Name: Is there an equitable way to better energy efficiency?
Uploaded: 2023-11-23T17:39:47.269Z
Duration: 648.75

Is there an equitable way to better energy efficiency_final.mp4

Is better energy efficiency available to all_V2_1.vtt

English

{{00:00:00}}
When we think about purchasing energy efficiency equipment,
new lights, new air conditioning units, et cetera,

{{00:00:08}}
that just isn't feasible for most of the Americans,
and that becomes less feasible if you're spending

{{00:00:12}}
all of your money on energy just to be comfortable.

{{00:00:25}}
So let's start by talking about
energy efficiency kind of overall.

{{00:00:29}}
It's one of the most fundamental ways that you
can kind of lead to a more sustainable future.

{{00:00:33}}
How do you go about it on a sort of individual
community and then maybe like national and global level?

{{00:00:38}}
What are we talking about to be more efficient.

{{00:00:40}}
On an individual level it's more about behavior, right?

{{00:00:43}}
How you Interact with your building
with your home with your office.

{{00:00:50}}
Simple behaviors such as not adjusting that
HVAC the air conditioning or heating to great

{{00:00:57}}
lengths to try and make it hotter or colder.

{{00:01:01}}
One of the things that we, most people don't understand
is how their heating and cooling actually works.

{{00:01:05}}
And so, a lot of awareness about behavior from an individual
level really can drastically change, the energy usage.

{{00:01:13}}
In fact, they say with the same type of building, energy
usage can be twice as much based simply on behavior.

{{00:01:19}}
From a more community and industry
standpoint, it's more about electrification.

{{00:01:26}}
Removing natural gas and fossil fuels from the building.

{{00:01:30}}
It's about using more efficient
equipment, and less about behavior.

{{00:01:37}}
The equipment you use and the type of equipment you
use, whether you're using air source heat pumps or

{{00:01:42}}
water source heat pumps, radiant heating and cooling,
all of these are technologies that drastically

{{00:01:47}}
change the energy performance of a building.

{{00:01:50}}
Um, so it's a bit human behavior and a
bit sort of technical and engineering.

{{00:01:54}}
Does everybody then have sort of equal
access to being more energy efficient?

{{00:01:58}}
Absolutely not.

{{00:02:00}}
Everyone can change their behavior technically.

{{00:02:03}}
Practically,  people and how, and their comfort,
their, their, the efficiency of their homes,

{{00:02:11}}
the building envelope,  drastically impact how
much they can reduce their energy consumption.

{{00:02:18}}
Quite frankly, some people have to run
their heating and cooling more than others

{{00:02:22}}
because their building envelope is leaky.

{{00:02:24}}
It doesn't have a lot of insulation and so just to stay
comfortable in their own home they have to continue

{{00:02:31}}
to use heating or cooling depending on the season.

{{00:02:36}}
And then on a technical side, access to
equipment, LED bulbs is not equally accessible.

{{00:02:40}}
A lot of these, a lot of communities
either don't have access to LED bulbs.

{{00:02:45}}
Or the LED bulbs are more expensive
than they are in other places.

{{00:02:48}}
Can you talk a little bit then about how that
lack of access, if you like, how that lack of

{{00:02:52}}
equality gets compounded in the energy efficiency?

{{00:02:56}}
Yeah, I guess the best is an example.

{{00:02:58}}
You have a leaky home, not a lot of insulation, and so
you're, to stay comfortable, maybe you have a young kid like

{{00:03:04}}
I do myself, um, you have the heat going to keep it warm.

{{00:03:08}}
Well then your bill is extremely high.

{{00:03:10}}
And so...

{{00:03:12}}
You fundamentally don't have the
ability to go out and buy new equipment.

{{00:03:15}}
You don't have the money.

{{00:03:17}}
In America, I believe 40 percent of Americans
cannot afford a five hundred dollars cash emergency.

{{00:03:22}}
When we think about purchasing energy efficiency
equipment,  new lights, new air conditioning units,

{{00:03:29}}
etc., that just isn't feasible for most of Americans.

{{00:03:33}}
And that becomes less feasible if you're spending
all of your money on energy just to be comfortable.

{{00:03:39}}
And the term energy burden is often used in that aspect
of that you're, the percentage of your income, your

{{00:03:46}}
household income going to energy, paying energy bills.

{{00:03:50}}
That sounds like a very vicious cycle.

{{00:03:52}}
How do you, how do we go about kind of changing that?

{{00:03:56}}
Changing the dynamics of what is affordable.

{{00:03:59}}
Having new innovative solutions such as terraform bill.

{{00:04:03}}
And that is where the utility actually pays for upgrades for
the home and then recovers their costs based on a small fee

{{00:04:10}}
on the utility bill that is less than what the savings are.

{{00:04:13}}
So you're getting all new equipment,
you're not having any debt on yourself.

{{00:04:18}}
So if you need to move, it's stuck to the meter
and so you can move and the next person that

{{00:04:22}}
moves in has that same bill, that same tariff.

{{00:04:25}}
And so that some solutions like that really starts to remove
the onus on the homeowner or the resident of that house.

{{00:04:34}}
And allows them to say yes to energy efficiency
without having to put, go into more debt without

{{00:04:42}}
having to kind of sacrifice food  or health insurance.

{{00:04:46}}
I know in other, in other countries, health
insurance is more of a, just a human right.

{{00:04:50}}
It's not the case here.

{{00:04:53}}
And so that definitely produces a lot of
challenges between health, food and energy.

{{00:04:58}}
How do you persuade like the energy
companies to take something like that on?

{{00:05:01}}
I mean, I could see as a homeowner why I would jump
on it, but what's in it for the energy companies?

{{00:05:06}}
We're seeing more and more utility companies
and energy companies come onto this, in part

{{00:05:10}}
because they're actually making money as well.

{{00:05:12}}
We did one study.

{{00:05:13}}
I consult for a non profit called Clean Energy
Works, which is doing some great work in

{{00:05:17}}
inclusive solutions in the clean energy space.

{{00:05:21}}
And we did a study for a utility company in Massachusetts.

{{00:05:25}}
And found that for every house they're retrofitting,
and that's energy efficiency, maybe solar,

{{00:05:30}}
some other stuff as well, the utility company
is benefiting ten thousand dollars per home.

{{00:05:36}}
And so there's a win win situation here that we're
really trying to educate energy companies on so

{{00:05:42}}
that the residents can start benefiting, but also
the utility can be a part of this clean energy

{{00:05:47}}
transition as opposed to kind of inhibited of it.

{{00:05:50}}
That's really fascinating.

{{00:05:52}}
Are there any other initiatives that you
can talk to about doing similar things?

{{00:05:56}}
Yeah, absolutely.

{{00:05:56}}
So my company, Gemini Energy Solutions, in partnership
with Green the Church, which was a non profit founded by

{{00:06:03}}
black pastors to green black churches across this country.

{{00:06:07}}
And we're doing, we're actually going to be
retrofitting a hundred churches throughout Georgia.

{{00:06:12}}
This includes not just energy efficiency,
but solar, storage, and EV charging stations.

{{00:06:17}}
And one of the great benefits of this is that
when the money that the church is making off the

{{00:06:21}}
EV charging stations, they can then put back into
their congregations and to their community to

{{00:06:26}}
help them transition to energy efficiency as well.

{{00:06:30}}
You know, African Americans really
pride ourselves in our faith.

{{00:06:33}}
The church is a place that we look to for direction.

{{00:06:37}}
And so we're really excited about kind of the motivation
that comes in terms of awareness, familiarity with

{{00:06:42}}
clean technology and access it coming from the church,
it being communicated in a way that will resonate,

{{00:06:48}}
we think will produce some significant results.

{{00:06:51}}
So it seems like a lot of the stuff you're
talking about is about kind of the community

{{00:06:55}}
message, almost the bridge between engineers.

{{00:06:58}}
and technicians and the community, but what about
the kind of engineers and technicians themselves?

{{00:07:05}}
Do they need to think differently or learn
differently to address this inequality?

{{00:07:10}}
Yes, absolutely.

{{00:07:11}}
There's a lot of upskilling that's required.

{{00:07:14}}
Oftentimes, contractors have misperceptions about
heat pumps, for instance, and where they can be used.

{{00:07:20}}
I had a contractor from my house in Virginia
say that is too far north for a heat pump.

{{00:07:25}}
You know, if I was just an average citizen that doesn't
have a PhD in this, I probably would just listen to them.

{{00:07:31}}
Oh, okay, I need to get a natural gas heating unit
instead of a heat pump because it wouldn't work well.

{{00:07:38}}
But I had to argue with them.

{{00:07:40}}
It's like, no, that's not the case.

{{00:07:41}}
There's heat pumps in Alaska, for goodness sakes, right?

{{00:07:43}}
Like, there's this lack of understanding, lack
of education that actually permeates, right?

{{00:07:49}}
So when engineers or contractors speak to residents or
commercial buildings, and they are trying to install what

{{00:07:56}}
they've always installed because it's comfortable because
they're used to it because they don't know any better.

{{00:08:02}}
That's causing a fundamental barrier and
a challenge in our transition to a more

{{00:08:08}}
energy efficient, more clean energy economy.

{{00:08:10}}
How hopeful are you about a sustainable
future being an equitable future?

{{00:08:16}}
I am a lot more hopeful today than I was three years ago.

{{00:08:22}}
What we've seen from a federal standpoint
in this country, really stepping up, Biden's

{{00:08:28}}
Justice 40 initiative,  the amount of money that
the federal government is putting out there.

{{00:08:34}}
The folks that are hired in the federal government now,
they're more reflective of the citizens of America.

{{00:08:41}}
And they're really striving to make sure that
no one is left behind in this transition.

{{00:08:46}}
From an industry level, I mean,
people are asking about this.

{{00:08:49}}
I mean, people are talking about this.

{{00:08:52}}
We are in partnership with universities, with the industry
around talking about equity in the decarbonizing space,

{{00:08:59}}
talking about equity as a form of accelerating our
transition, as a way to reduce our costs in this transition.

{{00:09:07}}
I have to say I'm, I'm cautiously optimistic overall,
but we are definitely moving in the right direction.

{{00:09:12}}
So obviously we've talked about kind of equity in
a sort of national sense, different communities

{{00:09:16}}
across America, but, you know, we've got a big
problem sort of globally with equity as well.

{{00:09:21}}
And how hopeful are you that that can also be addressed?

{{00:09:24}}
A lot less optimistic in that space.

{{00:09:28}}
Most of the time we think about global, a
lot of words you'll hear is the global south.

{{00:09:32}}
And quite frankly, most of our raw materials that's
driving this clean energy transition for America,

{{00:09:38}}
for the EU, for any other country that's really more
developed countries are coming from these places.

{{00:09:45}}
Yet we are not putting the money behind
them for them to do a technology jump.

{{00:09:51}}
We've seen that technology jump in communication, right, and
payments, right,  throughout the global south, but what we

{{00:09:57}}
really need is to see that happen in a clean energy, because
if that's the case, it doesn't matter what America does.

{{00:10:03}}
It doesn't matter what the EU does Great Britain does.

{{00:10:07}}
It won't matter because their
development will push us far beyond.

{{00:10:12}}
The climate goals, the carbon emissions that we're...

{{00:10:15}}
greenhouse gas emissions, the 2.

{{00:10:18}}
0 Celsius, all of that is out of the question
if we don't focus on the global South.

{{00:10:22}}
Think more about restorative measures, right?

{{00:10:27}}
We've been extractive for so long with these countries
that it's really about not just putting money in them,

{{00:10:34}}
but also a restorative to build their economies, build
their infrastructure in a way that isn't just set on

{{00:10:40}}
us owning it ourselves, but them owning it as well.

When we think about purchasing energy efficiency equipment,
new lights, new air conditioning units, et cetera,

that just isn't feasible for most of the Americans,
and that becomes less feasible if you're spending

all of your money on energy just to be comfortable.

So let's start by talking about
energy efficiency kind of overall.

It's one of the most fundamental ways that you
can kind of lead to a more sustainable future.

How do you go about it on a sort of individual
community and then maybe like national and global level?

What are we talking about to be more efficient.

On an individual level it's more about behavior, right?

How you Interact with your building
with your home with your office.

Simple behaviors such as not adjusting that
HVAC the air conditioning or heating to great

lengths to try and make it hotter or colder.

One of the things that we, most people don't understand
is how their heating and cooling actually works.

And so, a lot of awareness about behavior from an individual
level really can drastically change, the energy usage.

In fact, they say with the same type of building, energy
usage can be twice as much based simply on behavior.

From a more community and industry
standpoint, it's more about electrification.

Removing natural gas and fossil fuels from the building.

It's about using more efficient
equipment, and less about behavior.

The equipment you use and the type of equipment you
use, whether you're using air source heat pumps or

water source heat pumps, radiant heating and cooling,
all of these are technologies that drastically

change the energy performance of a building.

Um, so it's a bit human behavior and a
bit sort of technical and engineering.

Does everybody then have sort of equal
access to being more energy efficient?

Everyone can change their behavior technically.

Practically,  people and how, and their comfort,
their, their, the efficiency of their homes,

the building envelope,  drastically impact how
much they can reduce their energy consumption.

Quite frankly, some people have to run
their heating and cooling more than others

because their building envelope is leaky.

It doesn't have a lot of insulation and so just to stay
comfortable in their own home they have to continue

to use heating or cooling depending on the season.

And then on a technical side, access to
equipment, LED bulbs is not equally accessible.

A lot of these, a lot of communities
either don't have access to LED bulbs.

Or the LED bulbs are more expensive
than they are in other places.

Can you talk a little bit then about how that
lack of access, if you like, how that lack of

equality gets compounded in the energy efficiency?

You have a leaky home, not a lot of insulation, and so
you're, to stay comfortable, maybe you have a young kid like

I do myself, um, you have the heat going to keep it warm.

You fundamentally don't have the
ability to go out and buy new equipment.

In America, I believe 40 percent of Americans
cannot afford a five hundred dollars cash emergency.

When we think about purchasing energy efficiency
equipment,  new lights, new air conditioning units,

etc., that just isn't feasible for most of Americans.

And that becomes less feasible if you're spending
all of your money on energy just to be comfortable.

And the term energy burden is often used in that aspect
of that you're, the percentage of your income, your

household income going to energy, paying energy bills.

How do you, how do we go about kind of changing that?

Changing the dynamics of what is affordable.

Having new innovative solutions such as terraform bill.

And that is where the utility actually pays for upgrades for
the home and then recovers their costs based on a small fee

on the utility bill that is less than what the savings are.

So you're getting all new equipment,
you're not having any debt on yourself.

So if you need to move, it's stuck to the meter
and so you can move and the next person that

moves in has that same bill, that same tariff.

And so that some solutions like that really starts to remove
the onus on the homeowner or the resident of that house.

And allows them to say yes to energy efficiency
without having to put, go into more debt without

having to kind of sacrifice food  or health insurance.

I know in other, in other countries, health
insurance is more of a, just a human right.

And so that definitely produces a lot of
challenges between health, food and energy.

How do you persuade like the energy
companies to take something like that on?

I mean, I could see as a homeowner why I would jump
on it, but what's in it for the energy companies?

We're seeing more and more utility companies
and energy companies come onto this, in part

because they're actually making money as well.

I consult for a non profit called Clean Energy
Works, which is doing some great work in

inclusive solutions in the clean energy space.

And we did a study for a utility company in Massachusetts.

And found that for every house they're retrofitting,
and that's energy efficiency, maybe solar,

some other stuff as well, the utility company
is benefiting ten thousand dollars per home.

And so there's a win win situation here that we're
really trying to educate energy companies on so

that the residents can start benefiting, but also
the utility can be a part of this clean energy

transition as opposed to kind of inhibited of it.

Are there any other initiatives that you
can talk to about doing similar things?

So my company, Gemini Energy Solutions, in partnership
with Green the Church, which was a non profit founded by

black pastors to green black churches across this country.

And we're doing, we're actually going to be
retrofitting a hundred churches throughout Georgia.

This includes not just energy efficiency,
but solar, storage, and EV charging stations.

And one of the great benefits of this is that
when the money that the church is making off the

EV charging stations, they can then put back into
their congregations and to their community to

help them transition to energy efficiency as well.

You know, African Americans really
pride ourselves in our faith.

The church is a place that we look to for direction.

And so we're really excited about kind of the motivation
that comes in terms of awareness, familiarity with

clean technology and access it coming from the church,
it being communicated in a way that will resonate,

we think will produce some significant results.

So it seems like a lot of the stuff you're
talking about is about kind of the community

message, almost the bridge between engineers.

and technicians and the community, but what about
the kind of engineers and technicians themselves?

Do they need to think differently or learn
differently to address this inequality?

There's a lot of upskilling that's required.

Oftentimes, contractors have misperceptions about
heat pumps, for instance, and where they can be used.

I had a contractor from my house in Virginia
say that is too far north for a heat pump.

You know, if I was just an average citizen that doesn't
have a PhD in this, I probably would just listen to them.

Expert Insight

Becoming more energy efficient is highly sought after in a world where energy prices continue to rise and sustainability is an ever-present focus. But the transition to cleaner and cheaper energy use isn't the same for everyone.
Streamly editor Sarah Austin sat down with Anthony Kinslow, Founder and CEO of Gemini Energy Solutions, to discuss the inequalities of access to energy efficiency and where to find hope for a sustainable and equitable future.

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thumbnail_anthony kinslow headshot.jfif

xsmall_anthony kinslow headshot.jfif

anthony kinslow headshot.jfif

Anthony Kinslow

Founder and CEO

Kinslow talks about the different ways of achieving energy efficiency at various scales, from individual to industry level.

Attaining energy efficiency at different scales?

Kinslow explain why not everyone has is equally able to become more energy efficient.

Inequalities of access to energy efficiency

Hear some examples illustrating how these long-standing inequalities can be rectified.


Breaking the vicious cycle of the energy burden

Kinslow discusses the necessary social changes that can be made to address inequality too.


New people-centric solutions to address inequality 

Kinslow addresses the possibility of a sustainable future where energy efficiency is available to all.