Meta Platform's (NASDAQ: META) home in Menlo Park, California, is collaborating with Brooklyn-based BlocPower electrify most of its buildings to reach its ultimate objective of achieving a state of total carbon neutrality by the year 2030. Currently, Menlo Park approximates that fossil fuel expending of buildings is at 41% of total emissions.
The reason that Menlo Park is partnering with BlocPower is that together, both Menlo Park and BlocPower would ideally like to decrease fossil fuel usage. Eventually, Menlo Park will begin by electrifying 25 buildings throughout 2022. Ultimately, it plans to electrify 1,000 buildings per year beginning in 2024. Eventually it will install heat pumps for cooling, heating, and water, electric vehicle charging stations, and solar power or battery storage.
Some of the tasks that BlocPower will implement into this program with Menlo Park are the utilization of data models in order to enhance project design, the decrease of various costs through equipment supplier relationships, and the employment of affordable project financing. This program collaboration will have a primary focus on Belle Haven, which is significantly influenced by factors such as climate change. Job training programs, which will establish more of a job market for Menlo Park, will be created and implemented in order to handle and address shortages in jobs.
"Menlo Park is rooted in innovation, committed to doing its part to solve the climate crisis. This partnership will allow the City to address a large source of emissions. We also chose BlocPower due to their community based approach, which aligns with our commitment of centering the needs of those who live, play, and work in Menlo Park," said Mayor Betsy Nash from Menlo Park in a press statement.
According to Angela Sherry Evans, Environmental Quality Commissioner of Menlo Park, electrifying 95% of buildings will drastically decrease dependence on natural gas, which accounts for nearly 50% of Menlo Park's greenhouse gas emissions.
"We must unlock financing to speed electrification and make it accessible to everyone. This is an exciting opportunity for a public-private partnership with BlocPower, which also strives to help local workforces gain knowledge and job training in the field of decarbonization," said State Senator Josh Becker, D-Peninsula, regarding Menlo Park's partnership with BlocPower. "I support this effort and look forward to using lessons learned from this program to inform the broader policy landscape of building electrification."