The Future is Building Electrification
Date Posted: October 24, 2023
Posted In: Discussion, Environment/Sustainability,
From FacilitiesNet: When it comes solving the climate crisis, there is no silver bullet. A solution requires an all-hands on deck mentality, and building electrification is one the many increasingly important strategies the buildings industry is deploying to do its part to mitigate climate change.
Building electrification means replacing any equipment — usually heating — in a facility that uses natural gas with equipment that only uses electricity, like heat pumps. The end game is to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by replacing greenhouse gas emissions produced from natural gas with clean, renewably produced electricity from solar, wind and other alternative sources. As the grid increasingly transitions to an ever-higher percentage of renewable energy, that’s exactly what’ll happen. For this reason, building electrification is also known as building decarbonization.
But it won’t happen overnight. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the grid will decrease 26 percent in carbon intensity between 2020 and 2050. That means now’s the time to prepare your buildings for clean, carbon-free electricity.
FacilitiesNet recently talked with Andrew Lehrer, a building electrification expert with consulting firm ESD. Lehrer answered questions about the value to facilities of building electrification, as well as why it’s also important to focus now on onsite renewables.
FacilitiesNet: Why should commercial facility managers consider building electrification as an energy efficiency and sustainability strategy?
Lehrer: With utility sources such as wind and photovoltaic reaching cost parity with coal and natural gas the grid profile is becoming more renewable each year. Utilizing electricity in lieu of natural gas will position a facility to reduce its Scope 1 emissions (on-site operational carbon footprint) over time.