All-electric homes offer a prototype for low-carbon housing in Colorado
Huddled in a construction trailer last year, a team overseeing development of an affordable housing complex in the Colorado mountain town of Basalt agreed to make a bold statement about future energy use.
No natural gas lines were to be laid through the red soil to Basalt Vista, an affordable housing project. Electricity instead fuels kitchen stoves and delivers hot showers. Electricity, not gas, warms chilled autumn air. All units also have charging equipment for electric cars.
Beneficial electrification, the concept in play, has been defined as the application of electricity to end uses that would otherwise consume fossil fuels. That includes both transportation but also buildings. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says residential and commercial buildings sectors account for about 40% of total U.S. energy consumption.
Basalt Vista serves as a demonstration of building electrification but also as a living laboratory with national implications. New technology designed in a partnership with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory allows homeowners greater decision-making in energy allocations. Holy Cross Energy, the local electrical utility, also has been using the all-electric units to understand implications for its operation as it shifts toward increased renewables. The co-op expects to be at 70% renewable by 2021 and has ambitions to go higher.
While multiple California cities are considering bans on new natural gas connections, building electrification remains an infant concept. Natural gas remains the go-to fuel source for heating and other purposes in new construction in most places. In Colorado, legislators and other state officials have begun considering how to reduce use of natural gas as they plan how to achieve the goal adopted earlier this year of 90% reduction in economy-wide carbon emissions below 2005 levels by 2040.