Building Healthier and More Energy-Efficient Communities in Fresno and the Central Valley
Community energy action plan for healthy and energy efficient communities in the Central Valley.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Recipient
Berkeley, CA
Recipient Location
9th
Senate District
14th
Assembly District
$1,100,000
Amount Spent
Completed
Project Status
Project Result
Due to the covid-19 pandemic, in-home walk-throughs for collecting baseline equipment data and energy use information from residents in south Fresno has been replaced with remote data collection using phone interviews. In early 2020, the team completed a long form survey which was approved by the Human Subjects Committee at LBNL. Five pilot interviews were conducted by Rising Sun - a community-based organization - and the long form survey was adjusted based on the responses from the pilot survey. The research team has also compiled building data from publicly available sources, and the neighborhood-scale City-BES modeling tool (CityBES.lbl.gov) has been updated to include building data for south Fresno neighborhoods of interest. Data includes building vintages and floor sizes for all residential buildings.
The Issue
Fresno includes many disadvantaged communities with high unemployment and poor air quality, and its high pollution load contributes to adverse health outcomes. The disadvantaged communities in Fresno also suffer from lack of air conditioning or cannot afford to run air conditioning during hot summer months, which significantly impacts occupant health. At the same time, access to clean technology options (e.g. solar PV, major energy efficiency upgrades, battery-electric vehicles) is constrained in disadvantaged communities by many structural barriers.
Project Innovation
This project develops a holistic community action plan to achieve climate benefits and air quality improvements through energy efficiency measures, electrification, and distributed energy resources in the residential building and light-duty and medium-duty transportation sectors in the City of Fresno. Field surveys and validation testing provide inputs on appropriate implementation strategies and selection of systems and technologies to overcome barriers associated with site characteristics and user responses. Researchers monitor energy use in typical households within disadvantaged communities to inform analysis of energy programs.
Project Goals
Project Benefits
This project provides state-of-the-art information and analyses on the impacts of prioritized and integrated energy efficiency, electrification, distributed energy resources, and battery electric vehicles in the Fresno area in relation to climate benefits and air quality improvements.
Key Project Members
Max Wei
Subrecipients
Home Energy Analytics
Local Government Commission
Every Neighborhood Partnership
Rising Sun Energy Center
