Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future's (SAHF)'s case study explores learnings from Preservation of Affordable Housing's (POAH's) Salem Heights development, which electrified the HVAC system and improved the building envelope. The report shares details about the funding used and other strategies employed to make the project come together.

Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future's (SAHF)'s case study explores challenges and achievements from The Community Builders' North Commons at Village Hill development in western Massachusetts, built to the Passive House standard. The case study shares the developer's perspective on assembling a team, electrifying hot water heating, and installing Phius-compliant windows. Ultimately, the benefits outweighed the costs for this development.

The Hub is a technical resource designed to help equip the multifamily affordable housing community in Colorado with electrification design and decisions through access to technical resources, peer learning, and financing and development resources. This resource supports Colorado’s Renewable Energy and Climate Action Goals. In addition to local code compliance, building electrification can help reduce carbon emissions, improve indoor air quality for residents, reduce operating costs, and more.

Green building certifications provide benefits for a wide range of building stakeholders, with a focus on residents. The systems establish a roadmap that development teams can use to design and construct healthy, highly efficient buildings. This review provides a comparison of multifamily green building certifications to help stakeholders understand the relevant requirements and value proposition of each rating system. Analysis focuses on the application of these certifications to multifamily affordable developments in Colorado, including Housing Tax Credit developments.

This case study provides an overview of the adaptive reuse of the historic Ohringer Building in Braddock, PA. Guided by the Enterprise Green Communities 2015 criteria, developers were able to transform this local landmark into affordable, climate-ready housing while preserving the history and integrity of the building.

Salem Heights Apartments, an affordable multifamily property in Massachusetts, recently underwent a deep energy retrofit to achieve passive house performance. This case study highlights the retrofit design strategies that enable 60% energy use reduction and show the integrated benefit of efficiency improvements, electrification, and solar. Specific strategies are described for the building envelope, exterior insulation, HVAC, and solar energy.

Over half of California’s 3.2 million multifamily units were constructed before energy efficiency standards, resulting in poor performance and high greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve California’s greenhouse gas reduction goals, affordable multifamily housing must improve energy efficiency, reduce carbon emissions, and lower tenant utility bills while enhancing quality of life. Yet building owners face many challenges to improving the performance of their buildings. This report covers the role certain types of energy service agreements, combined with federal incentives, can play in scaling affordable multifamily retrofits.

Geothermal heat pumps offer highly efficient heating and cooling without fossil fuels. They are especially valuable in supplying heating on extremely cold days and support heating electrification with only modest impacts on electric grids. These heat pumps are widely applicable from single family homes to large properties, or even networked systems providing heating and cooling to entire neighborhoods. The blog article highlights the characteristics of this technology and new opportunities for greater adoption.

Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH) has developed Boston’s first all-electric building greater than four stories with a city-permitted battery energy storage system, paired with a rooftop solar array.

As community solar programs scale up, there is an opportunity for multifamily affordable housing providers to help connect more low-income households to the benefits of community solar programs. Members of the Department of Energy’s National Community Solar Partnership, Multifamily Affordable Housing Collaborative, have installed solar projects and partnered with local subscription programs to provide benefits to both affordable housing providers and the residents they serve. This tip sheet highlights resident engagement and outreach strategies used by collaborative members to build trust in community solar programs and increase subscribers among affordable housing residents.