Transforming the Market for Energy Efficiency in Minneapolis

Abstract

The City of Minneapolis, in conjunction with the Clean Energy Partnership, has expressed an interest in policy options for the disclosure of residential energy efficiency, building upon its Commercial Building Benchmarking and Transparency Policy. This paper examines the benefits and options for residential energy disclosure in the City of Minneapolis, with a focus on single-family homes. Given the city’s aggressive greenhouse gas emissions goals, including retrofitting 75% of the single-family housing stock, residential energy disclosure can accelerate the progress of these goals and may be necessary to achieve them. 

Based on a review of other policies, and a pilot conducted in 2017 (both described in more detail in the report and appendices), we developed the following recommendations for designing a residential energy disclosure policy in Minneapolis:

• An asset rating would be the most effective method of residential energy disclosure at time-of-sale
• The rating should be designed to be highly visible to residents
• Integrate energy disclosure with the city’s existing Truth in Sale of Housing (TISH) process
• Integrate disclosure with utility programs and related initiatives and policies
• Consider designating funds from the city utility franchise fee to support implementation of energy disclosure and enhanced services
• A stakeholder group could help guide implementation

Related Resources:

Paper: Leveraging existing home inspections at time-of-sale to promote energy upgrades
Presentation: Leveraging existing home inspections at time-of-sale to promote energy upgrades

We want to acknowledge support from the City of Minneapolis and CenterPoint Energy for helping fund the inspector pilot (discussed in Appendix D), which helped to inform our overall recommendations in this report.