Orlando Energy Savings Program Helps Low-Income Renters – GreenBuildingAdvisor

Green Building News

Program helps households install heat-pump water heaters, induction cooktops, and more to help with rising energy costs

Despite political headwinds at the federal level, including the sunsetting of certain tax incentives, a slowdown in clean tech investments, and more, the energy transition in the U.S. seems to be moving ahead across several fronts. Continued deployment of solar and utility-scale battery storage, residential heat-pump sales, and corporate adoption of carbon removal and storage capabilities, among other measures, is encouraging. And while the U.S. still lags Europe in all categories and Asia in some (renewable energy adoption chief among them), due largely to our stubborn dependency on fossil fuels, the country is moving in the right direction.

It’s also noteworthy that the transition isn’t strictly a red vs. blue state issue. Recent figures published by Zero Carbon Analytics reveal that in addition to the usual suspects of California, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, and Washington, the states of Arizona, Kansas, South Carolina, and Texas round out the top 10 on the energy transition leaderboard. In Q1 2026, “more than 40% of states generated more than half of their power from low-carbon technologies,” according to the organization. (Iowa, South Dakota, and Oklahoma comprise that leader board, thanks largely to robust onshore wind infrastructure.)  They also note how Florida was “the fastest-growing state for residential solar in Q1, adding 110 MW and approving permits for four times more capacity.”

Localizing the energy transition

The Sunshine State ranks #11 overall on Zero Carbon’s transition leaderboard, which isn’t nothing. But a new program that recently launched in Orlando, Florida’s fourth-biggest city, is highlighting a noticeable void in the clean energy transition. As I noted in this 2024 article about a pilot program in Massachusetts called Reinvest Ipswich, “the home decarbonization trade has an equity problem.” Renters, and especially low-income renters at that, have little to no autonomy when it comes to making the…