Marin County's Electrification Roadmap: A Step Toward a Greener Future!
Written by Keith Nickolaus, CRBA Writers Team
Marin County is stepping up its commitment to climate action with a newly launched Electrification Roadmap — a community-powered initiative designed to phase out natural gas and accelerate building electrification.
CRBA’s Marin/Sonoma Building Electrification Squad made significant contributions to developing the Roadmap, which outlines ten key steps to optimize alignment and reduce unnecessary red tape. This plan is a call to action for taking a more comprehensive approach to the elimination of carbon fuels and the transition to a fully electric future, cutting emissions, improving public health and unlocking energy savings for all residents.
Learn just how comprehensive Marin County’s Roadmap is, how it will roll out, and ways to get on the electrification bandwagon, whether you live in Marin County or elsewhere in the SF Bay Area.
“Most emissions - around 85% - coming from the built environment can be traced to the burning of natural gas... Electrifying a building can include ‘smart’ thermostats, solar panels, upgraded insulation and air sealing, induction cooktops, heat pump water heaters and dryers, and solar and battery storage.”
In case you haven’t heard yet… This summer Marin County released a comprehensive draft of its official “electrification roadmap.” The plan’s authors tout the roadmap as a holistic and comprehensive set of initiatives and time frames for an accelerated transition to countywide building and transportation electrification.
Developed in response to a 2022 Marin Civil Grand Jury report, Marin County’s Electrification Roadmap was developed by the County of Marin Sustainability Team and Marin Climate and Energy Partnership (MCEP).
The Roadmap also grew out of partnerships and collaboration with diverse Marin County stakeholders: elected officials and city staff members, utilities and related public agencies, community-based organizations, building and development professionals, and youth and student groups.
CRBA’s Marin/Sonoma Building Electrification Squad was also actively engaged in the deliberation process:
giving input during stakeholder meetings
helping to develop the 10 actions recommended in the Roadmap
submitting detailed review and comment on drafts of the Roadmap as it was written
actively promoting adoption of the Roadmap by all twelve Marin jurisdictions
While it remains to be seen if the vision laid out in the Electrification Roadmap will translate into real and effectively coordinated action, it highlights strong countywide agreements, action steps, and timelines to accelerate and facilitate a comprehensive transition to an all-electric future.
Highlighting Urgency and Comprehensive Goals
The developers of the plan emphasize goals that go beyond adding rooftop solar and weather proofing homes, setting their sights on building electrification first and foremost:
The urgency of the climate crisis has prompted State, regional and local policy makers to also accelerate emission reductions by rapidly replacing gas-combusting appliances and systems in homes and businesses with clean, all-electric ones.
Calling for a comprehensive approach, “Marin County’s Building Electrification Roadmap” stands out as a major win among Bay Area initiatives to combat global warming. The goals and countywide planning effort also demonstrate what effective leadership can accomplish, and it should motivate all of us to demand more action and results from the surrounding Bay Area counties as well.
Why This Matters
By focusing on a wide-scale implementation effort, Marin’s Electrification Roadmap, if implemented, promises drastic reductions to the county’s carbon footprint, making this roadmap a model for a coordinated and accelerated transition to a greener future, cleaner air, and urgently needed reductions in carbon emissions.
Case in point, about 85% of emissions coming from buildings in Marin are from the consumption of natural gas. Transitioning to electricity means far less emissions; it also should make homes and neighborhoods safer and healthier. And, with ample co-investments in solar deployments, Marin’s plan should also lead to savings on energy bills — cutting government costs and benefitting local businesses and residents.
Imagine a Marin where the air is cleaner, the risk of gas leaks is a thing of the past, and every household has access to renewable energy sources. If fully and ambitiously implemented, this is what Marin County could look like by 2030 or soon after. Marin County’s current roadmap is something advocates in other Bay Area counties can point to as a model for what’s possible.
Aligning 10 Objectives for a Path to an All-Electric Marin
The roadmap outlines 10 key actions to electrify Marin's buildings by 2030:
Central Hub for Electrification Info: The roadmap proposes creating an accessible central hub — a one-stop online information center where residents and businesses can find information on switching to electric appliances, available incentives, and more. This hub aims to simplify the process by providing all necessary information in one place.
Simpler Permitting and Incentives: The plan calls for streamlining permits and offering discounts to incentivize and accelerate the transition to electric systems and reduce barriers in the form of bureaucratic red tape.
Better Building Standards: The roadmap includes advancing building codes to encourage and facilitate electrification and renewable energy adoption, such as solar panels and electric vehicle chargers.
Green Financing Options: To ensure the full and swift participation and engagement of small business owners, small landlords, and individual homeowners and renters, it will be essential to develop low-cost loans, flexible financing options, and subsidies, so that all county residents can participate, regardless of income — both as a matter of equity, but also in order to ensure the electrification is comprehensive, including all communities and neighborhoods in the county.
Collaborating with PG&E: Improving grid infrastructure is essential for the transition to all-electric systems. The plan includes collaboration with PG&E to enhance infrastructure planning and expedite necessary upgrades.
Growing the Workforce: The plan’s electrification ambitions will quickly stall without an ample and appropriately skilled workforce. For this reason, the roadmap also includes initiatives for green energy workforce development — measures that spotlight the importance of proactive and sustained capacity building, both as a necessary component of success for Marin, but also likely to provide crucial support if and when other local counties follow Marin’s lead.
Engaging Community Based Organizations: Outreach and support efforts will focus on underserved districts like West Marin, the Canal District, and Marin City. The plan also calls for county and city leaders to work in partnership with local grassroots organizations to ensure that low-income households also go electric and enjoy cost savings and health benefits.
Accelerating Electric Vehicles: Expanding electric vehicle infrastructure is also part of the plan, accelerating the transition away from combustion engine vehicles and their legacy of contamination.
Energy Assessments When Selling Homes: Implementing energy assessments during home sales will help buyers understand the energy efficiency of properties and encourage and accelerate home improvement work that aligns with electrification goals.
Neighborhood Electrification Pilots: A pilot program will focus on electrifying entire neighborhoods and decommissioning old gas infrastructure, fostering community-wide discovery and information-gathering to speed up wider progress toward an all-electric future.
How You Can Get Involved
This is a big step forward, but it’s going to take all of us to make it work. The roadmap lays out the path, but we’re the ones who have to walk it. There are a few ways you can help:
Explore the Feasibility of Electrifying Your Own Home or Business
Whether you live in Marin or elsewhere, we encourage you to keep an eye on Marin County’s electrification hub — for practical information on incentives, and for help navigating your electrification projects and city services and regulations.
“The hub is very useful for all Bay Area residents... For homeowners or business owners looking for a place to start, this resource is likely unmatched and includes links to a wide range of information sources.”
Live in Marin or somewhere in the Bay Area?... Research local and state-wide electrification incentives and electrification service providers:
Check out CRBA’s recent benefits of electrification blog post for more insights into electrification trends, benefits and resources.
In the blog post above, you’ll also find a link to Climate Reality’s “Electrifying My Life Pledge” — a perfect way to get support in taking the leap from interest to action!
To stay informed about electrification rebates you may qualify for, or similar incentive programs, bookmark this important website: Programs & Rebates information at BayRen.org.
Bay Area residents who want to do their own home energy assessment and electrification planning can also get a major leg up by partnering with free and low-cost residential electrification consultants. They advertise free and low-cost technical advising and project cost estimating, offer to help homeowners monitor and decode the evolving rebates landscape, and help match homeowners’ with qualifying contractors based on their specific electrification project needs. To learn more, check out QuitCarbon or Cinnamon Energy to see for yourself!
The CA Energy Commission’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) Website has information and updates about electrification and related incentives flowing from IRA legislation passed under the Biden administration.
Join the Conversations
Marin County will be holding workshops and events to get feedback and share updates. This is a great chance to make your voice heard and learn more.
The Climate Reality Project website and blog pages and the Climate Reality Bay Area Chapter (CRBA) website and blog pages are also great online resources to help you stay connected and informed about electrification and other ways to combat climate change.
The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) is a regional clearing house for forums, committees, and public agency funding sources for a variety of sustainability projects, from trails and EV infrastructure, to public transit, electrification initiatives, and more.
BayRen.org also promotes and coordinates a variety of forums on decarbonization, green energy initiatives, and electrification.
Message your local and county representatives — county supervisors, state assembly member, city mayor and council person… Tell them about Marin’s comprehensive approach and urge them to show the same kind of leadership in order to accelerate and coordinate a smooth transition to a cleaner, greener, sustainable Bay Area.
Building Momentum
This is an exciting time for Marin as the electrification roadmap they’ve created should have a positive impact on efforts to align, integrate, and coordinate agendas, resources, and action for comprehensive approach to forging an all-electric future.
Marin’s roadmap can also be a model for other Bay Area counties that inspires bolder commitments, and the forms of deeper alignment, streamlining, and information sharing that will help us pursue electrification with the kind of urgency that’s so badly needed.
It’s also important to streamline and coordinate planning efforts. It makes no sense to leverage rooftop solar incentives alongside high-density building codes without some kind of coordination to protect sun access, or to create EV incentives but discourage rather than streamline EV charging build outs for both residents and renters.
Even with a roadmap, success is hardly a sure thing, but without a roadmap, change at this scale would take decades to achieve, not years.
Hopefully the process that generated Marin’s Electrification Roadmap will also be a roadmap in its own right for other counties — for accelerating the transition away from dirty fuels to a clean-sourced electric energy future. Together, we can light the way.
Please share your comments with other readers…
Do you have a building electrification experience we can learn from or take encouragement from?
Do you have any insights to similar initiatives in surrounding counties?
Are you optimistic (or not) that the Marin Roadmap will bear fruit?
Join Our Team?
Want to help us make the CRBA blog a brighter light for Bay Area climate action? For information about joining the CRBA Writers Team, reach out to crbawriters@gmail.com.