Burlington, Vermont

Population: 44,600

Burlington is Vermont's largest city, with a population of over 44,000 residents. The Burlington Electric Department (BED), Vermont’s largest municipally-owned electric utility, serves more than 20,000 customers in the Burlington area and has delivered innovative energy efficiency programs for nearly 30 years. In 2014, Burlington became the first city in the country to source 100% of its electricity from renewable sources, and has committed to a goal of achieving Net Zero Energy by 2030, which will reduce and eventually eliminate fossil fuels from buildings and ground transportation across the city. Since most of Burlington’s existing buildings currently use natural gas, this will require substantial effort to transition buildings away from gas and toward high efficiency electrification. 

In 2017, Burlington became one of the first cities in the country to launch a cold-climate heat pump rebate program, which provides incentives for a combination of weatherization and high-efficiency electric heat pumps. The program prioritizes funding for low- and middle-income customers so they can participate in the City’s electrification efforts and gain access to the cooling that heat pumps provide during increasingly hot summers. In June 2020, BED expanded its incentive program offerings under a "Green Stimulus" program, and in 2021, passed a $20 million Net Zero Energy Revenue Bond to support the expansion of its incentives, helping hundreds more Burlingtonians switch to cold-climate heat pumps and other clean technologies. As of December 2023, BED has helped install over 2,300 residential heat pump systems across Burlington, including heat pump installations in existing homes and several new multifamily rental buildings.

Recognizing that improvements to heat pump technologies have made them a viable option for cold climates, BEI worked with Burlington to analyze the economics of electrification for new buildings and review policy options to phase out fossil fuel use in both new and existing buildings. Building on this analysis, in 2020 Burlington updated its existing housing code to require buildings with high energy use to weatherize, thereby making them more “heat pump-ready” and prepare the existing building stock for electrification. 

In 2021, Burlington enacted the Thermal Energy Charter Change, approved by both Burlington voters and the state legislature, enabling Burlington to develop additional policies and fees to reduce fossil fuel use in buildings. Building on the customer economics analysis performed by BEI, Burlington enacted its Primary Renewable Heating Ordinance in 2021, which strongly encouraged all-electric new construction in the city.

To begin exploring new policies and fees for existing buildings, in 2022 BEI provided Burlington with case studies of existing building policies in other cities, developed a set of policy options to consider, and analyzed different carbon fee structures. Burlington used these resources in discussions with stakeholders to update its Primary Renewable Heating Ordinance to the Carbon Pollution Impact Fee (CPIF) in late 2023, which now includes both new and existing buildings. The CPIF requires all new construction, commercial buildings over 50,000 square feet in floor area, and all municipal buildings to install equipment powered by renewable energy at the time of system replacement, or pay a carbon fee based on the lifetime emissions of the fossil fuel-powered equipment. The revenue from the carbon fee will help fund programs for under-resourced buildings, supporting a broader equitable transition away from fossil fuels in Burlington.