The Community Retrofit Trust: Incentivizing Deep Energy Retrofits in Massachusetts' Triple Deckers

Abstract

To meet its 2050 net-zero carbon emissions goals, Massachusetts must rapidly retrofit its aging stock of three-story multi-family homes, also known as “Triple Deckers.” However, high upfront capital costs, disparities between subsidized gas and electric energy rates, complex eligibility criteria, and misaligned incentives for landlords and renters constrain the widespread adoption of deep energy retrofits (DERs) in small multi-family homes.

Drawing on energy democracy and reparative planning theory, this thesis reframes Triple Decker retrofits as a pathway to social and spatial transformation that empowers residents through cooperative participatory processes. This project proposes a practical framework for a “Community Retrofit Trust” which uses systems of distributed energy savings, community ownership of DER assets, and cooperative governance to ensure tenants, building owners, and neighbors in environmental justice communities share benefits from DERs while maintaining rental affordability. A proposed values-based decision-making process also helps community cooperatives adapt the Retrofit Trust’s framework to their unique social contexts.

Descriptive case studies of two community solar initiatives illustrate how cooperative approaches that build trust, bundle projects and local expertise, and expand opportunities for participation can efficiently distribute energy benefits across a community while increasing investment and lowering costs. A feasibility analysis of a Community Retrofit Trust in Boston examines the strengths, challenges, and contradictions of incentivizing Triple Decker DERs through a cooperative approach.