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Since 2013, BayREN’s Single Family Home+ Program had provided rebates and education on home energy efficiency and electrification upgrades to homeowners. While the program was helping many households convert to more sustainable energy usage, data suggested that BayREN was not achieving their goal of primarily reaching the underserved audience of moderate-income residents (who still need support, but are not eligible for similar income-qualifying programs).

Energy upgrades improve comfort and boost energy efficiency in buildings, leading to significant savings on energy bills. BayREN offers programs tailored for homeowners, multifamily property owners, and financing options for businesses—making it easier and more rewarding to invest in energy upgrades.

– BayREN’s Programs & Rebates

In 2022, CivicMakers partnered with Grounded Research to support an equity assessment of the Home+ program. The intent was to conduct a forward-looking assessment to help inform program design in future years, especially looking at how to better align the programs with the California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC) equity objectives and the needs of the targeted underserved audiences.

Grounded Research took the lead on quantitative research to ensure that the program was tracking the appropriate data for their equity metrics. CivicMakers took the lead on qualitative research to ensure that the objectives of the programs were meeting the needs of participating customers. In total, the research team engaged over 70 community-based organizations and over 35 partner organizations, including contractors and energy program implementers, as well as 10 homeowners across all nine counties.

CivicMakers conducted in-depth focus groups with regional program staff to understand the barriers to program adoption among underserved groups based on their experience working directly with these populations. We also conducted interviews with targeted underserved groups to understand the participant journey through the program and identify barriers to program participation.

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Through the assessment we found that moderate-income residents, who are often not eligible for income-qualified programs, have consistently not participated in ratepayer energy efficiency programs like the BayREN Home+ program. As a result, the very population that the program was aiming to reach wasn’t benefiting.

When assessing who was already participating in the program, we found that they were already likely to be researching energy efficient options, and seeking out programs like this one that could help them fund upgrades they already had planned. While the rebates were considered helpful, they were not large or timely enough to be the deciding factor in pursuing home energy upgrades.

We learned that moderate-income households with less know-how, time, and resources were missing out on the opportunity to benefit from the rebates to make their homes more energy efficient.

Furthermore, we identified several challenges to program participation, including barriers to finding out about the program, difficulties with installation, and dependence on contractors. Additionally, most participants felt that the rebate amounts were too small and it was difficult for them to cover upfront costs and then wait for a rebate that might be denied. The table below shows a visualization of the challenges participants faced at each stage of the program.

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Our findings were incorporated into a larger report, prepared by Grounded Research – bridging qualitative insights with their quantitative assessments. The goal of this report was to help program leaders decide the future of the program, and what would best serve key communities across the Bay Area.

As a result of the findings from the study, the Home+ program was sunsetted and replaced with a new program – the “Efficiency and Sustainable Energy” (EASE) Home program, which is designed to make it easier for these customers to overcome the hurdles to program participation, including high upfront costs, language barriers, and administrative challenges in navigating rebate programs and seeking out contractors. The new program was launched in August 2024.