SLO Green and Healthy Homes
UPDATED: 12/12/2023
Project Name: SLO Green and Healthy Homes
Project Leader(s): City of San Luis Obispo & Five Cities Diversity Coalition
Partner(s): CAPSLO (Community Action Partnership SLO)
Stage of Completion: In-progress
Construction Type: Existing Buildings
Building Type:
Modular homes
Using manufactured and mobile homes for research.
The program resulting from this pilot will serve mobile and modular homes and stick-built homes.
Total Number of Units Targeted: Will be determined by initial research, with a goal of targeting homes that will benefit from electrification
Total Number of Units Completed: N/A
Tenant Structure: Owner-occupied mobile home units (often the land is leased)
Target Audience:
For research purposes, the target audience is mobile and manufactured homeowners in the City of San Luis Obispo, CA
Following the pilot, the goal is to serve the entire community.
Full/Partial Electrification: To be determined based on research findings
Existing Heating Fuel Type: Natural gas
End Uses Electrified:
Goal: space heating and cooling, water heaters. This will be dependent on research findings from the pilot.
Voluntary option for cooking appliances
Specific electric appliances installed: air source heat pumps, heat pump water heaters
Total Project Funding:
$400,000 from DOE
Plus, additional funds from federal and state retrofit programs
Amount or % of Project Cost Covered per unit:
Research will determine the total costs covered
Goal is to cover at least 75% of the project cost through a braiding of incentives from federal, state, and local programs
Source of Funding:
$400k from Buildings UPgrade Prize (DOE)
The first round of funding will support planning and research work
Motivation for electrification:
The City of San Luis Obispo supports beneficial electrification to increase community resilience to wildfire smoke and heat.
Many housing units for folks would benefit from improvement, and there are federal and state resource dollars available for electrification.
There are also City and community goals to reduce emissions. Manufactured and mobile homes comprise a portion of building stock that can help achieve these goals.
The program also hopes that electrification can help to stabilize energy costs for residents. In January of 2023, there was a 300% increase in gas costs, which nearly displaced folks.
Additional Measures Implemented: Any additional measures implemented will be dependent on research and regulatory restraints. The project leaders are considering solar installation, but given that most mobile home parks are master metered, there are possible regulatory constraints on whether the solar installation will be possible depending on the rate structure. Initial analysis shows that envelope improvements will be needed to offset the cost increases anticipated with heat pump installation. CAPSLO has done this, and there is hope to leverage their existing work.
Workforce Development/Green Jobs Component: Will be decided by working groups. This project will also help advocate for workforce training in the electrification space.
Next steps:
Project kickoff will be in January, followed by community groups convening in March and the hiring of a technical contractor in February and March.
The goal is to complete the work in the coming year (end of 2024).
Will look to Phase 2 of the Buildings Up Prize to finance project implementation work.
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