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Addressing Existing Buildings

Addressing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions from existing buildings will be essential to meet state and local goals. Mandating improvements to existing buildings is challenging, and local governments need information and a variety of policy options.

Single-Family Residences

Existing single family residences are difficult for local governments to address because of the large number of buildings, the variety of the housing stock and the cost of improvements.

BayREN funded research and a whitepaper that explores policy options for single-family homes, how these could interact and the estimated impact of the options:

White Paper on Local Government Levers for Energy Policy in the Existing Single Family Residential Sector: Download the whitepaper.

The BayREN Policy Calculator aims to help local governments estimate and visualize the potential energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) impacts from a suite of policy options for upgrading the existing single-family housing stock.

BayREN Policy Calculator: Download the calculator.
Review the user guide.

Municipal Buildings

Reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions from municipal buildings can help local governments reduce energy costs, meet climate action goals and lead by example.

BayREN has prepared a guide for local government staff that covers different approaches to these buildings, including information on current incentive, financing and technical assistance programs available in the Bay Area.

Resource Guide for Reducing Energy Use and Carbon Emissions from Municipal Buildings: Download the guide.

Resilient Libraries Network 

BayREN is launching a new initiative designed to develop a network of energy efficient and resilient local libraries that can also function as Community Resilience Centers (CRCs) to deliver resources before, during and/or after a natural hazard related events based on local needs. Learn more. 

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ZNE/ZNC Technical Assistance

BayREN provides free engineering technical assistance to help local governments save energy and money while reducing their carbon footprints by moving towards ZNE/ZNC with their buildings.

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Looking for Building Energy Use Data?

The Energy Atlas project provides Californians, and those interested in ongoing energy transitions, with the opportunity to interact with one of the largest sets of disaggregated building energy data available in the nation.