Electrification, Ready or Not Here it Comes!
There is perhaps no other industry trend that has the momentum of electrification, it is quickly becoming the definition of a megatrend.
The past couple weeks have quietly ushered in significant building code changes while many have been preoccupied with the fallout of the national election. Recently, San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose joined the now 40 cities across California passing electrification ordinances, and many others are poised to do the same in 2021.
To call this a megatrend, may be an understatement, as it is evolving rapidly and will have profound impact on building design and construction. These three cities alone represent over 2 million people, and in combination with other ordinances across the state means over one-third of the state population now resides in areas that have banned new natural gas installations. This trend is not restricted to California, similar programs have been announced in New York, New Jersey, and Maine while ten other states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have established goals of reaching 100% clean energy and several others are signaling that they intend to join the trend.
This movement gained increased momentum in 2020 when the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) was introduced that included specific electrification measures designed to assist in moving from gas to electricity. These measures include requirements around the installation of combustion-based water heaters, dryers, or stoves and that when they are installed in a residence, an electric outlet is required to be installed within three feet of the appliance. This requirement ensures that a homeowner can easily switch to electric appliances “should natural gas become less affordable or even unavailable over the life of the building.”
When paired with legislation prohibiting natural gas infrastructure in new construction, the adaption of electrification is accelerated. These laws are increasing rapidly. In 2019, only one jurisdiction in the United States had passed such an ordinance. Yet, here we are only a year later with one third of customers in California will be covered under such mandates.
When facing this design requirement, many developers are going to question the economic impact, but the impact of an all-electric design might be as profound economic as one might expect. Study after study reveal that the actual equipment used in all-electric construction versus natural gas equipment is lower in both upfront costs as well as in operation. This is not new data, past studies have consistently demonstrated this trait. One example from the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) in 2018, examined both new construction and retrofit costs across seven different cities, with seven different climates, in which all-electric homes still won on the basis of both cost and emissions savings over an assumed 15-year equipment lifetime. The cities RMI analyzed were Austin, Texas; Boston, Massachusetts; Columbus, Ohio; Denver, Colorado; Minneapolis, Minnesota; New York, New York; and Seattle, Washington.
Minneapolis is an interesting city to dive a little deeper on, as it is a colder climate city that instantly conjures up common misperceptions of gas advantages over electric. The average winter daily low temperature in Minneapolis is 7.5 degrees, brrrr. However, even when taking into account the higher-capacity heat pump that would be needed versus the heat pump more commonly used in a more mild climate, the installation and equipment cost is still about the same as for natural gas heating equipment. However, in Minneapolis, the electric rates for all-electric homes are provided a discount that when combined with the improved efficiency of electric versus gas, results in a $1,500 savings over the lifetime of the equipment.
To make the economic benefits even more attractive, a large number of utility incentive programs are now also providing programs targeted at rewarding electrification, further improving ROI. Just one example is Sacramento’s “Go Electric Business” program. In addition, PG&E, the state’s largest combined gas and electric utility provider also added it’s endorsement to moving to all-electric energy codes. It is becoming increasingly common to find utility incentive dollars targeted towards electrification.
You might be asking yourself why? Natural Gas is currently plentiful and a cost effective fuel for on site combustion appliances, however it remains a fossil fuel with emissions related to its consumption as well as collection. Natural Gas emerged as a bridge fuel, to move our energy needs away from dirtier oil and coal energy generation, but it was always intended to be exactly that, a bridge. In order to decarbonize, eventually reliance on the fuel as an energy source must decrease.
Currently Global consumption of natural gas is largely split between 3 sectors. Roughly 41% is consumed for the production of electricity, 35% for industrial use, and 20% for use in buildings in the form of direct combustion, i.e. boilers, hot water heating, cooking, etc. By utility providers targeting natural gas used in electrical generation when combined with building codes targeting onsite building consumption thee combined strategy directly impacts 61% of the current natural gas consumption.
Diving deeper in the 20% for building consumption metric, we essentially looking at heating systems - be that for comfort, for water heating, or for cooking. Where is the flame in your building? When it comes to non-cooking heating, two words really define electrification “Heat Pump.” Whether we are talking an air, water, or ground source heat pump or the use of heat pump hot water heating, in each case we are discussing technology that uses electricity to move heat from one place to another instead of generating heat directly. Moving heat, as compared to generating heat can be two to three times more energy efficient then heating with conventional electric resistance.
The push back to heat pumps has always been the belief that in colder climates they do not perform as well at or below freezing temperatures. Until recently, there was some truth in that belief, but with technology advances have come heat pumps that can provide sufficient heating, even in the northern portions of the continental United States. Leading products are now capable of performing well below -10F while operating at more then double the efficiency of gas. This article by the RMI dives deeper into recent breakthroughs in Heat Pump operation in Cold Climates.
While heat pumps may work for heating space or water, they are not the answer for cooking. As a home chef and impassioned foodie, this topic in particular intrigued me. I have always insisted on gas for cooktop cooking. I want heat to be on, or off, and at the temperature I want it to be at. The slow warm up and cool down of traditional electric cooktop’s simply will not do. So when I saw my first induction cooktop, my first impression was, well, not impressed. It literally looked like a traditional glass cooktop, the same cooktop that I have vowed to never use again. But what I didn’t realize was the induction technology cuts out the intermediate step of heating up a burner, instead immediately transferring heat to the pan, pot or skillet just like gas - the very step that made electric cooking so painful in the past. But it does do much more efficiently, and with much greater control.
Induction cooktops do not glow when you turn them on, in fact some manufacturers are adding virtual flames or lighting because when it’s on, it is kind of hard to tell it is on. This is because the cooktop uses an electromagnetic field instead of electrical resistance heat.
The difference is seen in the performance, for example 6 quarts of water can arrive at a boil 2 to 4 minutes faster then other cooktops ability to bring the water to a near boil. The other difference, is the heat isn’t actually generated until the cooking pot comes into contact with the glass top. This means it won’t be hot until the cooking vessel is placed on the cooktop. Once that contact is made, it will get hot, but in the pan, not on the surface. Until the pot or pan is placed on the cooktop, there is no heat making for a nice safety feature and eliminating burn on foods from boil overs.
There are a couple of notable drawbacks however - cookware needs to be “induction - compatible”. But this may not be as big of an issue as first thought as your existing cookware might work. Your current cookware can be tested by placing a magnet to the bottom - if it strongly sticks, it likely will be compatible. Another drawback is the magnetic field of the induction cooktop can interfere with digital thermometers, so you might have to dial back the technology here and switch back to an old fashioned analogue thermometer.
From an efficiency standpoint, an electric induction cooktop allows about 90% of the heat to reach the food compared to a traditional electric cooktop which only allows for about 65-70% of the heat to reach the food. That wasted heat in the electric cooktop is likely making its way into the rest of the kitchen, causing the space to heat considerably more with a traditional electric cooktop compared to an induction cooktop.
The comparison between induction cooking and gas cooking has to include some other elements. Aside from natural gas being a fossil fuel and the associated carbon issues around the fuel source, they also pose some serious indoor air quality issues. Gas cooktops emit Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Carbon Monoxide (CO), and Formaldehyde (HCHO). According to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Stanford University, gas cooktops add 25-33% to indoor NO2 concentrations during the summer and 35-39% in the winter. They also add 30% to the CO concentration in the summer and 21% in the winter (I know, seems counterintuitive, however apparently CO concentrations are lower outdoors in the summer).
As far as efficiency, while gas offers instant on and instant off, they are extremely inefficient, with only about 40% of the heat reaching the food when cooking. As you can imagine, the rest of that wasted heat is absorbed by the space in kitchen adding to the overall heat load of the space.
As pointed out earlier in this article, the heating associated with space heating, water heating, and cooking account for roughly 20% of the consumption of natural gas. As utilities continue to increase the number of renewable generation source fuels and as onsite renewable energy generation increases in viability, electricity begins to emerge as the energy source with potential to have a smaller carbon footprint.
The tide is shifting in the energy utility industry. Between a steady pace of coal generation electrical plants decommissioning and continuously decreasing costs for renewable energy along with increasing storage paired with increasingly ambitious state and city carbon-reduction goals, the utilities are sending a strong signal that electricity is the energy source of the future. Xcel Energy and Duke Energy have publicly stated goals to reduce emissions by 80% by 2030, and 100% by 2050. Local Law 97 was passed in 2019 in New York City, attaching real consequences for building owners who are not able to reduce their carbon emissions by 40% by 2030 from a 2005 baseline.
The most obvious route to move towards these decarbonization goals is the electrification of building heating systems, as well as transportation systems. The end result however is an increased demand for electrical supply. Some have estimated as much as an 85% increase in supply will be required to meet the demand by 2050.
This underscores the importance of the energy efficiency. With increased demand, brings increased pressure to minimize wasted resources. While electrification provides a cost-effective path to decarbonization, it still pales in cost when compared to efficiency.
The next decade will underscore the importance of identifying opportunities to identify waste and improve efficiency within the electrical consumption of our built environment. We are quickly approaching a time when realizing those efficiencies will be expected rather then encouraged, meaning the financial incentives begin to shift away from efficiency and move towards electrification. No different then lighting financial incentives have begun to shift away from offering large incentives for conversion from incandescent lighting to LED. The payback is already present in efficiency alone, the utility companies are increasingly finding it less necessary to provide additional financial incentives for these conversions. While we are not there yet, this same trajectory may begin to show itself in other efficiency measures. The lesson: don’t wait. If you haven’t modernized your property, and you are planning on using utility incentive dollars to help increase your ROI, you need to be planning for those improvements now and reserving those incentive funds before they shift to other priorities.
You can help reduce the impact of the built environment by sharing this blog with your peers. Together we can impact the 39% of greenhouse gasses attributed to the built environment. It starts with awareness, and we succeed with teamwork.
Stay well!
Chris Laughman is the ThirtyNine Blog author, a blog dedicated to reducing the impact of the built environment. When not blogging, Chris is helping the real estate industry reduce energy and water impact as the Vice President of Sustainability for Conservice, the Utility Experts. Whether Multifamily, Single Family, Student Housing, Commercial, or Military, we simplify utility billing and expense management by doing it for you. Our insight into your utility consumption provides an opportunity to identify risks. Leveraging innovation and experience we ignite solutions with real impacts and track performance to ensure the trendline stays laser-focused on the goal. At Conservice we have developed a true bill-to-boardroom solution to help truly make a difference. We have before us a tremendous opportunity. Standing shoulder to shoulder, we will get this done. Contact me at claughman@conservice.com for more information.
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