About episode
Have you come across the idea yet that we need to electrify everything? It’s the concept that we need to replace gas appliances with electric ones and power those with renewable energy. It’s a simply idea really, and yet it’s crucial to eliminating pollution, protecting the environment, saving a whole lot of money and eliminating the illnesses caused by burning fossil fuels. The benefits are massive – but so is the complexity of decarbonizing billions upon billions of buildings.
At the forefront of the movement to electrify everything is Rewiring America, an ambitious organization focused on the systemic change needed to make clean, electric appliances the default. For this episode, I spoke with Rewiring America’s CEO Ari Matusiak. We spoke about the organization’s approach to systems change, the implications of the Inflation Reduction Act, their work to aggregate demand for electrification and much more. I learned a ton and am excited to share this episode as there are many ways we can all help make the mantra “electrify everything” a reality. Enjoy.
In today’s episode, we cover:
- [3:36] What is Rewiring America & the problem they’re aiming to solve
- [5:05] The criticality of electrifying buildings in the United States
- [7:17] The scale of change that Rewiring America is working towards
- [9:50] The user experience & opportunities for electrification
- [13:50] Thinking about systems change to address the magnitude of scale
- [18:12] How to aggregate local demand in a systematic way
- [22:43] Signs of increasing local demand & progress
- [25:04] What the IRA means for individual consumers
- [27:41] The national level impacts of the IRA
- [31:02] The follow on effects of the IRA
- [33:14] The flywheel for electrification & systems change
- [37:01] Advocating for local policy change & accelerating electrification beyond homes
- [41:45] Raising awareness & urgency to decarbonize the built environment
- [44:56] What next year holds for Rewiring America & how listeners can help
What is Rewiring America & the problem they’re aiming to solve
Rewiring America is a nonprofit organization, founded in the summer of 2020, with the goal to electrify everything in the economy as the main way of addressing the climate crisis and also as the main way of generating economic renewal in our communities and in our households. Ari explains that the reason for this is pretty simple; 42% of energy-related emissions in this country come from decisions we make around our kitchen tables, what kind of cars we drive, how we heat the air and water in our homes, how we cook our food and how we dry our clothes. As we think about all of those machines that we rely on, if we can systematically electrify them, we will take out a material amount of emissions. The good news about this strategy is that we don’t need to wait on technology to be invented in order to do that. It’s all here today. And in doing so, Rewiring America aims to help households save a significant amount of money on their energy bills by an estimation of $1,800 a year, which is a material amount of money for families.
User experience considerations & opportunities for electrification
As Ari points out, there’s a real opportunity to embrace electrification despite the perceived challenges. Think about it in a couple of ways. He explains that the more things you electrify in your life, the easier it is to electrify other things. If you get an EV for instance, and you are going to charge that EV in your home, what is probably happening first and foremost is the installation of the charger, but also potentially, the installation of an upgraded breaker box to support the charging that is required for your car. Many things can happen here as a number of machines were effectively purchased that push a household onto an electrification path.
The flywheel for electrification & systems change
Ari says that accelerants to the flywheel include the volatility and the inflationary effect of fossil fuel prices. People are more poignantly aware of this today than they were a couple of years ago. The effect of electrifying the machines that we rely on affects the stability of price. There is a certainty that comes with how much you are going to have to spend on your energy bill, month in and month out. That has never been true with fossil fuels.
When Ari graduated from college, he lived in a home that was heated with oil heat. There was a price spike on the spot market for oil that winter. As a result, he got a bill from the oil provider that was more expensive, and as somebody who just graduated from college and was making $22,500 a year, that was an insurmountable shock to his budget. There was no way he could make that payment. That dynamic is a truism for being tied to dependence on fossil fuels. People are more aware of this and they want to get off that train.
He also points out that there’s more social awareness in part tied to climate, but also other factors like health – more reporting about the health risks of burning fossil fuels in your home, cooking with gas in your kitchens and what that means for the asthma rate of kids and just through the overall health incidents and impact that it can have. These are the kinds of social transformations that are happening. He anticipates that over time burning fossil fuels in your home is going to be similar to smoking; it’s not going to be viewed as a good idea.
What next year holds for Rewiring America & how listeners can help
Rewiring America is working to launch a national effort to connect American households to their electric bank accounts. They are also going to be working to make sure that the Inflation Reduction Act is implemented well, meaning that the policy is easy and accessible to all American families. They are creating tools for American households to find out what their own electrification plan is and how to plan their own future. Ari says that what they’ll need are a bunch of electrification enthusiasts in every community in the country, who are willing to share with their neighbors, families, and friends, about the benefits of that. Rewiring America is looking for partners, and Ari shares that they’d love listeners to join in this work in the years ahead.
Resources Mentioned
Connect with Ari Matusiak
- Connect with Ari
Connect With Jason Rissman
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