Multifamily building electrification, or all-electric development, generally refers to using electricity as the sole fuel type for a building’s heating, domestic hot water, and cooling. The goal of electrification is that one day, all buildings will be powered with mostly zero-carbon electricity provided by wind, solar, and other cleaner electric generation options. Energize Denver, the City and County’s regulations for electrification applies to natural gas equipment being replaced at the end of its useful life. Denver’s building department will enforce this through the permitting process at the time of replacement and will apply to most multifamily buildings.
Adopting highly efficient building designs and systems such as electrical heat pumps can reduce electric operations cost, but it can typically come with increased construction/start-up costs.
Without proper operation and maintenance of electrical systems, efficiency is reduced, leading to increased operational costs.
For existing multi-family developments, electrification retrofits often require costly electrical capacity increases in primary service and secondary raceways – so it’s important to consider a development’s future electrical requirements and capacity.
