The Powerpoint document, which you can download below is a draft of proposed legislation intended to cut the carbon dioxide emissions from MA homes to net zero by 2050. It builds on my book, my webinar and my work advising homeowners on how to cut their carbon emissions in the most cost-effective way possible. In my consulting work I have never failed to cut a homeowner’s utility bills and carbon emissions substantially, and sometimes to zero.
It gets the average home to net zero by adding insulation, heat pumps and solar panels to almost all 2 million homes in MA. By taking advantage of the generous subsides from both the MA government (net metering, MassSave rebates and tax credits) and the federal government (rebates and tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act or IRA) you can reduce the upfront cost of a heat pump by between 80-100%, reduce the cost of insulation by up to 100% and reduce the cost of solar panels more than 30%. Any balance can be financed with either zero-interest-rate-loans from MassSave (up to 7 years and up to $25,000) or low-interest-rate-loans (maximum 2%) from the Massachusetts Community Climate Bank , or MCCB, (up to 20 years and up to $100,000).
Adding heat pumps (while retaining the existing fossil-fuel heater as a back up), insulation and solar panels to the average 1,800sf home in MA will cut the bills for heating and electricity by $208 per month or $2,500 a year. Even assuming that the net cost is financed at the highest interest rate on the MCCB loan (2%), the net monthly saving (after the loan servicing costs) is $111 per month or $1,332 per year. According to large-scale, independent, academic research, this cut in bills will increase the home price by about $50,000. Plus the house has a brand-new heating system. If the house already has AC, it now has a brand new AC system. If the house does not have AC, it now has it for the first time. Not bad really. I expect these huge benefits to the homeowner to lead to at least a tripling of requests for a MassSave audit and subsequent installation of insulation, heat pumps and solar. A tripling of the number of houses retrofitted under the MassSave program each year from the current 25,000 to 75,000 means that all 2 million MA homes are retrofitted by 2050.
If you have any comments, questions or criticism of this plan please email me at dgreen@greenzerocarbon.com