New York City, New York 

Population: 8.3 Million

New York City is the largest city in the United States, with roughly 8.3 million residents and over a million buildings. New York City has committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 and has paved the way toward this goal with major new policies and programs to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across its building stock–demonstrating that these ambitious policies can be brought to scale. 

BEI worked with NYC between 2018-2023. In 2019, New York City took a major step toward addressing its existing buildings, which account for roughly 70% of citywide GHG emissions, by enacting Local Law 97, which requires buildings over 25,000 square feet in size to meet a GHG performance threshold. This law will encourage and eventually require electrification in buildings as the performance thresholds become more stringent over time. In 2021, New York City enacted Local Law 154, which eliminates the combustion of fossil fuels in new buildings and will be phased in to address all new buildings by 2027. The City also re-launched the NYC Accelerator in 2021–a one-stop shop program that provides critical technical assistance to help building owners and decision-makers complete energy and electrification upgrades and supports compliance with Local Laws 97 and 154.

New York City has also worked to scale up electrification in smaller residential buildings, which account for the majority of the city’s existing building stock. The City completed market research to better understand the customer perceptions and contractor needs to transition to electrification technologies. Building on this research, in 2021, NYC launched ElectrifyNYC, a program that helps New Yorkers in one- to four-unit homes adopt solar panels, energy efficiency measures, and air source heat pumps. The program is designed to create equitable access to these technologies through no-cost technical assistance for property owners and promotes business development for contractors, with a focus on minority & women-owned businesses (MWBEs). The program also supports workforce development and training efforts to increase access to new jobs for priority populations, and with the relaunch of New York State’s Clean Heat Program, is now connecting qualified MWBE installers to a wider network of customers across the city and the state, helping them grow their businesses. .  

In 2023, NYC completed a major planning study, PowerUp NYC, in which the City worked closely with stakeholders and advisors, including BEI, to develop the City’s first ever long-term energy plan. PowerUp NYC establishes a roadmap for how the City will accomplish clean energy and decarbonization goals outlined in PlaNYC: Getting Sustainability Done (the City’s fifth iteration of its long-term sustainability plan) and provides additional detail for three key sectors: the energy grid and community energy systems, buildings, and transportation. With its ongoing leadership implementing groundbreaking policies, programs, and research, NYC’s efforts will continue to have a significant impact on the transition to fossil fuel-free buildings both within the city and across the country.