Menlo Park City Council Members,
As a Green Building consultant, I work on a daily basis to help my clients comply with State and local green building requirements and cost-effectively make their homes energy efficient and sustainable. I strongly support the Environmental Quality Commission's recommendation to proceed with development of all-electric ordinances paired with financing of electric conversions for low-income housing units.
Evaluating and addressing the more challenging situations will be part of the process of developing the details of the ordinances. For example, while we are waiting for wall-mounted heat pump water heaters to be approved for sale in the U.S., it might be appropriate to exempt from an electric-upon-replacement ordinance the requirement that a failed wall-mounted gas tankless water heater be replaced with a heat pump water heater if there is no garage, attic, or crawl space location where a tank water heater can be located within a certain distance from the existing tankless water heater. Just because there are some circumstances that are challenging does not mean the process of decarbonizing should not proceed.
Additionally, I encourage you to proceed with providing technical support and turnkey electrification options. For example, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District has a program where they have pre-certified contractors (33 contractors for the Heat Pump Water Heater category), and provide $2500 rebates for replacing gas water heaters with heat pump water heaters, resulting in 1,714 unit replacements over a 3-year time period. (https://efiling.energy.ca.gov/GetDocument.aspx?tn=234862&DocumentContentId=67717) Making it easy for property owners to connect with well-trained participating contractors will smooth the conversion process.
I appreciate your environmental leadership and encourage you to proceed with developing all-electric ordinances, including electrification-upon-replacement and low-income electrification programs. Thank you.
Suzanne Henderson Emerson
Emerson Environmental
