My gas bill goes from $15 per month in the summer, to $100 per month in the cold of winter. I keep my thermostat low, and have even made the effort to turn it down during the night and when I'm not at home. Even so, my apartment is so thermally leaky that I'm wasting $$ (and carbon) heating it. My landlord is nice, but has no reason to change anything, as the market favors the landlords right now. In a supply-constrained housing market, can incentives be put in place encouraging landlords to properly insulate?
Ideas
- Require that yearly expected heating costs be published along with advertisements for apartments, (feels like red tape)
- Have the landlords pay for heat up to some legal minimum temperature (65 degrees, perhaps?). The rest is covered by tenants. (requires smart thermostats, plus perhaps cooperation with the energy company. plus, I could leave my thermostat at 64, and leave my door open all day. Discourages conservation by tenants.)
- Split heating bills 50/50 between landlords and tenants. (landlords are punished a bit by misbehaving tenants, but at least the tenant pays, too. Requires cooperation between landlord and tenant, and possibly energy company.)
- From below, raise the rent a fraction of the saved utility costs so the landlord gets a cut of the savings. Might not work well in a competitive rental market unless the landlord advertises the lower utility costs.
- Alternately, long-term tenants could just offer to pay for insulation since they'd save ... the landlord would get a free improvement.
Policy Initiatives
- http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUBLISHED/AGENDA_DECISION/11051-06.htm suggests that California is careful not to subsidize landlords, but still basically just gives low-income renters the option to receive upgrades if they pay the bills. They do charge the landlords in some cases. If they knew about it (e.g. from a PG&E insert), a low-income renter could suggest this program to their landlord and the landlord would be happy to get a discounted fridge or whatever. Now the question is, are there any similar incentives (LIEE?) for normal income renters?
This program, in cooperation with the housing authorities, adopts a utility allowance that reflects savings due to energy efficiency measures. When savings are shared between landlord and renter, the landlord may charge a higher rent as an incentive to install energy savings measures and the renter will pay a lower overall monthly costs due to energy savings. In addition, incentives will be provided to building owners that demonstrate a 20% improvement over current condition as determined by a HERS rating or by showing 10% more efficient than required by state law using Microspas or Energy pro software runs. Ignoring the effect of energy efficiency on utility allowances provides no incentive for energy efficiency in housing authority units. The program focuses on working with housing authorities for the first year, and with building owners for the second year.
Jonah says: "Woah, what is this HERS thing he talks about? Hm, found this interesting and very long paper describing it: http://www2.fsec.ucf.edu/en/publications/html/FSEC-RR-54-00/index.htm "
The abstract says, among other things:
Since the beginning, the process of reaching a national consensus on an acceptable rating method has been plagued by the competing market interests of the electric and gas industry. The effort to find a solution that is equitable and "fuel neutral" has proven to be a quest not unlike that for the holy grail.
hah!
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