Conversations about creating more efficient homes often revolve around new construction. But what about the many more buildings that already exist? Residential and commercial buildings account for 13% of greenhouse emissions in the U.S. That’s precisely what BlocPower aims to address.
BlocPower electrifies and decarbonizes buildings—mostly by replacing oil- and gas-based furnaces, boilers, and other products with all-electric heating, cooling, and hot-water systems. Founded by Donnel Baird in 2014, the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based company works with building owners and city governments to make buildings greener and healthier. As of April, BlocPower had raised over $100 million, including over $50 million from Goldman Sachs and $30 million from Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund.
In what BlocPower calls the “first large-scale city electrification initiative,” the company plans to electrify all 6,000 buildings in the city of Ithaca, N.Y. If successful, BlocPower will reduce Ithaca’s annual carbon dioxide emissions by 40%. BlocPower has a similar agreement with Menlo Park, Calif., where the company will help electrify over 10,000 homes and buildings by 2030.
WHOLE-HOME ELECTRIFICATION OF RETROFITS
“BlocPower is turning every home into the equivalent of a Tesla,” Fast Company announced earlier this year, ranking BlocPower #4 on its list of the most innovative companies in the world. Time called BlocPower one of the world’s most influential companies.
BlocPower provides a turnkey service. First, for each building, the company identifies the energy-efficiency solutions that would have the greatest impact. BlocPower then presents the building owner with its list of possible measures and an analysis of their impact. “We show building owners the costs and the benefits of these green-efficiency projects,” says Maria Carrillo, project operations manager, BlocPower. The company’s retrofits save 20% to 40% on energy bills annually, Carrillo says.
Once the owner picks the solutions they want, BlocPower finances the project, typically through a 15-year lease without a down payment, and competitively bids out the work to contractors who can execute green projects. The lease covers the upfront costs—design, materials, and labor—as well as BlocPower’s ongoing maintenance of the equipment. “We wrap in a lot of benefits into the lease option to make clean energy more accessible to building owners,” Carrillo says.
The main green tech that BlocPower provides? Electric air-source heat pumps. The confusingly named heat pump, popular in parts of Asia and Europe but much less so in the U.S., doesn’t just heat a home but also cools it. In the summer, air-source heat pumps suck out and cool hot air in the home, and in the winter, they grab and warm heat energy from the outside air. “Heat pumps are at the core of most of our building projects,” Carrillo says. “They deliver the most bang for the buck when it comes to efficiency and overall impact on the building.”
BlocPower’s other offerings include electric water heaters, solar panels, air sealing, electric stoves, highly insulated building envelopes—and the electrical upgrades that almost all buildings need for many energy-efficiency solutions to work.
So far, BlocPower has electrified over 1,200 buildings, mostly single-family and multifamily homes primarily in low- and moderate-income communities, though the company also has worked on commercial buildings and houses of worship.
The company’s biggest challenge is one shared by many in the construction industry: the labor shortage. For BlocPower, the worker shortage is exacerbated by the fact that it needs laborers with green-construction knowhow. “The biggest barrier we have is the green workforce that actually constructs these projects. There’s a lack of workforce and skill. And it’s very fragmented,” Carrillo says. On each project, BlocPower often works with four to six different companies, each with its own specialty. “We’re limited by the contractors across the country that can pick up the work and have the skills to green these buildings.”
To help address that challenge, BlocPower, in partnership with the City of New York, has created a workforce development agency called Civilian Climate Corps. Based in New York, the agency builds and trains a pipeline of up to 1,500 workers who come from areas impacted by higher rates of gun violence. These individuals learn in the classroom and on the job, gaining the skills and certifications they need. Hopefully, Carrillo says, they will continue to work in green construction, perhaps as BlocPower’s contractors.
Related Stories
| May 11, 2012
Chapter 10 Action Plan: 18 Recommendations for Advancing Sustainability in Reconstructed Buildings
We offer the following recommendations in the hope that they will help step up the pace of high-performance building reconstruction in the U.S. and Canada. We consulted many experts for advice, but these recommendations are solely the responsibility of the editors of Building Design+Construction. We welcome your comments. Please send them to Robert Cassidy, Editorial Director: rcassidy@sgcmail.com.
| May 9, 2012
International green building speaker to keynote Australia’s largest building systems trade show
Green building, sustainability consultant, green building book author Jerry Yudelson will be the keynote speaker at the Air-Conditioning, Refrigeration and Building Systems (ARBS) conference in Melbourne, Australia.
| May 9, 2012
Stoddert Elementary School in DC wins first US DOE Green Ribbon School Award
Sustainable materials, operational efficiency, and student engagement create high-performance, healthy environment for life-long learning.
| May 8, 2012
Gensler & J.C. Anderson team for pro bono high school project in Chicago
City Year representatives came to Gensler for their assistance in the transformation of the organization’s offices within Orr Academy High School, which also serve as an academic and social gathering space for students and corps members.
| May 8, 2012
Morgan/Harbour completes three projects at Columbia Centre
Projects completed on behalf of property owner, White Oak Realty Partners, LLC, Pearlmark Realty Partners, LLC and Angelo Gordon & Co.
| May 7, 2012
Best AEC Firms: MHTN Architects nine decades of dedication to Utah
This 65-person design firm has served Salt Lake City and the state of Utah for the better part of 90 years.
| May 3, 2012
Best commercial modular buildings and marketing programs recognized
Judges scored entries on architectural excellence, technical innovation, cost effectiveness, energy efficiency, and calendar days to complete.
| May 3, 2012
Zero Energy Research Lab opens at North Texas
The living lab—the only one of its kind in Texas—is designed to test various technologies and systems in order to achieve a net-zero consumption of energy.
| May 3, 2012
NSF publishes ANSI standard evaluating the sustainability of single ply roofing membranes
New NSF Standard provides manufacturers, specifiers and building industry with verifiable, objective criteria to identify sustainable roofing products.
| May 3, 2012
Gilbane to provide CM services for North Reading’s integrated middle/high school
The project scope includes a wastewater treatment plant, demolition of the existing high school and extensive athletic fieldwork.