Residential

The residential built environment is responsible for 21% of all U.S. energy consumption by end use, and accounts for approximately 20% of U.S. GHG emissions. Energy efficiency measures in the residential built environment can result in major reductions in energy use and emissions and can also add to greater energy affordability for homeowners and renters. Although the IRA provides significant investments to incentivize residential energy efficiency deployments and installments, including tax credits and rebate programs, more will be needed to achieve greater emissions reductions and energy savings, and to add increased reliability to the nation’s energy systems. Moreover, energy transition strategies (and U.S. climate policy more broadly) will need to lead with energy efficiency, including sealing the building envelope to ensure that relevant energy investments are appropriately sized, in addition to the deployment of Active Efficiency technologies to maximize energy efficiency output, including grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEBs), demand flexibility, virtual power plants, and other technologies.