Residential Energy Efficiency
Greenhouse gas emissions from residential buildings make up about 20% of Bellevue's total emissions. Making residential homes more energy-efficient is critical to reducing Bellevue's overall carbon footprint. Similarly, switching home appliances like furnaces from gas to electric can also have a huge impact on emissions.
The burden of home energy efficiency and electrification shouldn't fall solely on residents. The City of Bellevue, along with our Eastside Climate Partner cities of Issaquah, Kirkland, Mercer Island, Redmond, and Sammamish created Energy Smart Eastside, a program that connects residents with information, financial incentives, and resources to electrify their homes. We've partnered with a leading heat pump distributor, Gensco, and pre-selected high-quality contractors who are committed to serving our communities through this campaign.
Energy Smart Eastside
Everyone in our community deserves the benefits of a healthy, energy-efficient and comfortable home. Energy Smart Eastside is dedicated to helping residents access the benefits of heat pumps. Visit Energy Smart Eastside's website to learn more.
What is a Heat Pump?
Heat pumps are a highly efficient and fully electric heating and cooling system. Unlike gas furnaces, heat pumps don't burn fossil fuels. Because heat pumps are also more efficient than traditional furnaces, they also use much less energy, often resulting in lower energy bills for residents. Visit Energy Smart Eastside's website to learn more about heat pumps.
Eastside Climate Partnership
The Eastside Climate Partnership (ECP), which formed in 2023, is made up of the cities of Bellevue, Issaquah, Kirkland, Mercer Island, Redmond, and Sammamish. The City of Bellevue signed the Interlocal Agreement previously in 2022. The ECP works collaboratively to create programs that reduce regional sources of climate pollution and advance collective sustainability. Areas of joint programming by two or more participating ECP jurisdictions include:
- A regional, coordinated heat pump program through the Energy Smart Eastside program. This program educates residents on the benefits of heat pumps and provides incentives for residential households, affordable housing, and adult family homes. The program plans to expand to additional electric appliance incentives in the future.
- Preparation of greenhouse gas emissions inventories using standardized methodology for our communities and municipal operations. These inventories support our communities in understanding progress and providing guidance for where to focus climate action efforts in the future.
- A commercial clean buildings program educating building owners and property managers on state building energy efficiency standards. Improvements made in the participating buildings will lead to cleaner buildings through improved energy efficiency and reduced reliance on fossil fuels. Issaquah’s program is the Clean Buildings Incentive Program.
- Information sharing on municipal fleet electrification progress use-case scenarios. Coordination on local and regional public electric vehicle charging stations.