Affiliated Programs - Build It Green

POWER Group

Making Home Electrification Faster, Simpler, and More Affordable

The POWER Group is a network of diverse collaborators dedicated to making home electrification easier, faster, and more cost-effective—without unnecessary steps.

We focus on Power Efficient Design (PED), an approach that allows homes to fully electrify without costly service upsizing. By fully utilizing space on existing infrastructure, we help homeowners, utilities, and contractors avoid unnecessary expenses and delays while making electrification accessible for more people.

Why It Matters

Without smart electrification strategies, panel and service upsizing can cost homeowners and ratepayers tens of thousands of dollars—delaying projects and slowing climate progress. Our work helps to:

Avoid billions in costs to electrify homes throughout California.
Make decarbonization easier and more affordable for residents
Save money, cut emissions, and improve air quality in our communities.

What We Do

Optimizing Existing Electrical Panels: We show how to fit high-performance electric appliances within a home’s existing electrical infrastructure, avoiding expensive upsizing.
Modernizing Codes & Policies: We work to influence policies, utility rules, and building codes to make electrification faster and simpler.
We Support Utilities & Contractors: We help the industry serve more energy needs without grid congestion or costly delays.
Fostering Collaboration & Innovation: We create space for sharing insights with companies developing products and software solutions, ensuring that industry advancements align with real-world needs and drive electrification forward.

The Power Efficient Design (PED) Approach

PED avoids unnecessary panel and service upsizing by using three key strategies—each effective on its own or in combination:

Choosing power-efficient appliances for heating, water heating, cooking, clothes drying, and EV charging.
Selecting equipment and loads to optimize efficiency.
Using power control systems when needed to balance demand such as installing solar panels or circuit sharing devices.

The result?

No unnecessary panel upsizing.
Saving thousands of dollars and several working months (or upwards of a year) per home.
More homes can electrify without overloading transformers, allowing entire neighborhoods to transition affordably.

PED is not about limiting energy use—it’s about delivering electric comfort and luxury efficiently.

Our Impact

$4.8 million CEC EPIC Grant – Developing a free home electrification design tool, demonstrating it in 50 homes, and training contractors.
National Electrical Code Updates – Advocating for reforms that simplify electrification.
Utility Rule Improvements – Advising on policies to streamline retrofit electrification.

Who We Are

With 200+ members across the industry—advocates, contractors, electricians, engineers, manufacturers, policy influencers, program leaders, regulators, researchers, software developers, and utility staff—we’re building the future of electrification together.

We also work with policy and decision-makers to help them meet local, state, and national decarbonization goals.

Stay Connected

Join our monthly forum – A lively space for continuing research findings, discussion, and collaboration on power efficiency in our homes.

Let’s make power efficient electrification the new normal—without the unnecessary costs.

GreenPoint Rated

Launched in 2008 in the San Francisco Bay area, GreenPoint Rated (GPR) quickly expanded throughout California, to become one of the country’s most established and credible residential green building rating systems. GreenPoint Rated is one of the most comprehensive verification platforms, including every type of residential building, with four tiers of certification, from the minimum performance level,‘Rated’ to the highest performance level, ‘Platinum’. GPR community supported the initial development of CALGreen, the country’s most advanced residential green building code. GPR and our Raters have certified more residential units than any other rating provider in the state of California — over 100,000 homes — establishing a well-earned reputation for impact.

GreenPoint Rated measures are practical, market-based solutions backed by sound building science, have been tried and tested in the field, and are recognized by third party sources, including the Fannie Mae Green Certification program, California Air Resources Board, the California Energy Commission and the Association of Bay Area Governments.