New Home Energy Solutions Can Help the United States Meet Climate Policy Goals
RMI’s latest analysis shows how new approaches to tackling household CO2 emissions can help the United States achieve a 50 percent reduction in household emissions by 2030.
Boulder, CO, October 6, 2021
New household energy solutions are poised to help consumers support clean energy. A new study by RMI assesses one example of this kind of solution, Google’s Nest Renew, and finds that similar services could help households eliminate more than 80 percent of their carbon footprint by 2030.
Household-level energy decisions are key in accelerating our efforts to reach ambitious US climate targets set by President Biden. RMI’s analysis found that adoption at scale of emerging household energy solutions could cut the sector’s carbon emissions by 50 percent from 2005 levels by 2050.
“Household energy decisions drive 40 percent of US energy-related carbon emissions, but that means that they can also be 40 percent of the solution. New solutions can empower people to fight climate change on the home front,” says Mark Dyson, principal on RMI’s Carbon-Free Electricity team.
RMI’s latest analysis, Bringing Clean Energy Home, looks at innovative market solutions to help consumers align their household energy decisions with climate goals. RMI identifies four emerging opportunities that technology-based solutions, such as Google’s Nest Renew service, can prioritize to make home energy solutions most impactful:
- Customized insights and offers
- Automation and optimization
- Aggregation and collective action
- Deployment innovations
New products and services are not the only tools needed to increase clean energy adoption. RMI’s report also discusses the challenges that may limit current households’ choices in prioritizing clean energy solutions and that make it complex and costly to adopt such solutions, thus resulting in fragmentation of value for the customers and the grid.
According to Lauren Shwisberg, a manager on RMI’s Carbon-Free Electricity team, “Policymakers, regulators, and utilities have an opportunity to accelerate adoption of climate-aligned home energy solutions by aligning incentives, programs, and data access rules with household-focused outcomes and decarbonization metrics.”
To read the full report, please visit: https://rmi.org/insight/bringing-clean-energy-home/
Media Inquiries please contact:
Alex Chin – Media Relations
T: +1 973-262-0002
E: achin@rmi.org
About RMI
RMI is an independent nonprofit founded in 1982 that transforms global energy systems through market-driven solutions to align with a 1.5°C future and secure a clean, prosperous, zero-carbon future for all. We work in the world’s most critical geographies and engage businesses, policymakers, communities, and NGOs to identify and scale energy system interventions that will cut greenhouse gas emissions at least 50 percent by 2030. RMI has offices in Basalt and Boulder, Colorado; New York City; Oakland, California; Washington, D.C.; and Beijing.
More information on RMI can be found at www.rmi.org or follow us on Twitter @RockyMtnInst.