Skip to main content
BDC Presents

Revalue.io

Efficiency and Building Performance, Electrification, Heat Pumps, Workforce Development

This BDC Presents webinar features a discussion with Revalue.io's founder, Mark Hall, and Director of Community Transformation, Aaron Clay, regarding the lessons they have learned from their experiences in the building electrification market.

Since 2015, Revalue.io has been preparing communities for the transition to clean energy through energy-saving building improvements (including insulation, heat pumps, etc.) and removing home health hazards such as lead, mold, pests, etc.

Working with local, minority contractors and utility program administrators, Revalue.io provides a full-service custom “No Wrong Door” service for property owners, tenants, and local contractors to access resources such as rebates, grants, and other incentives that enable us to eliminate upfront costs for our customers.

Revalue is seeking community and municipal partnerships in California, Georgia, New York, Illinois, Tennessee, and Michigan.

Webinar Recording

Resources:

Key Takeaways

  • Electrification: replacing technologies that use fossil fuels (oil, coal, natural gas, etc.) with technologies that run on electricity. Electrification holds great potential to reduce final energy demand because the efficiency of electric technologies is generally much higher than fossil fuel-based alternatives with similar energy services. 
  • Since 2015, Revalue.io has been preparing residential communities for an equitable transition to clean energy through energy-saving building improvements and removing home health hazards
    • What is important to know is that often, there are a range of issues such as deferred maintenance that need to be addressed before electrification
  • What Revalue.io does: offers customized residential energy and health assessments and works with local contractors to train and prepare them for an equitable transition to clean energy
    • Revalue.io understand that the energy transition is complex and its goal is to streamline the process and address barriers through a customized approach
    • Main customers: property owners, residents, and contractors
  • The customer base (property owners and residents) is segmented into three groups: 
    • Early Adopters: no large burdens for electrification and are willing to electrify
    • High Opportunity Housing: don’t understand how to electrify, but if provided with assistance through the processes to electrify, likely would do so
    • Priority Communities: Communities such as low-middle income communities, communities of color that require significant resources and guidance to electrify their homes
      • Critical to address priority communities because these communities are often the ones that experience negative health impacts due to deferred maintenance 
      • Messaging for Priority Communities: it is imperative to address immediate needs before electrification 
      • In these priority communities, it also is important to have more contractors in these areas allowing for wealth-building and empowerment
  • Existing barriers and obstacles for priority communities (three Cs)
    • Community: outreach is not funded and effectively executed, there is a need to create intentional messaging and resources for communities that have the greatest need in order to scale
    • Costs: need more direct investments to lower project costs, older homes tend to have more deferred maintenance
    • Capacity: if the workforce is not diverse and only one group benefits from labor, communities will not participate and no scaling will occur. 
  • Revalue.io’s model addresses these three barriers through their “no wrong door” model by integrating services to address the whole home. Essentially, revalue.io aligns services and funding to the need of the customer, it braids in relevant resources, and coordinates service delivery
    • This model is culturally competent in how it engages and reaches out to communities, is effective in homeowner education, and streamlines the process of electrification
    • This model also depends on local organizations and program resources working with revalue.io to work effectively
    • Evaluating the whole house instead of focusing on appliance by appliance allows for a more comprehensive solution for customers to make their homes healthier and more comfortable while electrifying their homes. 
    • Community: Another important partnership they have is with EBCE (a community choice aggregator in the East Bay) to have interested people fill out a form that allows Revalue.io to jumpstart their evaluation of the home and be prepared prior to speaking with the customer. 
    • Cost: Working with the Green Healthy Homes Initiative, moisture and drafts are common issues to resolve with electrification, and by working with GHHI, they are trying to find ways to reduce costs and illustrate to local community organizations the health costs versus the costs of electrifying. 
    •  Capacity: Revalue.io supports organizations already working in this space such as CRC, NAMC, and Cypress Mandela to build capacity and scale electrification
  • Finally, Market transformation is another critical piece they work on and they are currently looking to expand in California, Georgia, Michigan, and Tennessee.

Q & A 

  • What are some of the impacts of your work now, or expected in the future? Are the number of contractors doing this work, and the number of homes you are reaching increasing over time in this Bay Area market?
    • Some impacts are that contractors are learning about new business opportunities that they didn’t know about before attending a training session with Revalue.io. This may mean potential for their business to double or triple.  Through this work, they are emphasizing the importance of communication, and being thorough in site visits. Other impacts include building a pipeline of new contractors through apprenticeships. 
    • The number they are reaching is growing because a lot of low-income folk and traditional housing customers are not aware that having gas in your home is not good for them. This leads to more people reaching out to them to figure out how to electrify their homes.
  • Could you say more about the funding model? Do the homeowners also put money down or is it all no-money-down? Does financing have a play?
    • Revalue.io’s “no wrong door” model is designed to have multiple funding models because it aligns, braids, and coordinates programs and resources to the specific occupant's needs. Financing and funding are still important though. The ideal model is that there is no financing required, but if financing is required Blocpower tends to be the finance partner.
    • Not as finance-focused, Revalue.io also works with service providers to find barriers to electrification. For example, service providers may provide replacements for old appliances, but that is a prime opportunity to electrify an appliance. This is where revalue.io comes in to help explain the benefits of an electric application and this education piece provides another avenue of change.
  • Are multifamily property owners interested? Can you speak on your experience (if any) around working with small MF buildings (under 20 units? What have been some lessons learned?)
    • The impact health and safety side is on the tenant. However, the property owner often is not a tenant and has to make significant investments in the housing so they aren’t necessarily motivated to do so. How do we fill the gaps? They work with housing organizations to develop solutions for the property owner and are looking into developing a residential green lease (very technical and transactional) but they want to develop a more collaborative model, where property owners benefits (increase value of property, etc.) and also benefit residents by drafting anti-displacement policies.
    • Smaller multifamily homes are not always up to code (design properties with add-ons or not permitted units) adds to complexity and costs of electrifying 
    • Usually, a lot of unpermitted additions so engagement often takes longer and they need to be intentional 
  • How did you develop partnerships with the utilities?
    • The way that Reavalue.io developed partnerships was primarily by inviting utilities to attend their events and showing them the work that they did. For example, PG&E has on-demand training sessions and Revalue.io invited them to an in-person training session. PG&E attended and saw the impact of an in-person training session and that ultimately led to them working together. 
  • What kinds of skepticisms do you face from communities, and how do you address these skepticisms? For example, contractors who are skeptical about efficacy of heat pumps, community members skeptical of importance of fuel switching, etc.
    • The main concern that they hear is that people are tied to their gas stoves and are skeptical about induction or electric stoves. To address this, they share information about cookware and show people that you can still cook great food on electric appliances.
  • What kind of help do you need to scale the great work you do?
    • MORE PARTNERS! We are better together and we can’t make these changes at scale without partnership. Just transition is important and we can’t do that without partners and continually growing our ecosystem. We need to partner and collaborate with the community, government, utilities, and community organizations.