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Unfortunately, I think a lot of people don’t really know how much their power costs. They just pay the bill they are sent, maybe even on autopay and they don’t

Unfortunately, I think a lot of people don’t really know how much their power costs. They just pay the bill they are sent, maybe even on autopay and they don’t even look at the statements when they come in. So, they don’t know how much their power costs, and they don’t have a clue how much solar would cost to buy, install, run, etc… and how that compares to the payback period over time, etc…. These are the people that I think we need to reach.

szvsw 2y ago
> They just pay the bill they are sent, maybe even on autopay and they don’t even look at the statements when they come in. On the other hand there are a significant number of people who are energy-burdened, and they often have the most inefficient homes (leaky or non-existent sealing, little insulation, old appliances, etc). These homes often have the least ability to take advantage of government rebates since they may only be tax rebates while the retrofit still requires up the upfront cost to be paid. At the same time, high-income homes, though often much more efficient, also often use the most energy (since floor area tends to grow with home owner income, and space conditioning/electric requirements tend to grow with floor area). It’s easy to design incentive programs which have a big carbon impact but a bad equity impact in that they just end up giving money to people who would already be upgrading their homes without the rebates. The person who knows just how much money they are spending on their bill every month will likely value the savings much more (ie the utility value of the savings are much higher), but they may also have far less awareness of the kinds of programs available to them for retrofitting their home or installing PV. It’s a complicated problem, figuring out who to reach and how to drive adoption while balancing decarbonization and equity!
- ziggy_star 2y ago
  [flagged]

szvsw 2y ago

> They just pay the bill they are sent, maybe even on autopay and they don’t even look at the statements when they come in. On the other hand there are a significant number of people who are energy-burdened, and they often have the most inefficient homes (leaky or non-existent sealing, little insulation, old appliances, etc). These homes often have the least ability to take advantage of government rebates since they may only be tax rebates while the retrofit still requires up the upfront cost to be paid. At the same time, high-income homes, though often much more efficient, also often use the most energy (since floor area tends to grow with home owner income, and space conditioning/electric requirements tend to grow with floor area). It’s easy to design incentive programs which have a big carbon impact but a bad equity impact in that they just end up giving money to people who would already be upgrading their homes without the rebates. The person who knows just how much money they are spending on their bill every month will likely value the savings much more (ie the utility value of the savings are much higher), but they may also have far less awareness of the kinds of programs available to them for retrofitting their home or installing PV. It’s a complicated problem, figuring out who to reach and how to drive adoption while balancing decarbonization and equity!

ziggy_star 2y ago
[flagged]