Imagining a brighter, cleaner energy future
for Richmond
Richmond wants healthy, resilient neighborhoods and affordable, reliable, and clean energy so the community can thrive.
Increasing temperatures, energy costs, and other pressures make it challenging to meet these community-driven goals, but the need is more urgent than ever.
From 2024 to 2026, C3 worked with the City of Richmond, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and other partners to help move the community forward in two specific ways, with a focus on the commercial sector:
Reducing energy costs by using less energy.
Shifting energy usage to locally grown, clean solar, backed up with batteries.
Read more below about these efforts and what happens next.
Project #1: Using less energy in the commercial sector
Commercial buildings are responsible for roughly ¼ of the energy used in Richmond, and that means they also shoulder a large proportion of the energy costs. That’s why C3 focuses on this sector, and why we need better tools for addressing it.
In this project, we worked with the Richmond Office of Sustainability and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to use data to better target commercial outreach. One of our biggest takeaways: A large proportion of Richmond’s commercial buildings are running on HVAC equipment that hasn’t been replaced in 15 or more years, and could fail at any time.
We also found buildings with new roofs that would be good candidates for solar, and buildings with other critical, expensive units like walk-in refrigeration that could benefit from technical assistance too.
Our advice for Richmond’s building owners and occupants? Take the time now to find out how old your HVAC and other large equipment is (even if you rent!), and if it’s 15 years old or more, make a plan for replacement. It will take you just a few hours over a month or two, and it could save you lots of time - and money - in the future.
If you own a commercial building or a business, we’re here to help! See more info about our services here.
Interested in more details? Read our summary of findings here.
This project was funded by the NREL Communities Local Energy Action Program.
Does your HVAC equipment look like it was created at the dawn of time?
Richmond lags behind similar cities in its deployment of clean solar energy, but its goals to create a more equitable, affordable, and clean community are ambitious. To help align Richmond’s reality on the ground with its future-focused goals, C3 partnered again with the City’s Office of Sustainability to identify opportunities to deploy solar with backup batteries across the community.
This project identified a list of sites best suited to install solar quickly - ideally before tax credits expire - and an array of market-building tools to support solar projects immediately and in the future.
Project #2: Creating clean local energy
The most immediate effect of this project is a dedicated effort by the City of Richmond to deploy solar on 25 of its facilities, a priority list of additional sites to solarize in the future, and a broader reaching effort to deploy solar on smaller commercial facilities before the federal tax credits run out in December 2027. (You can help keep that effort moving forward by contacting your council member during summer 2026 - see here.)
What does this mean for you? If you own or occupy a commercial building, it means now is your chance install solar at a 30% discount. C3 will be providing direct support for commercial clients to join the local Switch Together effort - just contact us here. (If you’re interested in solar for your home, this program is for you too! More info here.)
And if you’d like to dig into the details of this project, take a look here.
This project was funded by the Municipal Action Fund via ICLEI and the Coalition for Green Capital.
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