Boulder, Colorado

Population: 105,500

Boulder, Colorado has a full-time population of just over 100,000 residents and serves as a regional employment center for more than 50,000 additional people working in a variety of academic, research, and business sectors. Boulder has about 44,000 homes, including single family homes and multifamily units, and 3,700 commercial and industrial buildings that were predominantly built using gas for space and water heating. To achieve Boulder’s commitment to net-zero carbon emissions by 2035, the City is developing strategies to equitably accelerate the transition for all buildings away from fossil fuel equipment.

In April of 2018, the City launched a Comfort365 Renewable Heating and Cooling campaign in collaboration with Mitsubishi Electric, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of high-efficiency heat pumps. The City also partnered with Boulder County to offer incentives and advising assistance through the EnergySmart program. The goal of the campaign was to increase community awareness of electrification and to begin to accelerate the adoption of these technologies in its community.  While the campaign led to a 3-fold increase in heat pump installations, the adoption rate is still far below what will be needed to meet Boulder’s climate goals. Of the rebates issued through EnergySmart, the majority went to installations in single-family homes owned by residents who would identify as climate conscious. 

Boulder began working with BEI in 2019 to design complementary programs that can serve more diverse populations, pulling from concepts of “Targeted Universalism” to inform the approach. Based on this work, BEI worked with Boulder to identify and assess inclusive financing options, ultimately focusing on utility-led tariffed on-bill financing as a promising option for lower-to-moderate-income customers, renters, and other high priority customers for electrification upgrades. Throughout 2021-2022, Boulder and BEI engaged with a large coalition of stakeholders in Colorado to inform a tariffed on-bill financing program proposal from Xcel Energy, Colorado’s largest investor-owned utility, for consideration by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. Representatives from Boulder, Denver, and other partners continue to work to ensure the program design will advance building electrification goals and that strong consumer protections are in place.  

In late 2022, Boulder voters approved a new Climate Tax, which combines and replaces two previous local taxes, and is estimated to collect $6.5 million per year for city-level climate work. BEI began working with Boulder on developing Boulder’s next generation of building decarbonization strategies to accelerate equitable building electrification across the city. BEI is supporting Boulder staff on a multi-stakeholder engagement and community co-creation process to design the suite of policy actions and supportive programs that will be necessary to equitably decarbonize Boulder’s full building stock in the coming years.