Overview.html

<div id="introduction" class="section level1" number="1">
<h1><span class="header-section-number">1</span> Introduction</h1>
<p>Fossil fuel consumption in buildings continues to be the primary
contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the United States (U.S). In
2015, the U.S. building sector was responsible for 565.8 million metric
tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, representing approximately 8.6% of
the nation’s total greenhouse gas emissions. When factoring in indirect
emissions, the building sector’s overall contribution rises to 29% <span class="citation">(2020)</span>. Among the most effective strategies to
curb emissions from buildings is through electrification, a transition
from conventional energy sources to electricity for heating and cooking.
Notably, the city of Ithaca took a pioneering step on June 5th, 2019, by
adopting the Ithaca Green New Deal resolution, a government-led
commitment to achieve complete decarbonization by 2030. A central facet
of this initiative involves electrification of all buildings in the city
by 2030.</p>
<p>To accomplish this goal, the city of Ithaca faces the challenge of
assessing the necessary workforce expansion in conjunction with its
existing labor pool. As a PiTech Siegel PhD Impact Fellow, I
collaborated closely with the City of Ithaca and partnered with <a href="https://www.blocpower.io">BlocPower</a> over the summer to develop
a web application. This application is designed to aid stakeholders, not
only within Ithaca but across various municipalities in New York state,
in estimating the quarterly workforce increase required to achieve the
goal of complete building electrification by 2030. The web application
receives the number of buildings and number of workers as inputs and
estimate the percentage of total buildings electrified by 2030. Drawing
from the analysis, introduction of at least 25 HVAC technicians, 18
plumbers, and 8 electricians per quarter from 2024 to 2030 is required
to meet the demand of 100% electrification by 2030 in the city of
Ithaca. By the culmination of 2030, an additional 675 HVAC technicians,
486 plumbers, and 216 electricians would have been integrated into the
city’s workforce.</p>
</div>
<div id="inputs" class="section level1" number="2">
<h1><span class="header-section-number">2</span> Inputs</h1>
<p>The web application’s functionality revolves around three key
inputs:</p>
<div id="number-of-buildings" class="section level2" number="2.1">
<h2><span class="header-section-number">2.1</span> Number of
Buildings</h2>
<p>The City of Ithaca provided comprehensive data containing the list of
all residential buildings and their respective types. These categories
encompass single family residences, small multi-family residences, and
large multi-family residences. The dataset consists of 2,579 single
family homes, 1,038 small multi-family homes, and 625 large multi-family
homes, totaling 4,242 residential buildings that require electrification
in Ithaca.</p>
</div>
<div id="initial-workers" class="section level2" number="2.2">
<h2><span class="header-section-number">2.2</span> Initial Workers</h2>
<p>This input signifies the current workforce available within the
region for participation in building electrification projects. It’s
important to note that this figure represents the subset of workers who
can dedicate their working hours to electrification. After consulting
with local contractors and industry experts at BlocPower, it was assumed
that 10% of the existing workforce can be allocated for building
electrification; Users have the flexibility to adjust this value to
explore different scenarios. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics, the number of HVAC technicians, plumbers, and electricians,
the three workforce required for building electrification, were 80, 110
and 150 respectively for year 2022 <span class="citation">(2023)</span>.
Thus, initial counts of 8 HVAC technicians, 11 plumbers, and 15
electricians were used, as depicted in the initial row of Table 2 on the
Report tab of the web application.</p>
</div>
<div id="workers-introduced" class="section level2" number="2.3">
<h2><span class="header-section-number">2.3</span> Workers
Introduced</h2>
<p>The second row of Table 2 on the Report tab of the application
denotes the incremental workforce introduced to the area per quarter,
commencing from the second quarter of 2024. A few combinations of input
were tested to determine the minimal workforce increase required in each
category: HVAC technicians, plumbers and electricians, to realize
complete building electrification by 2030.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div id="assumptions" class="section level1" number="3">
<h1><span class="header-section-number">3</span> Assumptions</h1>
<div id="daily-working-hours" class="section level2" number="3.1">
<h2><span class="header-section-number">3.1</span> Daily working
hours</h2>
<p>The average daily working hours were established at 7.3 hours.
Initially, an annual work schedule was established with 240 days,
encompassing a full 8 hours of work each day, culminating in a total of
1,920 working hours annually. This sum was subsequently distributed
across the span of a typical year, consisting of 260 weekdays. The value
we get is 7.38 hours per day. To be more conservative, this value was
then rounded down to 7.3 hours per day. The web application allows its
user to change this values at the assumption tab.</p>
</div>
<div id="workforce-need-and-time-commitment" class="section level2" number="3.2">
<h2><span class="header-section-number">3.2</span> Workforce need and
time commitment</h2>
<p>The lower and upper bound on the number of hours and workers needed
for each residential building type (single, small multi-family, and
large multi-family) are listed on Table 3 in the “Assumption” tab of the
web application. Workforce need and the time required for each buildings
were assumed to be uniformly distributed with the upper and the lower
bound described in the table. These estimates are guided by insights
from experts at BlocPower. While various factors could influence time
commitment and workforce needs, no granular data were available for
statistical estimation of such parameters. Users are welcome to edit the
assumption table to explore different scenarios and assess their
impact.</p>
</div>
<div id="calendar" class="section level2" number="3.3">
<h2><span class="header-section-number">3.3</span> Calendar</h2>
<p>The calendar from year 2024 to year 2030 were used. Other than
weekends, the following 13 holidays observed in the state of New York
were excluded from the working day calendar: New Year’s Day (January 1),
Martin Luther King’s Birthday (3rd Monday in January), Lincoln’s
Birthday (February 12), Washington’s Birthday (3rd Monday in February),
Memorial Day (last Monday in May), Flag Day (2nd Sunday in June),
Juneteenth (June 19), Independence Day (July 4), Labor Day (1st Monday
in September), Columbus Day (2nd Monday in October), Veterans’ Day
(November 11), Thanksgiving Day (4th Thursday in November), and
Christmas (December 25).</p>
</div>
<div id="demand-for-building-electrification" class="section level2" number="3.4">
<h2><span class="header-section-number">3.4</span> Demand for Building
Electrification</h2>
<p>We adopted a general assumption that all landlords in the city of
Ithaca would express interest in electrifying their buildings at some
point during the 7-year period (2024 to 2030). To simulate this, at the
beginning of each year, 1/7 of the buildings were randomly selected for
electrification, and the sequencing of buildings to undergo
electrification was also selected at random (uniform distribution). We
acknowledge that assuming universal interest in electrification would
inflate the demand for building electrification. However, it’s important
to highlight that the primary objective of this project was to estimate
the necessary workforce to achieve the comprehensive decarbonization of
all buildings. In this context, we consider this assumption to be a
reasonable simplification.</p>
</div>
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<div id="references" class="section level1 unnumbered">
<h1 class="unnumbered">References</h1>
<div id="refs" class="references csl-bib-body hanging-indent" line-spacing="2">
<div id="ref-USB" class="csl-entry">
Labor Statistics, B. of. (2023). Ithaca, NY - may 2022 OEWS metropolitan
and nonmetropolitan area occupational employment and wage estimates. In
<em>U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics</em>. U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics. <a href="https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_27060.htm">https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_27060.htm</a>
</div>
<div id="ref-CCE" class="csl-entry">
Leung, J. (2020). In <em>Center for Climate and Energy Solutions</em>.
<a href="https://www.c2es.org/document/decarbonizing-u-s-buildings/">https://www.c2es.org/document/decarbonizing-u-s-buildings/</a>
</div>
</div>
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