Help shape a strategy for transitioning Piedmont’s residential buildings off natural gas and onto renewably sourced electricity by completing a brief online survey. Whether you’re a sustainable living trailblazer or you’ve never even thought about switching to electric appliances, we want to hear from you.

The City’s Sustainability Division is working with a community task force to develop an Existing Building Electrification Strategy, a roadmap that will guide future outreach, programs, and policies around home electrification. Your input – regardless of how much knowledge or experience you have – will help us better understand community perspectives, what challenges residents face when trying to electrify, and where there are opportunities to provide support.

The survey asks:

• How familiar you are with home electrification technologies, such as solar photovoltaic, heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, and EV charging
• Whether you’ve completed or attempted electrification projects on your property
• What you see as the most appealing reasons to switch to electric appliances
• What challenges and barriers you anticipate or have faced

The survey is available at piedmont.ca.gov/ElectrificationSurvey and should take less than 10 minutes to complete. After completing the survey, you can enter to win a $50 gift card to Ace Hardware.

The survey will remain open through November 30, 2024. Please share widely with your network.

Survey responses will help community task force identify and prioritize solutions

Natural gas use in residential buildings accounts for roughly half of Piedmont’s in-territory greenhouse gas emissions. Because much of Piedmont’s housing stock is old and large, heating and cooling these homes requires greater than average energy use. Transitioning these buildings from natural gas to renewably sourced electricity is a critical part of meeting the City Council’s adopted goal of climate neutrality by 2045.

The City has convened a Task Force of community representatives, representing a broad range of expertise and experiences, who are working with Sustainability staff to develop a plan for how the City can support all community members in the switch to electric appliances – no matter what barriers they may face.

This survey is part of the first phase of Electrification Strategy development, research and data collection. Next, the Task Force and project team will begin identifying and prioritizing possible solutions. Community members will have another opportunity to participate at that time, and will be invited to provide comment on the draft Electrification Strategy before it comes to City Council for adoption.

For more information on the Electrification Strategy and Electrification Task Force, including meeting materials, visit piedmont.ca.gov/ElectrificationStrategy. With questions, contact Sustainability Program Manager Deniz Ergun at [email protected].