Buildings Hub Live: Recent Episodes
Atlas Public Policy
Atlas Public Policy is excited to host our twenty-first episode of “Buildings Hub Live,” where we spotlight the changemakers and technologies leading the charge to electrify our built environment. Join us on Wednesday, June 25 at 2:30 PM EST as we sit down with Ryan Cassidy, Vice President of Real Estate at Mutual Housing California, and Keith Snyder, Energy Branch Manager at the Fairfax County Park Authority, to discuss their efforts that earned them awards at the Better Buildings Summit in May.
What projects are they undertaking and what makes them stand out from the pack? What can other local governments and NGOs learn from their work to help decarbonize their communities? Tune in to find out!
Atlas Public Policy is excited to host our twentieth episode of “Buildings Hub Live,” where we spotlight the changemakers and technologies leading the charge to electrify our built environment. Join us on Tuesday, February 25 at 2:30 PM EST as we sit down with Jane Melia, CEO of Harvest, and David B. Calabrese, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs at Daikin U.S., to discuss their companies' respective heat pump technologies.
What are their innovations and how are they different from other heat pumps on the market? What are the biggest technical challenges facing heat pumps? What misconceptions about heat pumps do policymakers, homeowners, and contractors hold? Tune in to find out!
Atlas Public Policy is excited to host our nineteenth episode of “Buildings Hub Live,” where we spotlight the changemakers and technologies leading the charge to electrify our built environment. Join us on Wednesday, January 29 at 4:00 PM EST as we sit down with Katarina Michalova, Program Manager at the City of St. Louis, and Aidan Callan, BERDO Program Manager at the City of Boston, to discuss nationwide developments and milestones in the implementation of building performance standards (BPS).
Why are BPS' important? How are various state initiatives supporting their expansion? More broadly, what is the role of local and state policymaking for building decarbonization progress? Tune in to find out!
Atlas Public Policy is excited to host our eighteenth episode of “Buildings Hub Live,” where we spotlight the changemakers and technologies leading the charge to electrify our built environment. Join us on Tuesday, December 17 at 1:30 PM EST as we sit down with Rose Stephens-Booker, Managing Director of Programs and Partnerships at the Building Decarbonization Coalition, and Tony Sirna, Buildings Senior Policy Lead at Evergreen Action, to discuss the key federal and state building decarbonization policy moments of 2024.
What major developments came out of Congress and the executive branch in 2024? What regulatory themes arose from state legislatures? And how could these evolutions carry into 2025? Tune in to find out!
Atlas Public Policy is excited to host our seventeenth episode of “Buildings Hub Live,” where we spotlight the changemakers and technologies leading the charge to electrify our built environment.
Join us on Tuesday, November 12 at 4 PM EST as Policy Analyst Stephen Naimoli sits down with Andy Johnson, Executive Director of Clean Energy Districts of Iowa. The pair will discuss progress and developments in the inception and proliferation of clean energy districts nationwide.
What are clean energy districts and how do they function? How did Johnson start up the nation's first in Iowa? How are state initiatives popping up across the country supporting this effort? Tune in to find out!
Atlas Public Policy is hosting its sixteenth episode of “Buildings Hub Live,” where we spotlight the changemakers and technologies leading the charge to electrify our built environment. Join us Thursday, October 10 at 1pm EST for a discussion on how New Mexico's Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department rolled out the state's federal Home Energy Rebates.
In this joint episode with the Climate Program Portal, join Policy Associate Jaclyn Lea and Policy Analyst Stephen Naimoli as they speak with Yeny Maestas, Inflation Reduction Act Rebates Program Manager, and Rebecca Stair, State Energy Office Director, about the recent award, their program design, and how New Mexico plans to spread the word and encourage uptake of the rebates.
Atlas Public Policy is excited to host our fifteenth episode of “Buildings Hub Live,” where we spotlight the changemakers and technologies leading the charge to electrify our built environment. Join us on Thursday, May 30 at 1:30 PM EST as we sit down with Lauren Ross, Deputy Director of Energy Justice at the DOE's Office of Energy Justice and Equity, and Dylan Martello, Senior Building Systems Consultant at Steven Winter Associates, to discuss the decarbonization of affordable housing, both in new builds and retrofits.
Is decarbonization currently a luxury good, and how can we expand access? What programs are housed in the DOE to broaden decarbonization for low- and moderate-income households? How are private contractors engaging with the affordable housing's decarbonization? Tune in to find out!
Atlas Public Policy is excited to host our thirteenth episode of “Buildings Hub Live,” where we spotlight the changemakers and technologies leading the charge to electrify our built environment. Join us on Friday, February 9 at 1:30 PM EST as we sit down with Sara Ross, Co-Founder of UndauntedK12, and Ryan Kmetz, Energy Program Manager at the Maryland Energy Administration, to discuss progress and developments in the electrification of K-12 public school buildings. Why is building electrification important for student health and performance? How is recent federal funding accelerating the electrification of public schools? How are various state initiatives supporting this effort? Tune in to find out!
Atlas Public Policy is hosting its fourteenth episode of “Buildings Hub Live,” where we spotlight the changemakers and technologies leading the charge to electrify our built environment. Join us Wednesday, May 1 at 9:30am EST for a discussion on progress and developments in electrifying buildings in cold climates with Marnese Jackson, Executive Director of the Midwest Building Decarbonization Coalition, and Michael Stoddard, Executive Director of Efficiency Maine.
Just over one-third of buildings in the United States are in cold climates. It is often thought that electric heating technologies like air-source heat pumps can't perform in these climates, but technologies have improved and deployment is soaring in some famously cold regions. The Midwest and Northeast are the two coldest regions nationwide, and also rely most on piped gas, propane, or fuel oil for space heating.
So how are practitioners in these places helping customers electrify their buildings and save money on their energy bills? What role do federal, state, and local governments play? RSVP today to find out!
Join Atlas Public Policy as we host the twelfth episode of “Buildings Hub Live,” where we spotlight the changemakers and technologies leading the charge to electrify our built environment. Join us Thursday, December 14 at 2:30 pm EST for a discussion with Jenna Tatum from the Building Electrification Institute and Panama Bartholomy from the Building Decarbonization Coalition about the top building policy moments and market trends in 2023.
This conversation highlights the biggest developments in the buildings space from 2023. Learn about the Berkeley ruling and its aftermath, state and local electrification wins, federal regulatory actions, IRA and IIJA funding news, building code challenges, and stove-related bills, among other items.
Atlas Public Policy hosts the eleventh episode of "Buildings Hub Live," where we sit down for a discussion with Karen Zelmar from the U.S. Department of Energy on the federal home electrification rebates.
The Inflation Reduction Act appropriated billions to electrify buildings, with a particular focus on low-income communities. This critical injection of funding will support efficiency gains for residential buildings, across all demographics in an all-of-the-above historic effort.
What can we expect from this program? What is expected and required of states in the funding process, and how will funding be disbursed? How does the average consumer apply for and take advantage of this program? And who qualifies? Tune in to find out!
Developing a skilled, qualified workforce is essential to decarbonizing the US buildings stock. Contractors serve as the key interlocuters with potential adopters as they decide what to install and provide important information on available technologies, incentives, benefits, and costs. But do we currently have the workforce necessary to achieve our building decarbonization goals, and if not, what programs and initiatives exist to change that?
We sat down with Mary MacPherson from the Department of Energy, Harley Stokes from the BlueGreen Alliance, and John Doherty from the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, to learn more about the role of workforce development in scaling building decarbonization nationwide.
Atlas Public Policy is excited to host our ninth episode of "Buildings Hub Live," where we spotlight the changemakers and technologies leading the charge to electrify our built environment. Join us for a discussion on building decarbonization across the Midwest, as we sit down with Molly Graham from the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance and Dr. Missy Stults from the City of Ann Arbor, Michigan.
As of 2020, only 20 percent of households in the Midwest used electricity for primary space heating, and it is the region most dependent on piped gas and propane for home heating. Likewise, only 14 percent of regional households are all-electric, and just about 5 percent of homes report having a primary heat pump.
What opportunities exist to decarbonize and electrify the Midwest and facilitate efficiency gains across the region? Which states are leading the charge to electrify the built environment, and what should we expect from policymakers across the region going forward? How might the injection of federal climate funding turn the tide and move the needle on Midwest electrification?
Atlas sits down with Joe Wachunas and Amruta Khanolkar of the New Buildings Institute to discuss the future of electric water heating in US buildings and the role of heat pump water heaters in the energy transition.
What percent of US households rely on fossil fuels for water heating? What does the heat pump water heater (HPWH) market look like? How might federal, state, and utility programs accelerate HPWH adoption? Tune in to find out!
We sit down with Kristy Egg, Marketing Director at Egg Geothermal, and Eric Bosworth, Senior Program Manager at Eversource Energy (MA), to discuss the prospect for deploying thermal energy networks throughout the United States. How can we scale these district geothermal systems to electrify buildings, campuses, and communities across the country? Could we retrofit existing gas infrastructure to support carbon-free thermal energy networks? Tune in to find out!
Atlas Public Policy is excited to host our sixth episode of "Buildings Hub Live," where we spotlight the changemakers and technologies leading the charge to electrify our built environment. Join us as we sit down with Brady Seals, Manager of the Carbon-Free Buildings Program at RMI, and Ruth Ann Norton, President and Chief Executive Officer at the Green & Healthy Homes Initiative, to discuss the critical intersection of public health and building sector electrification.
Buildings Hub Live hosts representatives from two leading building decarbonization companies leading the charge to weatherize, decarbonize, and electrify communities across the United States.
Atlas Public Policy is excited to host our fourth episode of "Buildings Hub Live," where we spotlight the changemakers and technologies leading the charge to electrify our built environment. Join us for a special post-Midterm election conversation on Wednesday, December 14 at 2PM EST where we'll sit down with Julia Pyper, host and producer of the "Political Climate" podcast series, and Justin Worland, Senior Climate Correspondent at TIME Magazine, to discuss the implications of the election outcome for building sector electrification. How might the results change or accelerate the push to decarbonize the US buildings stock on the federal, state and local level? What does the unexpected outcome mean for the future of decarbonization policy over the next two years?
Buildings Hub Live spotlights the changemakers and technologies leading the charge to electrify the built environment. On this episode, Mark Kresowik, Senior Director for Policy at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) and Alisa Petersen, Federal Policy Manager at RMI, discuss the historic opportunity for building electrification outlined in the Inflation Reduction Act. What's in the bill and how will it enable widescale building sector decarbonization? What rebate programs and tax credits can you apply for? Listen to find out!
Buildings Hub Live spotlights the changemakers and technologies leading the charge to electrify the built environment. Join Atlas Public Policy for Episode 2 on Wednesday, August 31 at 2 PM EST. We have the pleasure of hosting Noah Cordoba, Program Coordinator for Kitchen Electrification at the Building Decarbonization Coalition, and Ram Narayanamurthy, Program Manager with the Emerging Technologies Office at the U.S. Department of Energy, to discuss the the future of the electric kitchen and the transition to induction cooktops.
While many home and commercial chefs believe gas stoves to be superior than their electric counterparts, that perception will need to change as the United States transitions to all-electric buildings. Traditional electric cooking, either coil tops or ceramic glassware, represent the vast majority of electric cooking appliances across U.S. households. However, a safer, higher-performing, more efficient option, induction cooking, is emerging as the future of the electric kitchen. Induction makes use of electromagnetism to heat iron/steel pots and pans, which allows the cooking surface to remain cool to the touch even when fully engaged. Induction stoves can boil water faster than any alternative, including gas, and they generate zero indoor air pollution and pose zero fire risks. With the right policy support and increased awareness, it’s only a matter of time before induction cooking comes to a kitchen near you.
Atlas Public Policy is excited to launch our new podcast series “Buildings Hub Live” where we spotlight the changemakers and technologies leading the charge to electrify our built environment. Join us for our inaugural session on Tuesday, July 12 at 3 PM EST where we’ll drill down with Kathy Hannun, President & Founder of Dandelion Energy, and Alexis McKittrick, Program Manager with the Geothermal Technologies Office at the US Department of Energy, to discuss the role for geothermal heat pumps in decarbonizing the US buildings stock.
Space heating, air conditioning, and water heating are responsible for around 70 percent of US household energy consumption, and buildings generate nearly 15 percent of total US carbon emissions. According to the US Department of Energy, geothermal heat pumps are the most energy-efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly option for home heating and cooling. Under the right conditions, geothermal heat pumps can replace traditional air conditioning units, boilers, furnaces, and water heaters, provide substantial cost savings to homeowners, and reduce household emissions and carbon monoxide risks. Drawing upon the near-constant temperature (~50°) of the shallow subsurface, geothermal heat pumps channel subterranean heat into homes during the winter, and pull heat from buildings and inject it into the ground in the summer.