Piedmont Staff Seeks Volunteers for Residential Electrification Action
City staff seek community members to help create a plan for electrifying
Piedmont’s residential buildings.
The City staff of Piedmont is soliciting letters of interest from community members willing to serve on a task force that would help develop a plan for how to electrify Piedmont’s existing residential buildings.
Submit letters of interest by Tuesday, May 16th
ElectrificationTaskForce@piedmont.ca.gov
The Building Electrification Strategy Task Force, appointed by the City Administrator, not the City Council, will work with staff to better understand existing barriers to home electrification and create a strategic framework for equitably moving Piedmont’s building stock off of natural gas.
Residential building electrification essential for meeting Climate Action goals
Transitioning Piedmont’s existing residential buildings from natural gas to clean electricity as
soon as possible is crucial for meeting the ambitious emission reduction targets established by
the City’s Climate Action Plan.
Despite substantial investment in climate action work – which has earned a Beacon Spotlight
Award for Sustainability Best Practices from the Institute for Local Government for two
consecutive years – Piedmont is not presently on track to meet its greenhouse gas emissions
reduction goals.
Most emissions come from gas gas furnaces and water heaters.
The gap is largely due to natural gas use in residential buildings, which accounts for roughly half
of Piedmont’s in-territory emissions. Because much of Piedmont’s housing stock is old and
large, heating and cooling these homes requires greater than average energy use. For each year
between 2017 and 2020, annual emissions just from residential buildings exceeded Climate
Action Plan targets for total emissions in Piedmont by 2050. Most of these emissions came from
natural .
The City is now seeking to draw on the wealth of expertise within our community to create a
strategic plan for expediting this transition. The Task Force will be charged with developing an
Existing Building Electrification Strategy that will guide future policies and programs related to
residential building electrification.
Staff have approached several community members who have previously engaged with the City
on electrification and sustainability initiatives about their potential interest in serving on the task
force. To ensure that the task force incorporates diverse perspectives and wide-ranging expertise,
we are also soliciting interest from the community at large.
If you think you can help, send an email to ElectrificationTaskForce@piedmont.ca.gov letting us know:
• Why you’re interested in serving on the task force
• What unique skills, experience, or perspective you would bring
Submit your letter of interest by Tuesday, May 16th. The City anticipates making task force
appointments by the end of May.
For questions about letters of interest or the Electrification Task Force, contact Assistant City Administrator/City Clerk John Tulloch at jtulloch@piedmont.ca.gov or (510) 420-3040.
It might be a little premature to proceed in any manner on electrification until the Berkeley case is fully resolved. Electrification depends on prohibiting new natural gas appliances which currently is not legal.
That case is headed for an en banc hearing at the 9th circuit. Given the climate emergency, better to develop the strategy ASAP.
You’re counting on the SCOTUS that brought us the Dobbs decision.
There’s definitely a SCOTUS precedent at issue – see the discussion of Franklin on page 31. https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2023/04/17/21-16278.pdf
I hear you Mike but what’s a warming planet to do? Latest IPCC says there’s still a chance to avoid the 1.5C warming but action needed now. (https://www.ipcc.ch/ ). Male SCOTUS members have more at stake here than in Dobbs. I read Gorsuch is a big skier and Thomas fond of sailing, even if it’s on yachts. Perhaps they’ll get it.
And CARB and BAAMD taking a different approach – banning some NG uses due to health effects of NG, not the warming effect. Perhaps that will override federal preemption in the Berkeley case.