EnergyFit Affordable Small Homes is a demonstration program that from 2024-2026 provided repairs, retrofits, partial electrification, and solar to small homes in Brooklyn occupied by lower-income homeowners and tenants. EnergyFit streamlined prior learnings and new policies from typically disparate home repair, energy efficiency retrofit, and electrification measures.
Utilizing community-informed design and robust in-the-field data collection and building on 15 years of Pratt Center research and advocacy, EnergyFit provides a holistic program model to improve these communities’ access to clean energy.
The EnergyFit Toolkit brings together practical tools, resources, and lessons from our model to support the growth of more community-based energy efficiency and small home retrofit programs in New York City and beyond.
BACKGROUND
New York City’s 1–4 family building stock is a prime source of naturally-occurring affordable housing. It has been a vital tool for Black and brown New Yorkers to build wealth. There are over 863,000 of these buildings in NYC and ⅔ of these are located in low- and moderate-income communities primarily housing people of color. The majority of these buildings are over 100 years old and have ongoing maintenance needs related to their age. Almost all of these buildings are using fossil fuels for heating and cooking, increasing the risk of asthma and other respiratory health issues. And the energy burden (the percentage of a household’s income spent on energy bills) is significantly higher for low-income households of color.
New York State and New York City’s ambitious decarbonization goals present an incredible opportunity to solve the problems of poor indoor air quality, energy burden, and greenhouse gas emissions in NYC’s small buildings—if program design is done right. EnergyFit is vital for providing insights into what works and what does not when designing building decarbonization programs serving LMI households.
THE ENERGYFIT MODEL
From 2024 to 2026, EnergyFit has repaired, retrofitted, and partially electrified 35 small homes in Brooklyn occupied by lower-income homeowners and tenants—helping these households use energy more efficiently, breathe cleaner air, make critical home repairs, and reduce the carbon footprint of their buildings.
EnergyFit offers efficiency and electrification packages focused on:
Repairing any deferred maintenance issues that prohibit retrofits.
Improving energy efficiency through implementation of energy conservation measures, including attic insulation.
Updating household electrical infrastructure necessary to electrify the building, replacing gas stoves with induction stoves, and upgrading gas-fueled, domestic hot water heaters to electric.
Some households were also eligible for no-cost rooftop solar installation.
Downloads
EnergyFit is also generating crucial data on the true implementation costs and benefits of clean energy upgrades in NYC’s two and three-family market and provide key takeaways for policymakers as they consider how to decarbonize this often- ignored building stock
To learn more about what data we are collecting, why it’s needed, and how this can improve government policy and program design, read Expanding EnergyFit: A Community-Led Model for Equitable Energy in Small Homes.
