Electrify Your Community

The "Electrify Your Community" guide by RMI provides a five-step framework for local governments and community-based organizations to implement residential heat pump deployment programs. The guide focuses on scaling air-source and ground-source heat pumps and heat pump water heaters to reduce residential greenhouse gas emissions, leveraging federal incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).

• The guide outlines a five-step process for local governments to develop an "Electrify" program: establishing partnerships and goals, engaging contractors, designing incentives and financing, conducting community outreach, and managing program implementation.
• Successful programs require a coalition of internal local government departments (such as permitting, procurement, and communications) and external partners, including community-based organizations (CBOs), technical experts, utilities, and financial entities.
• To increase contractor participation, programs should address barriers such as high up-front costs, incentive complexity, and misconceptions about heat pump performance in cold climates, while leveraging motivations like high-quality leads and business growth.
• Affordability is addressed by streamlining existing federal, state, and utility incentives—such as the Residential Energy Efficiency Tax Credit (25C) and Home Electrification Rebates—and designing additional local offerings like midstream incentives and loan loss reserves for low-interest financing.
• Effective community outreach relies on trusted messengers, such as local CBOs and "heat pump ambassadors" (volunteers with installed systems), and tailored messaging focusing on financial savings, health benefits, and energy independence.
• Program management includes establishing technical support systems, such as electrification help desks and peer-to-peer networks, and tracking impact metrics including installation rates, demographic reach, and energy savings.

APA

RMI (2024). Electrify Your Community. https://rmi.org/resources/electrify-your-community/

Chicago

RMI. Electrify Your Community. 2024. https://rmi.org/resources/electrify-your-community/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=Electrify Your Community |date=20 November 2024 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/electrify-your-community/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2024electrify, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{Electrify Your Community}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2024}, month = nov, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/electrify-your-community/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }