ACEEE electrification and building envelope improvement report

Key Takeaways from report:

• Weatherizing buildings is an excellent first step toward electrifying their heating and cooling systems, especially for buildings in cold climates or those that have high-efficiency fossil-fueled heating systems. State energy offices responsible for distributing electrification funds should strongly encourage households installing heat pumps to pair them with insulation and air-sealing measures.
• Averaged across the United States, modest weatherization measures such as air sealing and increasing the quality and thickness of attic insulation can reliably reduce energy usage by 12-18%. Deeper building retrofits that add insulation to walls, basements, and rim joists, and install higher-efficiency windows could deliver around 33% energy savings.
• Envelope improvements in electrified buildings offer great value to the electric grid, reducing peak electric load by approximately 7-10%.
• The average residential customer who weatherizes an electrified home can expect to save an additional $150-1,200 in operational costs per year, with most households saving $500-800 per year.
• Efficient envelopes' ability to reduce demand during some of the grid's most carbon-intensive hours of the year makes them one of the most effective efficiency measures for reducing GHG emissions.
• Efficient envelopes help make buildings safer, healthier, and more comfortable.
• Scaling envelope improvements nationwide is both a major workforce development opportunity and challenge.

More details on the report here