-air heat pumps is crucial for achieving global greenhouse gas targets. This report uses simulations of 550,000 U.S. households to evaluate the costs and benefits of various heat pump performance levels and insulation upgrades. The analysis highlights the potential for significant emissions reductions and identifies the importance of efficiency and insulation in optimizing cost-effectiveness. It also suggests that supportive incentives and policies may be necessary to address affordability challenges and promote widespread adoption.

ACEEE is working with a group of interested market actors, including manufacturers, software providers, contractors, and program administrators to explore the feasibility of a market development initiative to support multistage retrofit offerings and build consumer awareness and demand for these offerings. This report summarizes findings from interviews and discussions with stakeholders. 

Large multifamily buildings with central heating systems that burn fossil fuels are among the hardest to decarbonize, but new systems such as window-mounted heat pumps, central air-to-water heat pumps, and “mono-block” mini heat pumps provide new options for decarbonizing these buildings. This report finds that window heat pumps generally have the lowest life-cycle capital and energy costs compared to various decarbonization options. 

With a shifting funding landscape and unique equity considerations, affordable housing providers are seeking resources and guidance on how to best incorporate decarbonization strategies across their portfolios. This brief summary reviews the findings of Enterprise's efforts to understand how affordable housing providers are engaging with decarbonization and what is needed to advance the field. The brief makes recommendations for the development of new resources and tools.

Low- and moderate-income (LMI) families spend larger-than-average shares of their incomes on energy bills, but efficiency improvements that would cut bills are often unaffordable. This topic brief argues that coordinating and expanding existing energy efficiency programs can help expand their reach and make them accessible to more families.

Retrofit navigator programs streamline the retrofit process, reach buildings and households that are often left out, and center the most critical community priorities. This document is a step-by-step guide for designing and implementing programs based on best practices. This slide-based report outlines the scope of need, problems with traditional retrofit programs, best practices for designing retrofit navigator programs, steps for designing and launching a retrofit navigator program, and case studies of successful existing programs from Philadelphia, Madison, and New York City.

Salem Heights Apartments, an affordable multifamily property in Massachusetts, recently underwent a deep energy retrofit to achieve passive house performance. This case study highlights the retrofit design strategies that enable 60% energy use reduction and show the integrated benefit of efficiency improvements, electrification, and solar. Specific strategies are described for the building envelope, exterior insulation, HVAC, and solar energy.

Over half of California’s 3.2 million multifamily units were constructed before energy efficiency standards, resulting in poor performance and high greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve California’s greenhouse gas reduction goals, affordable multifamily housing must improve energy efficiency, reduce carbon emissions, and lower tenant utility bills while enhancing quality of life. Yet building owners face many challenges to improving the performance of their buildings. This report covers the role certain types of energy service agreements, combined with federal incentives, can play in scaling affordable multifamily retrofits.

Geothermal heat pumps offer highly efficient heating and cooling without fossil fuels. They are especially valuable in supplying heating on extremely cold days and support heating electrification with only modest impacts on electric grids. These heat pumps are widely applicable from single family homes to large properties, or even networked systems providing heating and cooling to entire neighborhoods. The blog article highlights the characteristics of this technology and new opportunities for greater adoption.