Decarbonization of the U.S. building stock presents an enormous opportunity to enhance the quality of our built environment and combat climate change, given that commercial and residential buildings account for over 30% of GHG emissions in the U.S.
This critical transition – long underway – has recently been catalyzed by the enactment of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which promise to bolster the entire clean energy supply chain, including support for the development and enforcement of building energy codes, as well as the introduction of new consumer incentive programs for electric and high-efficiency equipment.
As energy utilities and governmental agencies accelerate energy efficiency and decarbonization initiatives for the communities they serve, they are successfully leveraging two important tool sets:
1) Building efficiency and electrification incentive programs
2) Building energy codes, reach codes and appliance standards.
Respectively, these are the carrots and sticks of market transformation toward building decarbonization.
Presently, governmental initiatives and organizational commitments to decarbonization are motivating industry practitioners to apply these toolsets more aggressively, to accelerate this transition; as a result, the legacy market interactions between these carrots and sticks are increasingly complex and at times, contested. However, our teams and partners who expertly apply both toolsets – designing and implementing incentive programs and supporting local jurisdictions in advancing their energy codes – believe that they can work together.
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Interested in joining the conversation about the complimentary application of each of these toolsets and their dynamic interactions? Tune in to our recent podcast episode, where TRC staff are joined by industry experts from Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and Southern California Edison (SCE) to take a deep dive into the relationship between incentive programs and codes & standards. In our “Carrots and Sticks” discussion, we explore the factors and nuances that influence how these tools can and should work together to drive large-scale building decarbonization in California and the broader U.S. context, including:
- Intervention points across the market adoption curve for emerging technologies and across the various stages of the building lifecycle,
- Locationally varied grid conditions and regulatory environments,
- Evolving goals (and associated metrics), from energy savings to decarbonization, resiliency, and equity,
- And much more.
We’re excited to work with our utility and governmental partners in carefully applying both carrots and sticks to accelerate this critical market transformation. By designing and implementing both demand management programs and codes & standards, TRC is helping our clients achieve a clean and equitable energy future for the communities they serve.
For more information on TRC’s decarbonization, electrification, and energy solutions, contact us at:advancedenergy@trccompanies.com
Sharing Our Perspectives
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TRC Earns U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Qualification to be a Provider of Industrial Assessment Centers (IAC) Equivalent Energy Assessments
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Addressing inequality and ensuring that the benefits of the clean energy transition are accessible to all requires close examination of long-relied-upon processes that may have hidden inequities ingrained within them.
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Clean, community microgrids represent a promising and timely opportunity for you to advance your customer offering and deliver meaningful societal benefits, all while modernizing your grid and providing you with load flexibility.
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As we plan for and make early investments for fleets, we’ll be paving the way for higher degrees of market penetration of passenger vehicles and other modes of transportation as well.
Ensuring a Just Transition: Optimizing Opportunities for All in the Low-Carbon Future
January 24, 2022
Carbon elimination of the magnitude needed to address climate change requires systems-level change that can only be reached by incremental, ground-up progress, building upon what we have achieved thus far.
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Carbon elimination of the magnitude needed to address climate change requires systems-level change that can only be reached by incremental, ground-up progress, building upon what we have achieved thus far.
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September 27, 2021
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January 17, 2021
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September 22, 2020
Dominion Energy, one of the nation’s largest producers and transporters of energy, has partnered with TRC Digital to evaluate, implement and integrate technology to further the utility’s distributed energy goals. TRC Digital will facilitate Dominion Energy’s strategy development and technology execution, allowing Dominion Energy and its customers to accelerate the shift to distributed energy resources (DER) and net carbon reduction.
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Together, TRC and Reactive combine TRC’s industry-leading power engineering expertise with Reactive’s machine learning software to provide utility teams with high-resolution frequency monitoring and automatic event analysis.
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February 4, 2020
As we look to spur strategic electrification across the US, it will be up energy providers and solution implementers to continue sharing ideas, insights and lessons learned
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November 21, 2019
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TRC and partners win $1 million grant for engineering innovative New York microgrid
April 20, 2017
TRC is proud to support Huntington, NY bolster power reliability and climate-change resiliency with a sophisticated new “community microgrid’’ combining solar energy, a fuel cell, biogas and traditional natural gas to deliver electricity and heat to local customers and institutions.