How to Access Inflation Reduction Act Funds

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Sara Gutterman: Know everyone. And welcome to today's discussion with Chris Castro about the Inflation Reduction Act. We're really excited to have you here. We have just a few more people joining. So if you can just hang tight for about 30s, we'll let them in. And we ask that everybody mutes themselves and we'll get started here in just a minute.

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Chris Castro: Good to see some familiar faces out there.

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Sara Gutterman: All right.

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Random person: Where are you located, Sarah?

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Sara Gutterman: I am in the mountains of Colorado.

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Random person: Wow. It's a nice place to be.

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Sara Gutterman: Yes, indeed. Thank you.

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Random person: I mean you.

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Sara Gutterman: Hello. Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's discussion with Chris Castro about the Inflation Reduction Act. For those of you who are not familiar with me, I'm Sarah Gutman. I am the CEO and co-founder of Green Builder Media. And it's a pleasure to have you here. Today's discussion is part of Green Builder Media's Today's Homeowner Content, which is brought to you by some of our favorite partners whirlpool, Genco Solar, Sonos, Mike by Lyft, Master, and Vivint.

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Sara Gutterman: Now we generally use go to meeting for large webinars and events, but we're on zoom today because this discussion is intended to be a part of our next generation influencer group, which is just an incredible group that we have pulled together of young professionals who are doing awesome things and sustainability, and we get together with this group several times a year, several times throughout the course of the year.

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Sara Gutterman: Thus, topics like decarbonization, demand side, energy management, electrification and other leading leading edge topics. If you'd like to learn more about the Next Generation Influencer group and possibly join, check out the link that Samantha Karlin from our team is posting in the chat box. Now, typically when we have these next generation discussions, they're intimate enough so that we can have an open discussion.

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Sara Gutterman: But since there was just so much interest in today's meeting, we're going to ask that participants stay on mute while Chris is talking, and then he actually has some questions for the group that he will ask at the end of his presentation. And if you have questions during his presentation, please just chat them to me privately and then we'll call on people at the end, just kind of based on the time that we have, and we'll be able to facilitate a discussion then.

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Sara Gutterman: Now we all know and we're here because the Inflation Reduction Act has been touted as the single largest infusion of federal cash aimed at tackling climate change in US history. It's very exciting. Allocates $369 billion to reduce domestic carbon emissions, boost renewable energy implementation, drive innovative technology adoption, electrify transportation and provide incentives for sustainability upgrades in homes and buildings.

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Sara Gutterman: And so we are absolutely thrilled that our dear friend Chris Castro, Chief of Staff for the Office of State and Community Energy Programs at the US Department of Energy, is here with us today to tell us as much as he possibly can about accessing IRA fundings, funding incentives and tax rebates in homes and buildings. Now, he'll share with you that there's still a lot that's still under consideration and undetermined.

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Sara Gutterman: So he won't have all the answers today. But I know that he'll be a wealth of information and certainly provide as much insight as he possibly can to us. Now, for those of you who are familiar with Chris. He previously served as the senior advisor to Mayor Buddy Dyer and Director of Sustainability and Resilience at the City of Orlando in Florida.

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Sara Gutterman: He's well known for his entrepreneurial efforts, including being the co-founder and president of organizations like ideas for US, Citizen Energy and Fleet Farming. He's also a founding director of Climate First Bank, the first B Corp community bank in Florida that's working to advance ESG and local investing for sustainability and decarbonization solutions. And on a personal side, Chris has been a dear friend for over a decade.

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Sara Gutterman: He is just an incredible human being. In his relatively young life and career. He's already saved a woman's life. And don't be surprised if at some point you see Chris Castro for president and we'll certainly have my vote. So Chris adamantly deny it at this time. So, Chris, before I hand it over to you, we do ask that everybody please mute yourself while Chris is presenting just because you never know.

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Sara Gutterman: These days, in the era of zoom, we get cats and dogs and streaking naked, naked kids and all kinds of things that have become normal and we love them, but we don't necessarily want to hear them. Well, Chris is talking, so please mute. And again, if you have questions, please chat them directly to me and we'll have a facilitated discussion at the end of the call.

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Sara Gutterman: So Chris, with that please take it away. I'm eager to hear what you have to say.

00:06:07:27 - 00:06:26:19
Chris Castro: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Sarah. And to all of you who've been able to join this afternoon, it's quite a pleasure. And for those who are going to watch later as it's recorded, thank you for for attending again. My name is Chris Castro. I have the honor of serving here at the US Department of Energy as the Chief of staff for a newly forming office.

00:06:26:20 - 00:06:46:11
Chris Castro: And today's presentation, I will be touching on the IRA and giving some insight on some of the both the credits, as well as some of the rebates that Doe is helping to support, but also wanted to give you insight on the bipartisan infrastructure law and a lot of the funding that is looking to go to our communities. Right.

00:06:46:13 - 00:07:20:02
Chris Castro: A lot of this funding going through states, but also down to cities and counties, to school districts, to nonprofits and others, and we're in such an incredible time here in, in history and in this administration. And I'm looking forward to diving in. So with that, I think it's important to kind of just start out level setting with how important addressing the climate crisis is for the Biden-Harris administration, quite frankly, you know, coming into this new role, one of the major reasons why I decided to make this big pivot was because we had leadership.

00:07:20:02 - 00:07:57:09
Chris Castro: Now that truly understood that there really is no greater challenge facing our nation and our planet than the climate crisis. And what the Biden-Harris administration is thinking about, especially with the new funds that have been released, is how do we turn this crisis into an opportunity? I've actually given a talk before, and I remember being trained by al Gore in the Climate Reality Project, and he mentioned that the character for for danger or for crisis, sorry, is two words in the Chinese language danger and opportunity.

00:07:57:09 - 00:08:31:17
Chris Castro: And I think, you know, we're at this point where the the opportunity for us to revitalize US energy and manufacturing sectors, for us to boost incredible amounts of job creation and economic development, as well as addressing the historic environmental injustices and inequities. This is our moment. This is the opportunity at at hand. Doe investments are directly aligned with these administrations, both near and long term goals for climate and clean energy and in the science, down into the details.

00:08:31:17 - 00:09:01:13
Chris Castro: We essentially need to hit a few major goals and milestones in order to achieve this zero carbon future we're all striving towards. And as you can see here, really the main goals that we're striving at the department are getting us to 50 to 52% reduction in emissions by 2030 compared to 2005 levels, hit 100% of our electricity sector, being powered by clean energy by 2035 and eventually getting to a net zero emissions economy wide by 2050.

00:09:01:16 - 00:09:35:22
Chris Castro: And the interesting part about this moment in time, literally in the last year from November 2022 to November 2023, we've had four of the most historic actions taken by Congress in the federal government, really, for any country in the world to address this crisis. We had the bipartisan infrastructure law last November, and that really kicked us off. We then passed the Chips and Science Act earlier this summer, the Defense Protection Act, as well as the Inflation Reduction Act.

00:09:35:22 - 00:09:59:24
Chris Castro: And when you look at these four different acts, they play very critical roles in the transition to an economy wide transformation right towards clean energy. Obviously, the chips and science is really focused on manufacturing and resilient supply chains. You have the bipartisan infrastructure law, which is focused on dollars to put infrastructure in the ground and transition fossil to clean energy.

00:09:59:25 - 00:10:22:12
Chris Castro: Right. And then you have IRA, which are these consumer rebates that ultimately allow consumers to drive forward this market. And and so it's really the perfect storm for climate action is what I'm calling. It's not just IRA. It's not just Bill on its own. It's really the combination of all of these. And it's going to show that our leadership really is thinking holistically about how this transition happens.

00:10:22:19 - 00:11:03:18
Chris Castro: So the Department of Energy, because of bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act bill and IRA, I'm going to call them moving forward. Because of these two acts, Doe has gotten an infusion of about $100 billion above its annually appropriated funds in order to drive the deployment of climate and clean energy infrastructure solutions. And very quickly, our Secretary General Granholm realized that dough in the 45 year history that has been an agency in the US government, it has been focused on primarily research and development of the cutting edge technologies that we're using today.

00:11:03:18 - 00:11:28:09
Chris Castro: It has a network of 17 national labs. It's primarily been focusing on trying to unlock these clean energy innovations at the lab scale and then demonstrations. But it has never really been a deployment agency, an agency that focuses on deploying infrastructure. And so this is a whole new mission, quite frankly. The secretary said we need to reorganize the Department of Energy to meet the mission.

00:11:28:09 - 00:11:49:13
Chris Castro: And so now it's not just research and development and deployment and demonstration, but it's also this deployment mission. And as a result, we needed to think differently about it. So she quickly created the Office of Infrastructure in the Department of Energy. And it's staffed by an undersecretary that shows you the level at which this is now in the organization.

00:11:49:14 - 00:12:28:14
Chris Castro: There are eight program offices that have been assembled under this infrastructure pillar. And those and and four of them are new, including the scope office. And so state and community energy programs really is intending to be this center of excellence, to support communities with accelerating the deployment of climate and clean energy. It's intending to bring what has historically been fragmented across the department in terms of funding provisions and technical assistance for those stakeholders, and bring them all under one office that really looks through the lens of place based strategies to drive forward clean energy adoption.

00:12:28:14 - 00:12:59:07
Chris Castro: And so Skip, what we call skip, was born. And our ultimate goal are extending the capabilities of states, tribal governments, local governments like cities and counties, school districts, even community serving organizations and nonprofits to facilitate and implement high impact, self-sustaining clean energy projects at scale and that center the needs of low income and disadvantaged communities. So that's really the ultimate goal behind this office.

00:12:59:09 - 00:13:38:21
Chris Castro: And we do so through a lot of funding this particular office overseas and manages $16 billion with a B worth of resources. These are formula grants that Congress sets a formula for and we administer to primarily states. It is also competitive awards, you know, competitive grants, consumer rebate grants and technical assistance. And in today's the rest of today's presentation, I'm going to try to demystify all of the different types of opportunities that are coming down the pike, some of which have started to roll out, some of which will roll out into 2023 and beyond.

00:13:38:24 - 00:14:21:24
Chris Castro: And and that's the exciting part, is that this isn't just a flash in the plan for the next year or two. This is a decade. This is basically priming the pump for the next decade of action to transition towards our climate goals that I mentioned earlier, but ultimately towards this clean energy economy. Now, justice 40, you might have heard of the executive order that President Biden signed just a day into his role as president of the United States, and justice 40 essentially is an executive order that states that 40% of the benefits of all of the federal government resources, whether it's bill and IRA and some of these bigger acts or annually appropriated programs that

00:14:21:24 - 00:14:52:11
Chris Castro: 40% at minimum go to benefit disadvantaged communities. Now, there's a lot there's a definition for disadvantaged communities that are Doe. Office of Economic Impact and Diversity has created, we call the Ed office. And as you can see here, we've identified eight policy priorities within the Department of Energy writ large, but certainly centered in set for us to, you know, tie our funding and technical assistance programs to.

00:14:52:12 - 00:15:19:27
Chris Castro: And those include things around reducing energy burden. As you can see there, accessing low cost capital for these communities, helping to promote clean energy, job training and a pipeline of those jobs, and of course, moving towards energy democracy where we can support communities with owning these assets and owning the benefits that come from them. You know, one slide that I wanted to just mention is around the energy injustices today focused on energy burden.

00:15:19:27 - 00:15:53:05
Chris Castro: In my role in Orlando. We we've been working for years on trying to figure out how to address this, this, this, this, this disproportionate energy burden we're seeing in low income and in Bipoc communities. And so there are several studies showing that the difference could be three and four times what an affluent community members paying on their utility bills, on average being around 3% nationally, some people are paying 6%, 8%, 10% plus of their annual or of their monthly household income going to paying their utility bills.

00:15:53:06 - 00:16:21:06
Chris Castro: And there's a lot of issues behind why that is. Mainly they're renters. There's this landlord tenant complex, right, in terms of the split incentive of doing these retrofits. But long story short, the funding that we're intending to roll out is really squared at trying to get to these these injustices and energy burning being a big one. So I felt it was helpful to show you an overview and org chart of Skip.

00:16:21:07 - 00:16:44:03
Chris Castro: This is the office at which I'm playing, serving as our chief of staff. And you can see that at the top we have our director, Doctor Henry McCoy, who's been leading the charge in North Carolina. He used to be the assistant secretary of Commerce in North Carolina for a long time. And so he's leading the charge. And then underneath you can see these various divisions of the organization.

00:16:44:03 - 00:17:12:02
Chris Castro: And those divisions are broken out into these big funding categories, whether it's Asian Assistance Program, the State Energy program funding, Community energy program funding, partnerships and technical assistance. And then lastly, this aspect around community engagement, which I'd love to talk more about towards the end of my presentation and get some input from you all about about that. But in short, you can see that there's $16 billion across this.

00:17:12:02 - 00:17:37:09
Chris Castro: And just as a quick, you know, setting point here, the legend is that everything blue here is bill funding. Everything red is or pink is IRA funding. And then everything purple is annually appropriated dollars that come to the office. And so you can see that there is, you know, over almost two dozen different funding provisions. That step at this point in time is helping to manage and design programs for.

00:17:37:09 - 00:18:03:14
Chris Castro: So I want to dive in and give you all a little bit more of an idea of what these programs are intending to do, with the first one being the Weatherization Assistance Program. This actually is one of Doe's oldest whole home energy efficiency programs, and it carves out money every single year, about $300 million per year. That goes to supporting the weatherization and efficiency of low income households.

00:18:03:14 - 00:18:29:21
Chris Castro: This is about ensuring and improving health and safety in people's homes. It's about keeping homes warm in the winter and cool in the summer. And it goes to the neediest community, you know, community members. And the good news is that this has great, a great boost in funding because of the bipartisan infrastructure law. There's now $3.2 billion of weatherization assistance on top of the annual 300 million, which allows us to do a lot more homes every year.

00:18:29:21 - 00:18:57:29
Chris Castro: On average, about 35,000 homes are weather ized across the country, at no cost to the renter or owner. Because of the bill, we're going to see about half a million homes be weather ized. So a considerable bump up in the benefits of of that program. And of course, it's not just enough to support low income. Sometimes there is an opportunity to get creative at how we, you know, improve non energy home repairs.

00:18:57:29 - 00:19:25:15
Chris Castro: And so we have funding called the Weatherization Readiness Fund for non home energy repairs. There's also enhancement and innovation that can go beyond weatherization for things like home electrification, enhancing health and safety in the homes, even training individuals from underrepresented communities in the energy field. And so there are two parts of money within weatherization that allows us to go beyond just the allocation of of weatherization assistance.

00:19:25:17 - 00:19:54:20
Chris Castro: So and we continue to to get creative. In fact, there's a whole working group at the Department of Energy and across multiple agencies to think about how do we improve the Weatherization Assistance Program? As an example, in statute, we only can provide about $8,000 per household in statute. And when you're thinking about electrifying our HVAC or our water heating systems, most of those are beyond an $8,000, all in cost.

00:19:54:20 - 00:20:28:18
Chris Castro: And of course, with rebates, we're going to start to see those come down. But the point is, is it doesn't give you a lot of room to do real deep retrofits in homes. It really just does our weatherization, our insulation are our ductwork, etc.. So weatherization is fantastic. State energy program is the second big division, and this is also a 40 year program that Doe and Congress has, has approved every single year to 50 states, five territories, and Washington, D.C. and essentially this is formula money.

00:20:28:18 - 00:20:52:20
Chris Castro: Meaning when I say formula, I mean that Congress has basically set out a formula of how much money each state is going to get. So we don't decide that. And they also outline what that money could be used for. And as you can see here, it's primarily three big goals of the state energy program that's enhance energy security, that's advanced state led energy initiatives primarily focused on efficiency.

00:20:52:20 - 00:21:24:01
Chris Castro: And third, let's let's improve energy affordability. Let's get at this energy burden problem that we're starting that we're seeing in cities across the country. So steps extremely effective. For every dollar invested $4.50 is saved. And as you can see there, you know we're starting to see a significant amount of jobs created as a result. So the one thing that I wish I knew when I was in Orlando is the importance of building a relationship with our state energy offices.

00:21:24:01 - 00:21:42:29
Chris Castro: I had a great relationship with Kelly Smith and in the State of Florida's Energy office when I was there in Orlando, and we had done some projects, but there's a lot more that we could have done if I was aware of the resources that they had and what their missions were. And so I would encourage you all out there to reach out to your state energy offices.

00:21:42:29 - 00:22:01:19
Chris Castro: They are going to be receiving and managing a lot of this bill and IRA money. And by you building a relationship, I think it could really improve your chances at trying to bring down those resources for your communities to benefit your communities.

00:22:01:21 - 00:22:30:13
Chris Castro: There are additional provisions within the bipartisan infrastructure law that that are carved out for the state energy program. And the one I just wanted to highlight here is the third, you know, column that you see there. And that's what's called the Energy Efficiency Revolving Loan Fund Capitalization Grant. These are grants 250 million that states are going to be able to receive via a formula in order to reallocate, to relocate for public and private commercial building improvements.

00:22:30:13 - 00:22:56:28
Chris Castro: So, as a local government, often access to low cost capital is an issue. Well, guess what? Our state energy offices are now going to get a grant to help create a revolving loan fund where they're going to lend out that money to cities and school districts and nonprofits, and for profits to make these energy improvements. And and the whole idea is to create an ongoing, obviously revolving loan initiative into the future.

00:22:56:28 - 00:23:31:09
Chris Castro: So keep an eye out for that. I think that there's a lot of opportunity there to work with your states on, on accessing some of that capital. Okay. Pivoting now to some of our community energy programs. And I'll tell you, Ekeberg is one of the most sought after kind of programs that we have in Skip. And it's because it is a formula grant that goes to cities and counties all over the country, in fact, to more more stakeholders and more eligible entities than than any grant in the department by a long shot.

00:23:31:11 - 00:24:03:27
Chris Castro: For those that aren't aware, Ekeberg was originally authorized during the Recovery Act back in 2007, and it was funded during the Recovery Act at a huge amount. $3.2 billion back in 2009 was put into this program, and it has not been refunded and reauthorized until now, until the bipartisan infrastructure law. This is a big deal because like the state energy program formula, which goes to the state energy offices, this is a formula that goes to cities and counties directly.

00:24:03:27 - 00:24:43:02
Chris Castro: And the whole idea is to reduce fossil fuel emissions, decarbonize, reduce total energy use. So drive efficiency and of course improve not just efficiency of our buildings but the transportation and other relevant sectors. And so it's very broad in terms of what you can use Ekeberg for. This shows you a good graphic of how Congress said Doe needs to break up the money via the formula, so you can see that 98% of the money goes directly through a formula grant to these cities and counties, and local governments are going to be getting this based on the size of their governments and the number of people based on the 2020 census that they have in their

00:24:43:02 - 00:25:15:13
Chris Castro: jurisdiction. There is money that will go directly to tribes 2%. There's money that goes directly to states this 28% down here, and then there are competitive grants that will be opened up for local governments that don't receive a direct allocation. So that's important to note. If your community is a small township and maybe doesn't have enough population to get a direct allocation, there still will be an opportunity for you to apply to your state energy office to get funding.

00:25:15:13 - 00:25:37:29
Chris Castro: The state will administer for each individual for their local governments. So all that said is and you can see the eligible uses one through 15. It's a lot of things. It's actually buying equipment to do energy efficiency retrofits. It's hiring personnel to have capacity in your in your energy office or your sustainability office to do this work in perpetuity and plan it.

00:25:38:06 - 00:26:02:17
Chris Castro: It can go towards, you know, leasing or installing rooftop solar or, you know, EV charging infrastructure. I mean, a whole wide range of things is pretty much open ended. But I will say that we have one sixth the amount of money this time around than we did originally. So we have less money and we have about 400 more communities.

00:26:02:19 - 00:26:26:08
Chris Castro: There's 2700 plus communities that will be getting a direct allocation. So as a result, we need to be looking at this as like a stepping stone. CBG is the most flexible. How might your communities use Ekeberg in order to plan and be more competitive, to bring down the larger dollar amounts from the rest of the money that I've been talking about?

00:26:26:10 - 00:26:48:10
Chris Castro: Right. So think about that. Ekeberg is definitely one of those you want to keep your eye on pivoting over to nonprofits and schools. In fact, just last week we released a Notice of intent, an know.I where we will be coming out in this month of November with a funding opportunity announcement, what we call a Fo, which is basically a grant application.

00:26:48:11 - 00:27:15:07
Chris Castro: And so we're going to open up the ability for you for local education agencies and school districts to be able to apply for funding to make improvements, to reduce overall energy costs, to improve the health and well-being, and, and ultimately drive forward clean energy infrastructure. So in public schools, this is the first time Doe has ever had funding that goes directly to public schools.

00:27:15:07 - 00:27:39:17
Chris Castro: And so this is a precedent that we're hoping Congress realizes is a is a huge need and continues to fund on an annual basis. Now, I will say that there's about there's over $30 billion of deferred maintenance in schools in America alone. And this total grant is 500 million. Right. So it's not going to meet the mark of retrofitting all of our schools.

00:27:39:17 - 00:28:03:16
Chris Castro: Not even close. So the idea is, how do we get creative at leveraging this money to bring in the private sector and other partners and scale this work? So the proposals that are going to be most competitive will be very creative at leveraging this money, taking a $200,000 grant and expanding it to be $20 million of energy efficiency, or $2 million of energy efficiency.

00:28:03:16 - 00:28:39:15
Chris Castro: Right. How do we leverage that money and bring in private sector to energy saving performance contracts and others in order to do that? So so stay tuned. This month will be a big announcement that you can begin to apply to and then nonprofits. I'm very excited. I'm somebody who's really passionate about 501 c threes. And there is dedicated money for charitable organizations, $50 million that goes to improvements, repairs and renovations to help nonprofits reduce their own energy costs and and improve their own facilities.

00:28:39:16 - 00:29:07:13
Chris Castro: You can think of this money, you know, obviously, we want to try to support our homeless shelters, our food banks, you know, our, our training facilities and, and academia. So, so get so start to think about that. We will have later this month and RFI requesting information from the public to to help us craft this program and, and better understand the ways that we can select, you know, the winning grants.

00:29:07:13 - 00:29:27:29
Chris Castro: So RFI will be one way that you can you can put your feedback and then put in the process. I know that there's a lot of grants here. I'm almost through the funding. So we have two new exciting annual annually appropriated grants. These are not through Bill or through IRA. They were given to us through an annual appropriation by Congress.

00:29:28:00 - 00:29:52:12
Chris Castro: One's called the Local Government Energy Program. And the cool thing about this is we know that there's a lot of communities that have the capacity and are moving the ball forward towards decarbonization, but there are hundreds, if not thousands that don't that don't have a sustainability coordinator, that don't have an energy manager on board. These are rural and remote.

00:29:52:13 - 00:30:26:10
Chris Castro: These are tribal governments. And and ultimately, we now have a grant program that is intending to support those disadvantaged communities with on site capacity peer exchanges to bring together other communities and help accelerate their work, and even some deep technical assistance to to to help them through any given project, whether it's building a community solar program, whether it's EV related, whether it's building codes, the local government energy program is a competitive grant, again, that could be applied and do a lot of stuff.

00:30:26:10 - 00:30:53:17
Chris Castro: And so we're in program design. But next year, I think end of Q1, we will have information going out about that grant. And so keep an eye out for your small townships and smaller communities that often are left out. Right. This is money dedicated to them. Energy futures assistance grants these. This is another annual program. And the whole idea behind this is creating community partnerships.

00:30:53:17 - 00:31:16:02
Chris Castro: One of the things I tout about Orlando and the reason why we're we're really moving the ball very quickly is because of our culture of partnerships and collaboration. The partnerships between the city and other quasi governments, like the utility and transit and airport, but also nonprofits and the private sector, academia. I mean, there's a need for everybody to play a role in this transition.

00:31:16:02 - 00:31:53:12
Chris Castro: So energy futures Assistance grants are really identifying projects that bring together unique partnerships to think through financial and technical planning. It could be energy systems planning. It could be an integrated resources plan for your utility. It could be thinking through how to improve building codes for building performance standards, to start a getting at the energy burden. I mean, there's a lot of things, but the whole idea is we're trying to force partnerships through this grant and bring a city and a CBO and a utility and others to the table to move the, you know, move this forward together.

00:31:53:12 - 00:32:23:05
Chris Castro: So pretty cool. We can't do any of this if we're not beginning to train the next generation of workforce for meeting the moment. And so I did want to take a quick moment here to just talk about three workforce development and training grants that Skip will manage. The big one is the energy Auditor training program. Those are competitive grants that will go to states to create programs that train residential and commercial energy auditors.

00:32:23:07 - 00:32:51:16
Chris Castro: And so, as you can see, over the next four years, we anticipate about 20 awards per year to to go out. And the idea is to get creative about how do we train up the next generation of efficiency workforce. Secondly, is this tax building technology and assessment centers. These are grants to help higher education institutions and other partners to build these efficiency training centers and actually almost living labs.

00:32:51:18 - 00:33:19:10
Chris Castro: We're actually going to partner with the industrial assessment centers, the Department of Energy funds at universities across the country. And we're going to we're going to try to see if we can build upon the IEC model to include more commercial and multifamily type trainings. So that's really exciting. And then lastly is career skills training. That's the 10 million that that essentially goes to conduct on the job trainings for installing energy efficiency building technologies.

00:33:19:13 - 00:33:40:13
Chris Castro: And and so it could be these new heat pumps that we keep hearing about. It could be rooftop solar. It could be EV charging infrastructure. It could be a bunch of other connected distributed energy resources. Right. But but the need for on the job training is critical. And so that can help fund apprenticeship programs and the like. So.

00:33:40:14 - 00:34:22:01
Chris Castro: IRA and I know that this is something that everybody is excited to learn more about. And we're so excited as well. I'll say that IRA basically has broken out into two different in my mind, two different lanes. One is the tax credits, right. Tax credit lane. And as you can see here, there are hundreds of billions of dollars of tax credits that are now approved by Congress, $37 billion on the building side to help consumers and businesses with renovations of their homes to drive efficiency on the transportation side, 14 billion of tax credits for things like the new Clean Vehicle Tax Credit for used EVs, as well as new EVs.

00:34:22:02 - 00:34:58:03
Chris Castro: Right, and others. The production and manufacturing tax credits for large scale solar, right. The ITC and the PTC production tax credits. These are big movers of the renewable energy industry, $161 billion of incentives. Huge. And then lastly, workforce development. Back to that. There are specific provisions which I'll mention here shortly that try to get at supporting companies that that provide additional bonuses of credits or rebates for those that are paying prevailing wages, that are providing apprenticeships and that are using domestic manufacturing.

00:34:58:03 - 00:35:20:13
Chris Castro: So there's a huge push within IRA to encourage domestic domestic use of resources and to make sure that we're paying a living wage for these people. Right. And we're trying to encourage that. So, you know, Congress got creative at that. Additional bonuses for for those. I found this great graphic online that I think really helps paint the picture of what we're talking about.

00:35:20:13 - 00:35:46:29
Chris Castro: Each block is, is 5 million tons of carbon prevented. And we're talking about the biggest blocks being in transportation and clean electricity. But there's also funding there for industrial, right directly for buildings and for land use. And so it's very cross-cutting as it relates to this whole approach to addressing the climate crisis. Now, in addition to credits, there's also IRA rebates.

00:35:46:29 - 00:36:17:09
Chris Castro: And the rebates are intending to support specifically, especially low income households that might not have tax appetites to take advantage of these credits and help them with lowering the cost of some of these efficiency and electrification solutions. So you can see here, you know, Skip will manage for of the IRA rebate provisions. That includes the homes provision, this whole house rebate which is $4.3 billion.

00:36:17:10 - 00:36:44:06
Chris Castro: And a lot of what I'm we're talking about here internally like jigsaw with the loan programs office has been looking at home this rebate as a way to enable virtual power plants. We feel that the homes rebate because it has a measured and a performance pathway. You can you can enable virtual power plants and utilities to think about connected distributed energy resources and using that as as part of the grid, right?

00:36:44:08 - 00:37:07:25
Chris Castro: As part of their, their, their mission. Number two is this home electrification rebates $4.5 billion to help with, you know, low income households electrifying moving from gas systems into electric 4.5 billion is a lot. And I'll say the complexity behind both of these are several complexities, which is the reason why we don't have a lot of details yet.

00:37:07:27 - 00:37:30:15
Chris Castro: The complexity is that they require a point of sale and income verification of this rebate, meaning that when somebody goes to your home improvement store to get a heat pump water heater, the idea is that they don't have to, you know, buy it and then submit paperwork in order to get some type of credit or rebate or whatever from the federal government.

00:37:30:16 - 00:37:52:17
Chris Castro: No, no, no, this is intended to literally drop the price at the cash register. So point of sale rebate to make it that much more accessible and affordable for for people. So and some of these can be 80% of the asset depending on the level of, of income, right. So the lower income households get higher bonuses and higher rebates for that same equipment.

00:37:52:17 - 00:38:11:24
Chris Castro: And that's the complexity, right? We can't be at the cash register at at one of these stores and have somebody bring their, you know, tax returns to prove at what level of income they're at. Right. That won't work. So and there are ways that states have done this in the past that we're learning about. But the point is, is that we need a ubiquitous solution.

00:38:11:24 - 00:38:31:29
Chris Castro: And these rebates are going to be managed by each state. So Doe is going to fund the states, and the states are the ones that are going to administer the rebates in each one of their own states. So we need to get very clear at the guidance of how the states go about doing that and making sure that that we minimize fraud, waste and abuse of this money.

00:38:31:29 - 00:38:59:13
Chris Castro: You can imagine that there could be some nefarious, you know, actions of trying to to get billions of, you know, money that's coming down. So, so that's really exciting, though. The two rebates that we have for homes, that's $8.8 billion of rebates to help homes electrify. There is that $200 million training contract or training grant that you can see there and then and then $1 billion for building code adoptions.

00:38:59:13 - 00:39:21:27
Chris Castro: So a lot of cities are working on building performance standards or building benchmarking and transparency laws and the like. Well guess what? There's now money that can go directly to states and local governments to, to support them with, with adopting the latest building energy codes that focus on net zero, the net zero provisions and other stretch code requirements, even electrification codes for EVs.

00:39:21:28 - 00:39:59:18
Chris Castro: Right. You know, EV readiness codes are becoming quite popular. So anyhow, $1 billion is a lot of money to support states and communities with driving forward adoption of these codes. We're very excited about the opportunity to roll that out. In closing, we've been talking about a lot of money, but there's there's a ton of tools and technical assistance aka consulting support and, and data that you can get access to, and really just ways in which we can convene peers in various exchanges to, to help communities through this process.

00:39:59:18 - 00:40:22:11
Chris Castro: So I did want to just flag that step does provide technical assistance across the board in creating tools, in convening peers, in providing data. And and so I encourage you all to to join some of these great programs, like the Better Buildings Challenge. If you haven't heard of Better Buildings Challenge yet, this is something local governments are participating in voluntarily.

00:40:22:11 - 00:40:42:10
Chris Castro: But by joining that, you get access to a bunch of Doe and lab experts to help you through that process of reducing your building energy use at no cost to the city. Right? That's the type of technical support. We also have some great tools that are out there. You should be aware of. Slope. The state and Local Planning for energy platform is an incredible tool.

00:40:42:10 - 00:41:10:00
Chris Castro: It's free, it's online, and it provides insights into basically local energy and decarbonization planning. It has a scenario planner that looks out into the future, and it helps you understand everything from energy consumption to CO2 emissions, you know, project it out. It also has a data viewer that provides layers of environmental justice data and energy burden data for you to better understand how your community is dealing with some of those challenges.

00:41:10:02 - 00:41:41:20
Chris Castro: And then there is one that's more tool that's more focused on this low income energy affordability tool, data tool, and that's providing kind of this customizable data set and various maps that provide insight across all census tracts in America in terms of energy burden and other housing characteristics. So it's a free tool. These are examples of tools that, you know, Doe has created because of the the outreach of community, saying, we need this in order to support our planning.

00:41:41:20 - 00:42:09:14
Chris Castro: And so that's another function that we play as Doe. So thank you so much for this opportunity to share. There's a lot, as you can see that we're fielding here at the department. There's a lot more guidance that's going to be coming out about the IRA rebates. And so although the Department of Energy is helping with some of the field and manage some of those rebates, Treasury, Department of Treasury and the IRS are really the lead agencies for the tax credits.

00:42:09:14 - 00:42:39:08
Chris Castro: So I serve on a bunch of working groups for the different tax credits. But right now we're literally back and forth daily about how to define certain things in statute and therefore provide guidance on on how the tax credits might apply to you personally. So keep a lookout. There will be an RFI request for information coming out in December for all of the tax credits and the rebates for IRA, and I believe there are a couple out there now that are trying to seek input.

00:42:39:08 - 00:42:55:24
Chris Castro: And so I'll try to find the link and send that to Sam and Sarah so that you all can, can certainly provide any feedback that you have about about the IRA credits. So, Sarah, I'm going to turn it back over to you and maybe we dive into some discussion as we close out.

00:42:55:25 - 00:43:18:04
Sara Gutterman: Thank you. Thank you so much, Chris. As always, you are just a wealth of information and my head is spinning with all kinds of ideas and opportunities. So thank you so much for that information. I do have a handful of questions that have come in via chat, so I'm going to go ahead and just ask those to you on behalf of the folks that chatted in.

00:43:18:04 - 00:43:55:28
Sara Gutterman: And if anyone does have additional questions, please chat them to me and we'll just, you know, rapid fire through them for as long as Chris wants to stay with us. The first question comes from Robin, and she asks about credits, rebates and incentives that multifamily owners, operators and developers can go after. I'd actually like to add on to that, if you could also talk about single family builders and developers and what kinds of credits, rebates and incentives that right now you know of, they can access.

00:43:56:01 - 00:44:17:17
Chris Castro: Multifamily is a hot button item. We were in a briefing with the secretary just this past week, and she continues to lean in on the fact that this is a market that is, you know, under invested in as it relates to our work and a very difficult to to address, quite frankly, because of the split incentive challenges that that we all know about.

00:44:17:19 - 00:44:42:25
Chris Castro: So I'm going to take that question back to the team and see if I can get you some specifics on which incentives, which rebates might apply directly to multifamily, as well as to developers themselves. I do know that there are some incentives or tax credits in IRA that are trying to get at new home developments and trying to drive them towards higher efficiency beyond Energy Star home certification.

00:44:42:27 - 00:44:47:04
Chris Castro: So so those are things that I can certainly circle back to you, Sarah.

00:44:47:06 - 00:45:08:21
Sara Gutterman: Super. Yeah, that'd be great. And I think if you can get that to me then I can forward that to Robin. But we'll also probably, you know, have a follow up series of that has updates as you learn more and share that with us. All right. And then anything on the single family side in particular that you want to point to, Chris.

00:45:08:24 - 00:45:10:17
Chris Castro: I'll circle back for both of them.

00:45:10:20 - 00:45:10:29
Sara Gutterman: Okay.

00:45:11:00 - 00:45:34:09
Sara Gutterman: Great. All right then the next question is from Mike. And he's interested in the section of the IRA that falls under the purview of HUD, which apparently addresses both energy and water. So can you talk a little bit about anything, you know, about the funding that may go through HUD?

00:45:34:11 - 00:45:50:09
Chris Castro: I don't actually know specifics about the funding that will go through HUD, so definitely add it to the list of questions. And I'm happy to try to navigate here internally with our Office of Policy. That certainly would have a lot more insight on on which provision. Exactly.

00:45:50:12 - 00:45:53:26
Sara Gutterman: Sorry that we're that we're throwing some doozies at you.

00:45:54:00 - 00:46:14:04
Chris Castro: No it's okay. I'm sorry I don't have those those details yet. And like I said, we're literally going through this as we speak on a daily basis. So I think a lot more we'll see more guidance clearly outlined into Q1 of next. And that will certainly indicate how everybody can play. But right now it's a little bit of an uncertain thing.

00:46:14:04 - 00:46:25:02
Chris Castro: And even if I did provide an answer, it could change. It could very much change like tomorrow. So I want to be careful not to to give away information that you know, isn't fully accurate.

00:46:25:06 - 00:46:36:28
Sara Gutterman: Sure. All right. So Charlie is asking about land use. Will any funding go towards incentivizing grazing land to be rewild?

00:46:37:01 - 00:47:01:07
Chris Castro: Well, I know that there is a growing interest, Charlie, not just in the Orlando area, but across the country, to look at land use as part of the climate strategy and protecting our urban forest and protecting the green space that we do have within and around our communities to ensure that we're doing everything that we can to support habitat, to mitigate inland flooding.

00:47:01:07 - 00:47:23:01
Chris Castro: All that good stuff. I don't know specifically which provision touches on the land use, but there are there is IRA money that goes to supporting communities with trying to protect land. And I think we want to add that one to the list. And I'll try to to get you some insights here.

00:47:23:03 - 00:47:35:01
Sara Gutterman: Super. Now, John points out that you were to state being able to access fundings funding, and he is wondering if Puerto Rico will also benefit from these programs.

00:47:35:03 - 00:47:58:08
Chris Castro: Oh 100% Puerto Rico is part of the allocation, not just for the state energy program. That's the 50 states, five territories, and D.C. and Puerto Rico certainly is one of those territories that gets a direct formula allocation for the state energy program, for the Weatherization Assistance Program, as well as the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant program that I mentioned.

00:47:58:10 - 00:48:28:19
Chris Castro: We just met with the Puerto Rico State Energy Office there to talk about some of these provisions and how they can start to get ready for what's coming. And, of course, in Puerto Rico, there's a whole effort around the Puerto Rico 100 study in order to move it to 100% clean energy. FEMA had, you know, is managing an entire recovery effort since Maria and Irma for several years, and it will continue to help with revitalizing the Puerto Rican grid transmission and distribution grid.

00:48:28:20 - 00:48:41:11
Chris Castro: There's a lot going on there with the local utility as well. And so but but these funds to answer the question directly will certainly go to Puerto Rico so that they can start driving clean energy on the ground.

00:48:41:14 - 00:49:03:05
Sara Gutterman: Great. Thank you. Now Amanda asks about specifically the rebates within the IRA, and she says that states are awaiting guidelines from the Doe for how to apply for funding. Can you speak to that and any particular guidance that you have been given or any expected timing?

00:49:03:07 - 00:49:34:10
Chris Castro: Yeah, certainly we are working very closely with the National Association of State Energy Officials, also known as Nazione. NATO has created an entire working group made up of this directors of the state energy offices across the country to help walk through and discuss some of these challenging provisions that I talked about that are in statute, everything around the income verification, the point of sale, how to minimize fraud, waste and abuse, the reporting aspect.

00:49:34:11 - 00:49:56:07
Chris Castro: I mean, there's there's about a dozen things that we're needing to answer. And what does not want to do is answer it for the states without input, because ultimately the states have to manage and administer these rebates. It's not Doe administering these for each individual households deal. We will have 50 grants that go to all the states and the territories.

00:49:56:08 - 00:50:15:22
Chris Castro: Those grants then are going to be administered by the state energy offices. Right. So I will say that there will be an RFI request for information for input in December, and we're planning that now. We're going through the exact process to get those live and post it to the public so that you all can apply and submit your your input.

00:50:15:24 - 00:50:45:10
Chris Castro: And so December will have an RFI we anticipate into kind of Q2 of next year, where there will be guidance that may be published at that point. And, and so the RFI will be for the public, but also Natsios input with their working group. And and then we'll publish that guidance. So probably more like Q2 of 2023 when we'll have guidance for the states on how how they can pull down that money and start to to roll out those rebates.

00:50:45:10 - 00:51:07:26
Chris Castro: And I know that's not what everybody wants to hear, because everybody thinks that the rebates can be done, like today. And the challenge is that they cannot be done today. There are some calculators out there saying that you can, and that's concerning because you can't. And so we're working very, very quickly and diligently to to make sure that we publish those so that it's streamlined.

00:51:07:26 - 00:51:20:03
Chris Castro: It's easy to participate for both the contractor, for the homeowner, for the state that's managing it, and for Dewey, that's overseeing and administering the money at large. So hopefully that's helpful.

00:51:20:05 - 00:51:38:04
Sara Gutterman: Thank you. Now it's clear that things are still evolving, but if there are any states that kind of are leading the charge with respect to being creative about implementing our IRA funding and rebates.

00:51:38:06 - 00:51:58:24
Chris Castro: Currently, no states are doing anything with IRA rebates because they don't have the guidance for them. Right. So we're still we're going to continue to work through that guidance directly with the states. We have had conversations already with the state of California and a few others that are, you know, trying to get ahead of it and ask these same type of questions.

00:51:58:24 - 00:52:18:15
Chris Castro: And the responses are like, we're working through that guidance, and we really want your state energy offices to ensure that they're providing input through that working group that we've set up with. So that's the best way for states to get involved and make sure that their voices are heard in this process. And so I very much encourage you, if you're connected to your state energy office, please reach out to them.

00:52:18:15 - 00:52:37:19
Chris Castro: As I mentioned before, start building that relationship, but also let them know that if they're not already involved in the working group through nausea, that that's probably the best way for them to plug in and provide direct input. In addition to the RFI, which would be open to the general public. And of course, states can apply directly to the RFI if they wanted.

00:52:37:20 - 00:52:48:09
Chris Castro: Some might do that. Some might just say, here's our memo from NASA and our guidance to do so. No models just yet, but I know states are thinking about them.

00:52:48:11 - 00:53:09:17
Sara Gutterman: Okay. And Conor asks if there are any specific benchmarks or units of measurement that are being looked at with respect to kind of measuring decarbonization. And or it's a two part question. Any specific certifications that are that you're looking at for the workforce development?

00:53:09:19 - 00:53:26:19
Chris Castro: All great questions. Conor and I don't have good answers for you yet. Those those are being discussed. Those are part of the deliberations right now between Treasury and the IRS and Doe to to further clarify those credits. So yeah, we'll we'll have those issued when guidance is out.

00:53:26:21 - 00:53:39:29
Sara Gutterman: Okay. Great. John asks if there's anything that can be done with insurance companies to give preferential rates for energy efficient housing, HVAC or electrification.

00:53:40:01 - 00:53:57:20
Chris Castro: That's a good question. I don't I don't no, please add it to the list and I'll try to navigate that internally here okay. Part of part of me doing this is really getting some, some of these really great questions that are coming from the public so that we might be able to pull together an FAQ that speaks to some of these.

00:53:57:20 - 00:54:14:11
Chris Castro: We do have an FAQ coming out, by the way, for the rebates, the rebate side that will manage. So so that's coming shortly. I did put my eyes on a draft yesterday, and I think it's going through the the final review process. So soon we will have insight on on some of that.

00:54:14:13 - 00:54:15:25
Sara Gutterman: Great.

00:54:15:28 - 00:54:27:01
Sara Gutterman: Now Andrew asks if there are any grants that you know of that will be going to companies working in building materials reuse.

00:54:27:03 - 00:54:33:07
Chris Castro: Building materials reuse.

00:54:33:09 - 00:54:42:05
Chris Castro: I don't not at the top of my head, but another one that I'd love to learn myself. If there's something out there for it, I will certainly look through.

00:54:42:08 - 00:54:43:04
Sara Gutterman: Great. Okay.

00:54:43:05 - 00:54:54:12
Chris Castro: Feel like I'm not providing very good insight for you all here. So I'm sorry about that. But I will certainly do some navigate, some some internal kind of digging and trying to see if I can answer some of these questions for you.

00:54:54:15 - 00:55:07:19
Sara Gutterman: Sure. And Chris, we know that this is all in the early stages, and we're putting you on the spot here. So we we appreciate your honesty. So I'll just keep rapid firing for a few more minutes and we'll see if we can.

00:55:07:20 - 00:55:11:20
Chris Castro: What can I open it up for? My question that that I wanted to engage this group with.

00:55:11:23 - 00:55:12:13
Sara Gutterman: Absolutely.

00:55:12:19 - 00:55:37:28
Chris Castro: Maybe in the last few minutes. Yeah. You know, so we at the Department of in scope are being asked by the secretary and leadership to think about what does it mean for Doe to provide more meaningful engagement to communities? What is how do we define community engagement? What is do we having a ground game mean to you when you hear that?

00:55:37:29 - 00:56:01:13
Chris Castro: How might do we be best supportive for this work on the ground as you're seeing all of this money and all of these tax credits, like, are there things that we can do to support the navigation and to to better braid and blend these different programs? And so I would love to just hear any thoughts about, you know, what do we might be able to do.

00:56:01:14 - 00:56:04:19
Chris Castro: And these are just open ended ideas.

00:56:04:21 - 00:56:08:06
Sara Gutterman: And Chris, should we just have people maybe chat in just.

00:56:08:08 - 00:56:15:19
Chris Castro: They can chat. They can take themselves off of mute and put your camera on and you know, we can we can do it either way. Okay.

00:56:15:22 - 00:56:19:07
Sara Gutterman: Does anyone want to respond to that question?

00:56:19:10 - 00:56:41:21
Chris Castro: Community engagement. How does. How does Doe support community engagement? How do we support the community based organizations on the ground, in addition to identifying funding that can go to them, which we're trying to find. And in certain ways, we're able to like the Energy Futures Assistance Grant. Right. I had on there is one of those that could actually fund CBOs to do some work.

00:56:41:22 - 00:56:51:09
Chris Castro: But in addition to that, are there other things we can can be can be doing? Nathan, go for it.

00:56:51:11 - 00:57:19:10
Nathan Bessette: Hey, there. Yeah. Thank you. It's a great question. And it's something that we at South Face are trying to help answer ourselves. But I come from a little bit of a background in innovation and innovation. We did a lot with journeys and trying to understand customer journeys and journey maps and really outline, you know, how to get from A to Z and what are the barriers that are going to exist as someone tries to get from A to Z and really just trying to minimize those barriers as much as possible.

00:57:19:12 - 00:57:44:12
Nathan Bessette: Language being a significant barrier. So, you know, a lot of people understand from a lot of publicity that this funding exists, especially the rebates. 11 no one knows what a state energy offices and the general public, of course we do. But a lot a lot of people don't. And so, you know, just as much as possible, just trying to outline what the journey is, what that map looks like, and, and minimize those barriers as much as possible.

00:57:44:13 - 00:58:06:23
Nathan Bessette: Make it as easy as possible to, to understand and really level setting and the expectations. I think that with a lot going through state energy offices, there's a little bit of uncertainty and fear about, you know, the level of effort that's going to be required and the lift that's going to be required for that. Certainly organizations like ours and as you identified, are doing whatever we can to help support that.

00:58:06:23 - 00:58:25:07
Nathan Bessette: But we are also a part of the learning journey and part of the customer success journey. And we are having challenges ourself just trying to understand the all the different pieces, and especially if it's going to be different between the different states, how to navigate that.

00:58:25:10 - 00:58:42:09
Chris Castro: Thank you. Nathan. That's helpful. And I love the idea of this kind of a journey map for a community. Or different stakeholders have different maps of that journey. But but to help understand those key milestone points or ways to to intervene, I think is a great point.

00:58:42:11 - 00:58:43:02
Nathan Bessette: Thank you.

00:58:43:08 - 00:59:13:13
Chris Castro: And we are not ignorant to the fact that there are some challenges politically in certain states as it relates to energy offices. And, you know, some of them, even whether they're going to accept some of this money because because of the bipartisan infrastructure law. And so so we're trying to make sure that through this guidance, it's something that is ubiquitous and could be easily adopted by any given state, no matter their their their lean.

00:59:13:15 - 00:59:22:16
Sara Gutterman: Chris, it looks like Charlie has a comment on this. And then move on to the next question, just and take 1 or 2 responses. Just because I want to be cognizant of everyone's time.

00:59:22:19 - 00:59:23:22
Chris Castro: Be great. Sure.

00:59:23:23 - 00:59:49:23
Charlie Behrens: Chris, I'm just underlining what Steven Ledger seems to be saying in the chat is that zoom calls like this are actually wonderful for for hidden directly to people, you know, getting the information out there to people. You're the first person from DC who's been on a zoom call with me. And this is this is very important to to use the latest tech and get it out there for people, you know.

00:59:49:24 - 01:00:10:10
Chris Castro: Nice. That's helpful. We do I threw that out there. You know regular office hours. Maybe there's a regular kind of, you know, ongoing webinar that skip hosts on a monthly basis. Anybody can join and you can kind of go through and ask some of these questions. I mean, that's one thing that, yeah, for me is a light lift and seems like a natural fit of something we can start to do here, but we're also bigger.

01:00:10:12 - 01:00:33:18
Chris Castro: Beyond that, we're also thinking like, how do we get into the communities? And maybe from a regional approach, like, might we be able to, you know, yeah, support them, almost like a chief planner would in a community, right. To really think about the various pieces of of an energy transition and help convene, help navigate the funding, stuff like that, and.

01:00:33:20 - 01:00:41:04
Charlie Behrens: And make sure it's not during 9 to 5 for all those low income people who need to be at work.

01:00:41:07 - 01:00:46:17
Chris Castro: Great point. Yeah, timing is critical. Remember that from community groups that we used to do. Right?

01:00:46:19 - 01:00:48:28
Charlie Behrens: Sure. Yeah. Thanks, Chris.

01:00:49:00 - 01:00:58:28
Chris Castro: Yeah. Thank you. Steven, you came off or you came on video. I don't know if you wanted to add on to that.

01:00:59:00 - 01:01:00:07
Charlie Behrens: Yeah. The second part.

01:01:00:08 - 01:01:21:07
Steven Leger: I had, besides the zoom calls, which obviously I'm living, is maybe like a tool, like a form where a person could just fill out all their personal information, they could put their income, they could put what they're living. And then after they input all the relevant information that you guys are looking for, it'll tell them, hey, look, these are all the the possible things they can get approved for.

01:01:21:07 - 01:01:48:23
Steven Leger: And then maybe with links, you know, taking them to maybe the IRS form or whatever when those things roll out. But some kind of form where, hey, you know, I'm sitting with somebody and they want to know what you know. Hey, I'm thinking about getting electric vehicle. I'm thinking about whether I'm thinking about all these things. They can input just some relevant information and they can tell them maybe, even perhaps projections on how much they say their carbon offset, but just just to direct them directly to where they could benefit quickly.

01:01:48:27 - 01:01:50:01
Steven Leger: I love it. That'd be cool.

01:01:50:02 - 01:02:09:10
Chris Castro: Great idea. Definitely something we've been thinking through as well. There is a website, by the way, that is important to you all to know it's clean energy.gov. Forgot to mention that in my formal remarks, but clean energy gov has been created by the white House and the Doe to help with some of that. Steven. It's kind of a you go through each individual provision and you can kind of see what's coming.

01:02:09:11 - 01:02:29:27
Chris Castro: What can you benefit from now, what will come in the future. And it breaks it down from the different types of technologies in your home. So clean energy. Yeah great tool. But I think we need to go beyond that. Right. To your point. We need to, you know, bring it down to something that's personable, that somebody can put in their information and tailor it to their household and say, all right, within my community here, my utility rebates.

01:02:29:27 - 01:02:45:20
Chris Castro: Here's what the state and the cities provide and the federal right, giving them the whole picture and desire that database for state incentives for efficiency and renewables. Desire is a fantastic tool that might be able to plug into that. Right. So I'm already thinking through how that comes together.

01:02:45:22 - 01:02:49:02
Steven Leger: Awesome. Thank you Chris.

01:02:49:04 - 01:03:07:23
Chris Castro: Okay Sarah, I think we've hit time. This was fantastic. And again, apologies for not having a lot of specifics on the IRA, but but I will go back to our office of policy, and I'll try to answer as many of those as I can. And and yeah, maybe again into the spring of 2023, we do another round of these.

01:03:07:23 - 01:03:23:08
Chris Castro: And when we do have all that guidance that's coming out, we can we can do another one of these sessions to dive into the details and bring also other colleagues from the Office of Policy, from our Economic Impact and Diversity Office, and maybe others, to kind of maybe do a panel, a virtual panel of sort.

01:03:23:10 - 01:03:47:27
Sara Gutterman: I think that's a great idea, Chris. I think we should just plan on doing regular updates because clearly people are interested. I will actually get to you the chat log because there's some great, great questions that we didn't have time for. And then maybe next time around, you know, we can just schedule out and plan on even more time for interaction so that we can try to get some questions answered.

01:03:47:27 - 01:03:55:10
Sara Gutterman: I actually think it worked out all right today, because so much that's up in the air. And I felt.

01:03:55:13 - 01:04:04:10
Chris Castro: I wanted to give you the full picture of like what's happening and the reorg I mean there's a lot of amazing things happening. So I know you want the details and the specifics. They're coming.

01:04:04:13 - 01:04:05:04
Sara Gutterman: Yes, indeed.

01:04:05:08 - 01:04:05:17
Chris Castro: Yeah.

01:04:05:19 - 01:04:26:07
Sara Gutterman: Thank you so much, Chris. I mean, we're so I think on behalf of everyone that was on this call today. Thank you. Not only for, you know, your insights and the information today, but thank you for your great work. Thank you for your leadership, and we look forward to the next discussion with you as things evolve. And you have a next round of updates.

01:04:26:07 - 01:04:33:22
Sara Gutterman: And and then again, everyone on this call, please join us next time around and we'll we'll spend some more time getting to some of the questions.

01:04:33:25 - 01:04:35:08
Chris Castro: Sounds great. Keep up the.

01:04:35:08 - 01:04:36:09
Charlie Behrens: Great work.

01:04:36:12 - 01:04:51:18
Sara Gutterman: Yeah. And thank and to our partners in our today's Homeowner content which is whirlpool, Genco Solar, Sonos, Mike by Lift Master and Vivint. Take care everybody. Have a great rest of your day by.