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Portland says pilot helped jump‑start home electrification; ebike vouchers overwhelmed demand
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Summary
City staff reported 105 home electrification projects from a pilot program, $200,000 in ARPA funds for follow‑up initiatives and an ebike voucher scheme that exhausted initial funds in 2.5 days before moving to a randomized allocation.
Troy Moon, Portland's director of sustainability, asked Katie Tims to summarize progress on the city's "Electrify Everything" initiative, a multi‑phase effort to promote heat pumps, EV charging and other home electrification measures.
Katie told the committee the pilot partnered with Revision Energy to offer a one‑stop customer path; 105 Portland households completed projects through the pilot, which she described as successful because it simplified procurement and helped households use state and federal incentives.
ARPA funding of $200,000 supported two follow‑on programs: an ebike voucher program and a DIY Electrify rebate program. For the ebike program the city contributed vouchers covering 60% of the purchase price for income‑eligible residents; the first, first‑come model exhausted available funding in roughly two and a half days, prompting staff to redesign the program with a two‑week registration window and a randomized drawing to allocate vouchers more equitably.
On the DIY Electrify program, Katie said staff provided rebates of up to $250 for energy‑saving materials and small electric appliances targeted at renters; over eight months the city issued 181 rebates and estimated about 74% of recipients were renters. Katie said staff translated materials and worked with community partners including the Office of Economic Opportunity, Avesta Housing and Public Health to reach non‑English speaking and priority populations, though the application process did not collect exhaustive demographic data.
"We hit our funding capacity that we had allotted for the program in 2 and a half days," Katie told the committee about the initial ebike rollout. Councilors asked about outreach to elder communities and language access; staff said they sent materials to the office of elder affairs and aimed to keep tailoring future iterations to reach underserved groups.
Moon said the city is exploring additional funding sources to continue these programs after strong demand.
Next steps: staff will continue outreach, evaluate the equity outcomes from the randomized ebike allocation and seek grant or other funding to run future rounds.
