This week, PG&E shut off gas service to a three-story apartment building on Bryant St. On Wednesday, members of environmental justice group PODER SF gathered with city officials outside the building to celebrate the building going fully electric.
Emissions from gas appliances are bad for human and planetary health. But swapping out gas stoves and heaters for electric ones isn’t easy. New appliances and the required renovations needed to power them can be really expensive.
Antonio Díaz, PODER's organizational director, said the building retrofit has cost around $200,000 so far.
Project funding has come through a grant from the city’s Environment Department and from California clean energy incentive programs. But Díaz had to raise additional money from philanthropic sources, thanks both to project overruns and major cuts from the Trump administration.
"The federal funding that was anticipated because of the Biden administration, it's all gone," he said.
And because of San Francisco's ongoing budget deficit, the Environment Department could be facing its own staff and program cuts.
Díaz says he’s now in fund-raising mode for phase two of the project: adding solar panels and battery storage.
Up in the top floor apartment, building owner Ampara Vigil says she loves her new electric heat pump HVAC, which means no more space heaters in the winter. And last summer, she had AC for the first time in 30 years here.
"We did have a couple of heat spells [last summer] and I just kept telling everybody — my friends, my family — come over here. So that's been really good," she said.
Since her induction stove was installed this week and the building’s gas meters were turned off, she says the air inside just feels cleaner.
