Menlo Park to focus funds on Belle Haven for home electrification retrofits

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An induction stovetop inside a barn that was converted to all-electric in Woodside on March 30, 2023. Photo by Magali Gauthier.

The Menlo Park City Council has two years to spend $2.25 million on home electrification in the city, and members have their sights set on Belle Haven.

The funds come from a state grant to replace gas appliances with electric ones in order to reduce the city’s carbon footprint. Menlo Park has set a goal to convert 95% of existing buildings to all-electric by 2030.

City staff recommended putting $2.15 million of the funds into a partnership with Peninsula Clean Energy (PCE) and its Home Electrification Program to retrofit homes in the Belle Haven neighborhood, an area that has historically struggled with pollution and air quality. PCE’s clean energy program provides homeowners with qualifying incomes no-cost home repairs, electric appliances and energy efficiency upgrades. Menlo Park staff recommended the remaining $100,000 in funding go toward training local residents in electrification for workforce development.

The Menlo Park City Council discussed how best to use the funds at an Oct. 10 meeting, and decide where to focus its efforts. The $2.25 million is the first of two installments awarded by the California Energy Commission, totaling $4.5 million. The city will receive the second half after submitting a progress report to the state.

The Menlo Park City Council decided to start by focusing on lower-income homeowners first and expanding to higher-income households if necessary, in order to spend down the grant by the deadline. If the $4.5 million is not used up by June 30, 2026, Menlo Park has to return any remaining money to the state. According to city staff, it costs approximately $30,000 for a whole home electrification retrofit.

“I think the worst thing that could happen is two and a half years go by, and we’re giving back money,” Mayor Jen Wolosin said. “…If the choice is between giving the money back or giving it to someone that’s low-income elsewhere, I think we’d be better served giving it elsewhere.”

The council also suggested expanding the retrofitting program to the rest of Menlo Park if the pool of interested homeowners in Belle Haven was too small to exhaust the funds. To spread the word to residents, the city is looking to Climate Resilient Communities, a nonprofit focused on the effects of climate change in underserved communities, or even paying neighbors to circulate information.

Council members also concluded that city staff should adopt language from a Habitat for Humanities contract, so that if the retrofitted property is sold within a certain timeframe, the seller would have to reimburse PCE. It’s intended to prevent homeowners from using the program intended to boost the value of a house they were planning to sell. The council also decided that people 65 years old or over don’t have to be income-qualified in order to receive funding to retrofit their homes.