nick.nigro@atlaspolicy.com

The Towers are two of 13 buildings that comprise AHC’s multifamily campus located in the Bronx. Many of the systems at the property, including the piping distribution system, are beyond their useful life and in poor condition, causing leaks and requiring continual repair and maintenance. The campus currently uses a central gas-powered boiler plant to produce steam for heating, cooling, and domestic hot water. As part of its recapitalization cycle, the property is embarking on a decarbonization journey which will include a comprehensive retrofit of the heating, cooling, and domestic hot water systems, an envelope upgrade, and onsite renewable generation in the form of geothermal and solar PV. This project will increase thermal comfort and secure utility affordability for its low-and-moderate income residents, as well as enhance the energy efficiency and climate resilience of the property.

The Mt. Pleasant retrofit project demonstrates an effective full-decarbonization roadmap for installing renewable ground-source space conditioning in existing multifamily buildings across New York City. Ascendant’s Mt. Pleasant is a nine story affordable, senior housing building built in 1996 in East Harlem. The decarbonization plan for this building includes envelope improvements in the form of added roof, window, and wall insulation, as well as a ground source heat pump system to be implemented in the rear yard and parking lot that will harness ground temperatures to heat and cool the building’s 50,003 square feet.

Today, carbon neutrality at 78 Herkimer and most all Chartered Properties’ multifamily portfolio will be achieved by replacing the gas-fired equipment currently serving the buildings. At Herkimer, twenty-nine in-unit combi-boilers will be decommissioned and replaced with electric powered thermal storage for domestic hot water and heat pumps for space conditioning.

Several phased in, low-carbon retrofit solutions are proposed for this site, including plans to electrify the heating system with packaged terminal heat pumps and a goal to electrify the domestic hot water system with condenser water heat recovery.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded $300 million in Climate Pollution Reduction Grants to 34 Tribal nations and territories. These grants, part of President Biden's Investing in America agenda, aim to cut climate pollution and accelerate the clean energy transition. The projects include installing solar arrays, improving energy efficiency, and developing electric vehicle infrastructure. This marks one of the largest climate investments in Tribal and territorial communities.

Energize King County helped Tina upgrade from a gas furnace and no cooling to a heat pump for combined heating and cooling to keep her granddaughter Ivana comfortable in the increasingly hot summers.

The Seattle Clean Heat program helped the Thompsons switch from expensive oil heating to cheaper heat pump that required less maintenance.

Richland Community College’s clean energy jobs training starts with an eight-week life skills course that ... uses a Circle of Courage practice inspired by Indigenous communities and helps students prepare to handle stressful workplace situations like being disrespected or even called a racial slur.

A novel solar power project just went online in California’s Central Valley, with panels that span across canals in the vast agricultural region. The 1.6-megawatt installation, called Project Nexus, was fully completed late last month. The $20 million state-funded pilot has turned stretches of the Turlock Irrigation District’s canals into hubs of clean electricity generation in a remote area where cotton, tomatoes, almonds, and hundreds of other crops are grown.

California has proven to be an incubator for climate innovation—setting ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution and creating new jobs in the clean economy. To support these goals, nonprofit organizations, educational institutions, and employers have come together in Los Angeles to create the LA Regional Cleantech Career Academy. The Academy aims to train the next generation of workers for the clean energy workforce, making a priority of populations that are un- and underrepresented in the industry as future leaders of the anticipated economic boom in this sector. UNITE-LA (which describes itself as a nonprofit organization focused on “equitable economic mobility” through “cradle-through-career” education and workforce development) partners with numerous businesses, institutions of education, public systems, community-based organizations, and philanthropic funders to administer the Academy. It has received letters of support from employers such as SunRun, Southern California Gas Company, Avantus, Southern California Edison, Chargie, Veolia, and H2U Technologies.