California’s building sector generates roughly 25% of the state’s annual greenhouse gas emissions from onsite fossil fuel consumption and electricity demand. The California Energy Commission’s 2021 Building Decarbonization Assessment identifies building end-use electrification as one of the first strategies in a plan to cut building sector emissions by at least 40% below 1990 levels by 2030. Governor Gavin Newsom has reinforced these ambitious targets by setting goals of three million climate-ready homes by 2030 and seven million by 2035, alongside the installation of six million heat pumps by 2030.

The scale of the investment that will be needed to comprehensively electrify the existing building stock in California is significant: estimates for the costs of electrifying space conditioning and water heating end-uses alone range from $72-150 billion. Although some households can afford, and may voluntarily choose, to retrofit their homes, financial incentives remain necessary to accomplish near universal electrification, especially for lower- and moderate-income households. Maintaining the status quo or rushing to expedite this transition will likely only continue the current, inequitable patterns of technology adoption. This will lead to further impacts for California’s disadvantaged communities.

This policy brief examines the equity implications of building electrification, including existing and future costs of electrification, barriers to adoption, and specific concerns for renters in multi-unit buildings, drawing on a multi-year interdisciplinary analysis conducted by the California Center for Sustainable Communities.