How Juneau’s Climate Action Plan Inspired City-Wide Building Decarbonization

In Juneau, Alaska, about 75 percent of all buildings rely on oil for heat. While most of Juneau's electricity is sourced from hydropower plants, electricity only accounts for 20 percent of the total energy consumed in the city. The remaining 80 percent of energy usage is attributable to fossil fuel consumption, with 21 percent coming from building heating. A local non-profit,  Renewable Juneau, is playing a key role in helping the community achieve its decarbonization goals, through its involvement in numerous beneficial electrification-focused programs that offer low-cost electric space- and water-heating equipment for homes and businesses.

This equipment, like air source heat pumps, which are three to four times more efficient than a fuel oil furnace or electric resistance heater, can help save on average 10,000 pounds of CO2 annually per unit. By switching to heat pumps, the average Juneau household can save more than $900 or 43 percent per year. Those figures represent significant bill savings.

Juneau’s Climate Action Plan (CAP) of 2011 established an emission reduction target of 25 percent by 2032. It identified hundreds of possible implementation measures, including building decarbonization. However, it lacked enforcement or funding, leading to several years of little progress. Community discussions about implementation steps resumed in 2015 with a focus on making the best use of renewable energy. To advocate for CAP implementation and to drive heat pump installations, the non-profit group Renewable Juneau was established in 2016.

“The City of Juneau CAP outlined hundreds of implementation actions, but no firm implementation steps or timelines, and didn't lead to specific funding requests,” said Steve Behnke, one of the founders of Renewable Juneau.

To implement the recommendations established in the 2011 CAP, the City and Borough of Juneau’s Commission on Sustainability convened local stakeholders and began developing a community energy plan with a strong building and transportation electrification component. Renewable Juneau helped catalyze business and community support for this effort, which resulted in the city’s adoption of the Juneau Renewable Energy Strategy (JRES) in 2018. The JRES set a goal of shifting to renewable energy for 80 percent of the community's total energy usage by 2045 by focusing, in part, on converting heating loads and transportation to electricity.

“Passage of the JRES was important because it reinvigorated attention to climate action, and pointed out the opportunity for electrifying heating loads, as identified in the buildings and space heating strategy,” Behnke said.

In 2019 Renewable Juneau, with planning and development assistance from EESI, joined with several other local groups to create a new public-private partnership, Alaska Heat Smart (AHS), to promote heat pump adoption and other energy efficiency measures. With funding from the City and Borough of Juneau, AHS promotes beneficial electrification by educating consumers and providing a free heat pump home assessment. Using funds from the City of Juneau, AHS created a credit enhancement tool for a heat pump loan program, with capital provided by a local credit union, to develop a low-interest loan to help homes and businesses finance heat pumps.

“The strengths of the AHS approach include the wide range of community groups that have come together to make it happen, which we think increases buy-in,” Behnke said.

Soon after forming, Alaska Heat Smart and its local partners joined with the Cold Climate Housing Research Center/NREL, EESI, and RMI to obtain a three-year $530,000 Department of Energy grant to create the Thermalize Juneau Initiative.  Modeled after successful “Solarize” programs for solar panels, this program is organizing a group purchase of heat pumps to reduce acquisition costs, as well as a residential energy-efficiency retrofit package. The grant also supports a community wide campaign to promote the adoption of comprehensive residential building energy-efficiency retrofit packages using a portfolio of outreach tools and incentives.

The Juneau Carbon Offset Fund, created by Renewable Juneau in 2019, uses funds raised from voluntary offsetting to install free heat pumps for lower-income Juneau households. In its first 18 months, the Fund installed heat pumps in 17 homes. This program complements federal energy efficiency programs. The Energy Act of 2020 expands the federal Weatherization Assistance Program, which provides retrofits for low-income households. Because many older homes are poorly air-sealed and insulated, retrofitting these homes before installing heat pumps helps increase building tightness, makes heat pumps more efficient, and reduces energy bills.

Most recently, Renewable Juneau and other groups, with EESI’s help, are exploring an on-bill financing program that would help deploy heat pumps in Juneau by removing the need to purchase the equipment upfront and by spreading the repayments over time on the utility bill.

As cities develop their climate action plans, they can look to Juneau for inspiration. Juneau has worked with local stakeholders to promote building electrification and has fostered organizations, like Renewable Juneau, to develop electrification initiatives. Through broad community partnerships, Juneau has developed a panoply of free educational resources, home assessments, and financial tools, such as heat pump loans, to help homes and businesses electrify space- and water-heating equipment. This example of a community-based non-profit model could be replicated nationwide to offer solutions for city-wide carbon emission reductions while reducing fossil-fuel dependency.

Author: Miguel Yanez
 

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