E3’s 2019 study, Residential Building Electrification in California, evaluates the consumer economics, greenhouse gas savings and grid impacts of electrification in residential low-rise buildings across six representative homes type in six climate zones in California. It takes a closer look at the near-term consumer economics of building electrification. The report affirms that the most promising near-term opportunities for consumer cost savings among low-rise residential building electrification options can be found in all-electric new construction, and high efficiency air source heat pumps in homes where air conditioning can be replaced with heat pumps.
The California Energy Commission’s 2020 report, The Challenge of Retail Gas in California’s Low Carbon Future, evaluates scenarios that achieve an 80 percent reduction in California’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 from 1990 levels, focusing on the implications of achieving these climate goals for gas customers and the gas system. The report’s analysis suggests that building electrification is likely to be a lower-cost, lower-risk long-term strategy compared to renewable natural gas.
GridWorks’ 2019 report, California’s Gas System in Transition, offers and economic analysis highlighting the challenges of large-scale electrification policies to the existing gas system, and recommends financial and regulatory reforms to ease the gas transition for customers, including small and disadvantaged customers, as well as gas marketers and suppliers.