Access to Clean Energy Technology

New energy technologies, such as rooftop solar panels, are typically first adopted by the affluent. Yet those with the least income could benefit most from lower electricity bills associated with energy efficiency retrofits, demand response information, and rooftop solar. Well-crafted policy can help bring the benefits of energy equity to those most in need.

Low-income households often face the highest energy burdens — that is, they spend higher shares of their income on their energy bills and sometimes have to face difficult decisions about expenditures on other needs in order to keep their utilities on. The Luskin Center for Innovation (LCI) is expanding research in energy affordability to ensure that the most vulnerable households are able to keep their lights on.

Through research and collaborations with stakeholders, LCI seeks to advance energy equity by informing policies and programs that empower communities, particularly those that are low-income, to benefit from energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other clean energy strategies. Examples follow.

UCLA to guide the prioritization and evaluation of equity strategies for LADWP’s clean energy transition

CURRENT PROJECT(S)

The Luskin Center for Innovation is partnering with Redeemer Community Partnership to lay the groundwork for residential gas decommissioning in and around the Exposition Park neighborhood of South Los Angeles. The project is part of Justice First: an international collaboration in which academic researchers and community-based organizations have joined together to develop hyperlocal, community-led energy transition plans. The project includes a comparison across project sites to identify commonalities and differences among locally grounded energy transition efforts globally. The team is examining how neighborhood-scale gas decommissioning might help South LA communities address the risk of rising gas distribution costs, while supporting residential electrification, integrating equity and justice principles, and building community capacity.

Researcher(s): Gregory Pierce, Lauren Dunlap, Richard Parks, and Sooji Yang
Funder: Justice First project / New Frontiers in Research Fund – International

This new engaged research builds on the Luskin Center for Innovation’s past clean energy affordability recommendations for the LA Department of Water and Power.

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Researcher(s): Gregory Pierce, Lauren Dunlap, Dan Coffee, Stephanie Pincetl, and Rachel Sheinberg
Funder: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power

PUBLISHED RESEARCH

Author(s): Julia Skrovan, Lauren Dunlap, and Rachel Sheinberg
Funder: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power

The Los Angeles Residential Energy Transition Tool estimates how LA households’ energy use and bills will be affected by home electrification and the renewable energy transition.

See the tool

Researcher(s): Rachel Sheinberg, Will Callan, and Lauren Dunlap
Funder: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power

This technical guide documents the logic, data sources, capabilities, scenarios, and variables of the Los Angeles Residential Energy Transition (L.A. RESET) Tool.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Researcher(s): Sooji Yang, Lauren Dunlap, and Gregory Pierce

This FAQ explores how California’s neighborhood-scale building decarbonization initiative fits into the state’s transition off of fossil fuels—and how it will affect residents.

Download the FAQ

Educational materials on the purpose, benefits, costs, and process of residential building electrification and neighborhood gas decommissioning.

Researcher(s): Sooji Yang, Lauren Dunlap, Greg Pierce, and Richard Parks
Funder: New Frontiers in Research Fund – International

This fact sheet and list of frequently asked questions outline the purpose, benefits, costs, and other information about residential building electrification and neighborhood gas decommissioning in California.

Read in English | Leer en Español

Energy Spending and Burden Projections from the L.A. Residential Energy Transition Tool

Researcher(s): Lauren Dunlap, Rachel Sheinberg, Will Callan, Samantha Smithies, and Gregory Pierce
Funder: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP)

The researchers use the LA Residential Energy Transition (RESET) Tool to project energy affordability outcomes of home electrification across Los Angeles. They find that most electrification upgrades lead to ongoing energy savings for LADWP customers, while maintaining gas appliances nearly always leads to higher energy spending.

Learn more | See methods and data | Read the report

Researcher(s): Rachel Sheinberg, Gregory Pierce, Stephanie Pincetl, Gregory Reed

This study synthesized lessons from the LA100 Equity Strategies initiative, a collaboration between UCLA, L.A. Department of Water and Power, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and local community-based organizations, to support urban just energy transition efforts elsewhere.

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Researcher(s): Gregory Pierce, Kelly Trumbull, and Dan Coffee

To support Los Angeles’s transition to 100% renewable electricity by 2035, this chapter provides specific recommendations for robust, long-term, structural solutions to LADWP’s customers’ ability to pay their bills. The complete LA 100 Equity Strategies Study includes chapters written by other UCLA researchers, including those with expertise in engineering, environmental science, law, labor studies, public health, and public policy.

Read more | Read the report

Evidence From Los Angeles County

Researcher(s): Nicholas Chow, JR DeShazo, Omar Moghaddam

This research explores the energy needed for advanced water treatment processes, specifically for direct potable reuse, and seeks to inform decision-makers. This study uses the County of Los Angeles as a case study to quantitatively examine the water, energy, and greenhouse gas tradeoffs of utilizing different water supply sources. Read more.

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Adapting Outreach and Enrollment Strategies in the San Joaquin Valley

Researcher(s): Gregory Pierce, Rachel Connolly, and Kelly Trumbull

This report analyzes an adaptation of the original emPOWER approach to provide more targeted support to Southern California Edison-served households in Kings and Tulare counties. The most novel distributive impact of the pilot was connecting households to Arrearage Management Plan, a debt forgiveness program.

Read more | Read the report

COVID-19 and Utility Debt in Communities Served by Southern California Gas Company

Researcher(s): Paul M. Ong, Silvia González, Kelly Trumbull, and Gregory Pierce

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Author(s): Kelly Trumbull and J.R. DeShazo

This report, supported by the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator and the California Energy Commission, examines disparities in energy consumption and clean energy access across Southern California. The study highlights the importance of targeting investments in lower-income, disadvantaged, and heat-burdened communities, both to advance equity and to encourage emissions reductions. While overall clean energy access is unevenly spread among residents, the researchers find that electric vehicle charging stations are more equitably distributed — an outcome policymakers can learn from when ramping up rooftop solar and energy storage programs.

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COVID-19 Utility Debt in Communities Served by Pacific Gas and Electric

Researcher(s): Paul M. Ong, Silvia R. González, Kelly Trumbull and Gregory Pierce

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COVID-19 and Utility Debt in Los Angeles’ Communities of Color

Researcher(s): Silvia R. González, Paul M. Ong, Gregory Pierce, and Ariana Hernandez

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Lessons from California

Author(s): Kelly Trumbull, Julien Gattaciecca, and J.R. DeShazo
Funder: Rockefeller Brothers Fund

This report explores why and how community choice aggregators are effectively advancing goals for carbon-free energy. The study found that CCAs serve a variety of communities with a range of median incomes, political affiliations, and sizes. It also found that CCAs typically offered their communities competitive rates and higher shares of renewable energy.

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Researcher(s): Gregory Pierce, Colleen Callahan, and Rachel Connolly
Funder: The Liberty Hill Foundation

The researchers evaluated emPOWER, a coordinated outreach project connecting low-income households with energy efficiency, solar energy, low-carbon transportation, and financial assistance programs. The pilot activated community-based organizations to conduct outreach, information sharing, and technical assistance to help eligible residents sign up for free programs that can help them save money and conserve energy. The evaluation found that the campaign has been successful in reaching areas of L.A. County impacted by poverty and pollution, and offers potential as a replicable model.

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Author(s): J.R. DeShazo, Michael Kadish, and Alex Turek

This report by the Luskin Center for Innovation and GRID Alternatives assesses the barriers to solar adoption for low-income residents and provides a roadmap for how they could be overcome by unlocking millions of dollars in state incentives for residential solar on affordable housing.

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Author(s): J.R. DeShazo, Alex Turek, and Michael Samulon

This report identifies and clarifies important junctures in decision-making when utilities design a community solar program. This includes the importance of garnering support from potential participants, non-participating ratepayers, and the community at large.

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Harnessing LA’s FIT to Create Jobs and Build Social Equity

Author(s): J.R. DeShazo and Alex Turek
Funder: Los Angeles Business Council

Los Angeles launched the nation’s largest Feed-in Tariff (FiT) In Basin Solar program in 2013, helping to catalyze an emerging market for multifamily housing, commercial, warehouse, and industrial rooftop solar. Part of the promise of a properly designed and well-implemented FiT is that it will drive economic growth, enhance environmental sustainability, and create social equity in the workforce by creating career-ladder jobs through rooftop solar installations.

This report assesses the FiT program’s early impacts on the local solar market and on local employment. Researchers find that 40 percent of proposed solar projects are in solar equity “hot spots,” meaning in neighborhoods with high solar rooftop potential and indicators of high socioeconomic and environmental distress.

This is the third report in a three-part series commissioned by the Los Angeles Business Council and involving LCI research. The first, Making a Market: Multifamily Rooftop Solar and Social Equity, looks at areas of opportunity within the multifamily market. A follow-up report, Empowering LA’s Solar Workforce: New Policies that Deliver Investments and Jobs, focuses on the commercial and industrial markets as well as the solar workforce.

See LCI’s Energy Program page for other examples of how LCI scholars are expanding knowledge and capacity to advance equitable energy policies and programs.

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