Berkeley, California

Population: 118,950

Berkeley is a city with nearly 120,000 residents located in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is home to the oldest campus of the University of California as well as Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, making it a center for innovation in energy and sustainability. The City of Berkeley has also long been a leader in local climate action. Berkeley committed to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2045, in alignment with California’s statewide goals, as well as becoming a fossil fuel-free city as soon as possible and as of 2022, Berkeley’s primary source of electricity is powered by 100% renewable energy.

Berkeley is also committed to increasing equity and affordability for its residents. Berkeley has integrated the advancement of social and racial equity goals into its Resilience Strategy, Strategic Plan, and Health Status Report, and by 2026 will be updating its General Plan with an Environmental Justice Element. To help advance this commitment, BEI worked with Berkeley to complete a Building and Housing Stock Analysis that identifies the health, resiliency, and affordability needs of its buildings. BEI also evaluated the current socioeconomic disparities within the City and assessed the history of housing and land use policies that have contributed to these disparities. In 2021, Berkeley used this research to inform its Existing Building Electrification Strategy—a groundbreaking plan that lays out strategies and community considerations on how to equitably transition all Berkeley buildings off of fossil fuels. Following the release of this strategy, Berkeley’s City Council allocated $600,000 in seed funding toward a Climate Equity Fund to provide climate and resilience benefits to income-qualified residents in Berkeley. 

BEI is now working with Berkeley on strategies to help create a high road and inclusive building electrification workforce. This includes participation in a regional High Road Training Partnership for the San Francisco Bay Area, focused on residential decarbonization upgrades, as well as advising on a two-year, $1.5 million Just Transition Pilot in Berkeley to identify high road workforce opportunities in the small residential electrification retrofit sector. The pilot will partner with a local housing rehabilitation program to identify a pipeline of income-qualified homes that can be aggregated to implement electrification and resilience improvements while simultaneously requiring high labor standards.

With a broader set of regional Bay Area stakeholders, BEI will also help lead conversations on how to develop more comprehensive regional program infrastructure to help low- and moderate-income households prepare for implementation of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s appliance emissions standards. These rules will phase out the purchase and installation of NOx-emitting gas-fired water heaters and furnaces across the region beginning in 2027. The goal is to improve access to the Bay Area’s existing incentive programs, leverage funding from upcoming state and federally-funded programs (including those funded by the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act), and create regional program infrastructure that will fill critical funding and technical assistance gaps for electrification retrofits. 

These efforts leverage findings from the Residential Funding Gap Analysis that BEI completed for Berkeley in 2023, which analyzed the potential for stacking multiple incentives and the gap that remains to cover the costs to fully electrify low- and moderate-income residential buildings, including the necessary health, safety, and electric readiness upgrades that often need to be completed first. By spearheading these and other strategies to equitably electrify its existing buildings, Berkeley continues to pave the way for cities across the region and the country to fully transition away from fossil fuels.