SCC-CIVIC-FA Track B: Piloting a Decarbonization-Ready Common Home Assessment

Thousands of households in Detroit, MI need billions of dollars in home repairs to address urgent health and safety risks and high energy burdens. No single funding assistance program can address the myriad needs at scale. Navigating duplicative home assessments confuses households, frustrates provider organizations, and misses decarbonization opportunities. Decarbonization of energy systems has rapidly emerged as a central goal to address climate change. Many cities and states have set high carbon reduction goals as part of their climate policies and corresponding initiatives. While Detroit’s housing crisis created its sense of urgency, numerous cities around the country are grappling with the desire to braid financial resources and coordinate services to support housing stability and accelerate net-zero goals. In response to these needs and opportunities, a team of academic and community-based researchers and civic partners have come together to co-design and pilot a decarbonization-readiness module for integration with a common, comprehensive home assessment protocol emerging in Detroit, MI. This resource will be field-tested, and retrofits will be completed for a study cohort of low-income homes. Qualitative social science data will be collected with providers, clients, and stakeholders to complement quantitative energy use and air quality data. Simplified digital home models will be used to simulate supportive rate structures, demand response programs, grid-interactive appliance programs, and associated controls. The intent of this effort is three-fold. First, the project will support and accelerate collaborative efforts already underway to braid financial resources and coordinate services aimed at addressing home hazards, weatherization, and energy efficiency. Second, decarbonization retrofits will be considered more holistically and at every stage of the home repair journey. Finally, to address economic barriers to adoption and opportunities to reduce the effective cost of decarbonization by leveraging technology and new value streams. Specific objectives include: a field-tested decarbonization-readiness home assessment module; increased adoption of a comprehensive home assessment protocol in Detroit; a case study of decarbonization strategies enabled through braiding of funding streams; a formative evaluation report characterizing perceived and actual benefit to providers and clients and the feasibility of bringing a pilot effort to scale; and an engineering report describing technology gaps, solution pathways and enabling utility rate programs. This project is in response to Track B - CIVIC Innovation Challenge - Bridging the gap between essential resources and services & community needs. The CIVIC Innovation Challenge is a collaboration with Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security, and the National Science Foundation. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.