By Steve Miller • Coordinator for Building Electrification Issues
Can the building electrification (BE) webinar adopt the best practices of a popular entertainment show, or compete with “This Old House” running 24 hours a day on Pluto TV?
Climate change continues to worsen because of the continued rise of the world’s greenhouse gas (GHG) problem. New Jersey’s building sector is responsible for 26% of the state’s GHG, primarily from fossil fuel used for space and water heating. The BE Team has produced monthly BE webinars for nearly two years to persuade NJ homeowners to electrify their homes and leverage the increasing renewable energy component in the NJ electrical grid. However, monthly webinar attendance of 50 or 60 people is inadequate for New Jersey to reach its goal of 50% GHG reduction by 2030. We need to increase NJ homeowner interest by orders of magnitude.
Elsewhere in this issue, “Electrify Everything with IRA,” Pat Miller describes incentives (tax credits and rebates) available through the Inflation Reduction Act and bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. One BE step is to leverage these incentives as carrots to encourage NJ residents to electrify their homes, but what else would it take to have 500 webinar attendees?
For a quick “ratings” boost, the BE team contacted the new (to us) “Ask Sean Show,” a popular webinar on building electrification produced in California. We found them receptive to spreading the show to NJ. We began on July 18 with a two-month inauguration of the “Ask Sean Show” format.
The lead performer/entertainer, Sean Armstrong, comes fully prepared, with slides and photos at his fingertips. Sean is managing principal of Redwood Energy (consulting and design for affordable housing developers). He recently celebrated his one-year anniversary heading the “Ask Sean Show,” has won almost yearly state and federal awards over the past decade, and uses his background to ensure all answers are presented quickly and with enthusiasm. Sean has four or five supporting cast and crew, including a moderator for the Q&A and a research engineer for case study analysis.
The “Ask Sean Show” reflects work by climate activists and features an attractive continuous action entertainment format, with interacting speakers. It is stimulated by a surprising variety of audience Q&A topics. The show is choreographed so all answers are delivered immediately with suggested products, pictures, prices, and frequent smiles. In our East Coast version, half of each hour-long program uses one or two previously recruited NJ homeowners who contribute their house heating/cooling specs, supply photos of appliances (furnaces, AC, hot water tanks, dryers, etc.), utility bills, and other items for case study evaluation and recommendations.
Our “Ask Sean Show” also includes short reports on NJ BE topics and relies on quick-thinking experts to provide lightning-fast response with slides or photos of appliances not requiring household rewiring (e g, 120-volt versions of hot water heaters, induction stoves, dryers, or perhaps load-sharing devices).
An impressive 121 people registered for the July 18 show, and by the time you read this, the BE team will have produced the August 21 “Ask Sean Show,” starring Sean himself.
For the BE Team to leverage this new format in future webinars, we need NJ homeowners who are willing to provide their home data for careful review in case studies. And we also need additional heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning industry experts who can replace Sean on a regular basis. Ideally, these hosts and co-hosts would be knowledgeable and quick on their feet, lively and energetic, and able to excite the audience. I encourage Sierra Club members and leaders to register at bit.ly/3tmyd1g to watch the October 21, 2023, BE live webinar, and to watch recordings of the July and August shows (view recordings and slides of all webinars at bit.ly/45bUPSK). Observe our successes and failures at attempts to adapt new techniques to influence NJ residents. Then, consider how each of us, as leaders, can best motivate New Jersey’s 9 million residents to take steps to save the world for generations to come.