The Bay Area will rapidly transition to clean heating over the next decade with Air District's zero-NOx emissions rules phasing out the sale of smaller residential gas heating equipment--this starts in 2027 with gas water heaters. Getting our buildings off gas water heating will contribute significantly to our regions health, and progress on our climate goals. Luckily, heat pump water heaters (HPWH) offer a powerful opportunity for building owners to begin their electrification journey, operating at around 3.5 times the efficiency of gas water heaters. To achieve success, we need to expand the market for HPWHs, ready the workforce for clean water heating retrofits, bring down costs, remove technical barriers, and provide municipalities, energy providers, and lawmakers with strategies to drive equitable adoption of HPWH technologies.
- Jeffery Liang is a Senior Manager in the Energy Efficiency Department at Energy Solutions, where he currently manages Equity initiatives on the TECH Clean California project. Jeffery has experience in administering and managing regional and statewide energy efficiency and electrification rebate programs and financing products including the BayREN Home+, GoGreenFinancing and Energy Upgrade California programs.
- Eric Morrill is a licensed contractor and architect, and runs All-Electric California, a San-Francisco company specialized in systems replacements for building electrification. When not wiring electrical circuits on construction projects, Eric advocates as a board member of Efficiency First California, and lectures on energy and environment at UC Berkeley and California College of the Arts. Eric is a proud father of three, and enjoys mountaineering and reading in his spare time.
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Cooper Marcus is the Chief Quitter and CEO at QuitCarbon. Cooper believes that society’s move away from fossil fuel presents an incredible opportunity to respond to the climate crisis while improving the quality of life for homeowners, renters, and the small businesses that help maintain their homes. Cooper has led high-impact projects and products at high-growth startups and large enterprises. He recently spent 2.5 years at PG&E, guiding the development of an industry-leading wildfire risk machine learning model that is used to prioritize over $1B in annual spending on risk reduction. Cooper has a BA in Environmental Studies, with a focus on Urban Planning, from UC Santa Cruz, where he received college honors, highest honors in the major, Dean’s Award, and Chancellor’s Award. He has an MBA from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, where he was awarded Top Student in Technology and E-Commerce.
- Alejandra Posada is a Program Manager at Peninsula Clean Energy, the not-for-profit electricity provider in San Mateo County and the city of Los Banos. Alejandra oversees PCE's robust residential building electrification offerings including rebates, 0% interest financing, and a direct install program. She has been with PCE for over 7 years working on programs to help decarbonize the transportation and building space.
- Benny Zank is a building decarbonization coordinator at the San Francisco Environment Department and manages the San Francisco Climate Equity Hub. The Hub will accelerate equitable residential building electrification by serving as a one-stop-shop for residents, particularly those in environmental justice communities, to learn about and access technical, financial, and workforce resources – our first offering is a heat pump water direct install program that has completed 10 installations and is scaling up in 2025.