July 2022

Menlo Park’s Climate Action Plan calls for reducing natural gas emissions 95% in its residential community by 2030.

Menlo Park, California has signed a public-private partnership agreement with BlocPower to electrify city households and reduce their natural gas consumption. The city’s Climate Action Plan has a goal of carbon neutrality by 2030.

The State of California requires emissions to be cut 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 and all retail electricity to be carbon-free by 2045 but Menlo Park plans to get there first.

 The city claims “to be the first city on the West Coast to establish a public/private partnership of this kind,” said Angela Sherry Evans, Environmental Quality Commissioner, for the city, in a press release. “We aim to electrify 95% of our existing buildings, dramatically reducing our city’s dependence on natural gas [which is] responsible for almost half our greenhouse gas emissions.”

In the press release dated June 14, 2022, the city reports that fuel consumption in buildings accounted for 41% of Menlo Park’s greenhouse gas emissions. With BlocPower’s help, the city’s goal is to electrify 15 buildings in 2022, 100 in 2023 and 1,000 more per year in 2024 and beyond. 

In a voluntary program, residents will be given opportunities to install heat pumps for heating, cooling and water heaters, electric vehicle charging stations, solar, battery storage and other efficiency measures.

BlocPower, based in Brooklyn, New York, intends to lower the costs for accomplishing these goals by using data models to improve project design efficiency and by using equipment supplier relationships. It will focus initially on the Belle Haven district and provide affordable and accessible project financing there for low-to-moderate income households.

A local non-profit, Menlo Spark, will work with the city to raise up to $35 million to also reduce project costs for low-to-moderate income households. Belle Haven is located along the Bay Front which is most impacted by climate change.

BlocPower intends to establish community advisory boards which would work with the company to identify program designs that fit with stakeholder needs. JobTrain, a local enterprise, will assist with establishing a job training program to create the jobs needed to scale up the program.

Menlo Park has a population of 34,780 according to the 2020 US Census. It reports there are 12,174 households. Neither the US Census nor the City of Menlo Park lists the number of housing units in the city.