Clean Energy Lives Here provides information on the optimal clean energy home, including weatherization, heating and cooling, electricity, vehicles, and appliances. Transitioning to clean energy can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save money, and increase home comfort. Throughout the campaign, MassCEC is providing educational resources for homeowners to learn about different technologies, determine which solutions would be a good fit for their home, and determine when these changes could be implemented.
Clean Energy Lives Here is brought to you by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center and the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources. MassCEC is a state agency dedicated to accelerating the growth of the clean energy sector to meet the Commonwealth’s clean energy, climate, and economic development goals. The Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) develops and implements policies and programs aimed at ensuring the adequacy, security, diversity, and cost-effectiveness of the Commonwealth’s energy supply to create a clean, affordable, and resilient energy future.
Our Challenge
Did you know that half of all the owner-occupied homes in Massachusetts were built before 1962? Even if your home isn’t quite that old, energy-conscious solutions for insulating, heating, cooling, doing laundry, and cooking were most likely not a priority for your home’s builder or its prior owners.
Given that in Massachusetts, 42% of greenhouse gas emissions come from our residences and vehicles, planning for the decarbonization of our homes and transportation is crucial to help the state reach its climate goals. Communities and individual homeowners have the opportunity to reduce emissions and get the benefit of cost savings and technology upgrades as they make home improvements and vehicle purchases.
Over the years, MassCEC has helped tens of thousands of homeowners learn about, acquire, and redeem incentives for heat pumps, solar electricity, EVs, and more through our community-based programs like SolarizeMass and HeatSmart. That expertise that we developed during over 100 community engagements is the foundation for Clean Energy Lives Here.
We take the mystery out of home technologies that are unfamiliar to you and give you the facts so you can have an informed conversation with contractors and service providers about your home system and appliance choices.
Here are some ways for homeowners to use Clean Energy Lives Here:
Visit our Resources section to watch videos, read individual technology guides, and explore blogs about real homeowners who have tackled clean energy projects.
Check out Benefits + Savings to see what to expect for up front and monthly costs, savings, incentives and greenhouse gas reduction.
Fill out a Clean Energy Home Plan to document the condition of your current home systems and appliances, along with notes on what you might replace them with when they stop working or they are part of a renovation.
Use our Installers page to find clean energy professionals who serve your community.
If you are a renter, while you might have less control over the space you live in there are still ways you can benefit from clean energy and influence the conversation about clean energy:
If your building doesn’t produce its own solar electricity onsite, as an electric bill payer you can sign up for clean electricity in any of the following ways, all of which are explained further in the Buying Clean Electricity section of our site:
Opt into your town’s Community Choice clean electricity plan.
Choose the renewable electricity option offered through your electric utility.
When systems or appliances in your unit or building are at the end of their useful life, inform your landlord and provide input on the benefits of electrified home technologies as replacements for fossil fuel-powered versions. Our Introduction to the Clean Energy Home Guide helps your landlord get to know these products and provides links to more detailed resources.
If you notice that your building’s roof seems to have good sun exposure, suggest to your landlord that they investigate adding solar electric panels. We’ve got a Solar Landlord Toolkit to help them understand their options.
We’re In This Together
Whether we’re homeowners or renters, many of us face unique challenges with our quirky, lovable, and (in many cases) decades-old dwellings here in Massachusetts! Be a discerning customer of energy sources. Help the climate as you improve your house or apartment. The energy decisions of the past won’t dictate our energy future if we are informed consumers of energy and select clean, efficient systems and appliances when replacing legacy home technologies.
The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) is a state economic development agency dedicated to accelerating the growth of the clean energy sector across the Commonwealth to spur job creation, deliver statewide environmental benefits, and secure long-term economic growth for the people of Massachusetts. MassCEC works to increase the adoption of clean energy while driving dow costs and delivering financial, environmental, and economic development benefits to energy users and utility customers across the state.
Customers of Berkshire Gas, Cape Light Compact, Eversource, Liberty Utilities, National Grid, and Unitil are eligible for Mass Save ground-source heat pump rebates and financing offers, which are accessed by using an HPIN installer.
Customers of Municipal Light Plants (MLPs) can also use installers in the HPIN, though rebates and financing offers will be determined by your MLP.
Customers of Berkshire Gas, Cape Light Compact, Eversource, Liberty Utilities, National Grid, and Unitil are eligible for Mass Save heat pump water heater rebates and financing offers, which are accessed by using an instant rebate process or an HPIN installer.
Customers of Municipal Light Plants (MLPs) can also use installers in the HPIN, though rebates and financing offers will be determined by your MLP.
Customers of Berkshire Gas, Cape Light Compact, Eversource, Liberty Utilities, National Grid, and Unitil are eligible for Mass Save air-source heat pump rebates and financing offers, which are accessed by using an HPIN installer.
Customers of Municipal Light Plants (MLPs) can also use installers in the HPIN, though rebates and financing offers will be determined by your MLP.
Given that in Massachusetts, 42% of greenhouse gas emissions come from our residences and vehicles, planning for the decarbonization of our homes and transportation is crucial to help the state reach its climate goals. Communities and individual homeowners have the opportunity to reduce emissions and get the benefit of cost savings and technology upgrades as they make home improvements and vehicle purchases.
