Blog Updated: June 2024

Consider this your introduction to electrifying your home and in turn saving money and creating a positive impact on the environment. Transitioning your home to run on electricity is a step toward a new energy future powered by renewables, can improve your home’s air quality, and results in more reliable appliances in the long-term.

What Is Home Electrification? And What Are the Benefits?

Home electrification means transitioning any household appliance that uses oil or gas to options that run off electricity. Think of your furnace, water heater, gas cooktop, and even your car. Over 70 million American homes and businesses burn fossil fuels for everyday activities, resulting in 600 million tons of CO2 generated each year. Home electrification is a big step toward fighting climate change and one that brings many benefits to you and your family as well. For example, your indoor air quality improves when you switch from gas appliances to electric since appliances like gas stoves release pollutants into the home that can have negative health effects in the long run. Electric appliances not only support better indoor air quality, but they are also known to have a longer lifespan than gas appliances. Plus, if you are powering your home with solar, then a majority of your electric needs will be powered by the sun!

How to Electrify Your Home

Now, we’re sure you’re wondering where to start when it comes to home electrification. There is no wrong answer, and it all depends on your priorities and how your home is set up right now. If you already have solar, you can dig into adding electric appliances, transition how you heat your home, and add an electric vehicle with a charger. There are great incentives available for many of those upgrades!

If you already have solar and plan to increase your electricity usage with your home electrification upgrades, you can also consider an expansion for your solar system. Our Xcel customers are able to size their system up to 200% of the kWh used, which means you can futureproof your home for additions like an electric vehicle or new electric appliances. If you want to electrify your home and need to expand your solar to cover it, the 30% federal tax credit now also applies to expansions of existing solar arrays.

Image Source: Rewiring America

As you can see in the image above, there are numerous options to choose from when you begin to electrify your home. Our favorites include solar (obviously), home battery backup, electric vehicles (EV), EV chargers, and heat pumps.

Let’s start with home battery backup. Having a battery allows you to store solar power to use when the sun or power grid is down. It increases the resiliency of your home while using energy collected by your solar panels when the sun is out. Home battery backup systems are also eligible for the 30% tax credit. You can read more home battery backups and reach out for more information here.

Next, we have EVs and EV chargers. There are many EV options on the market today that provide amazing energy efficiency and much improved ranges. Many people with electric vehicles opt to install their own charger that will speed up your charge time so you’re always ready to go. Namaste Solar offers EV charger installation as an add-on to other services or as a stand-alone service.

Heat pumps are becoming more popular here in the US, though they are already widely used abroad. They are cleaner and more efficient alternatives for heating and cooling your home. Plus, there are a variety of incentives to install heat pumps, including the federal tax credit and utility rebates. Namaste Solar has partnered with the top heat pump installers on the Front Range to help make your home as energy efficient as possible.

Finally, we have SPAN smart panels. These are smart electric panels that replace your existing electric panel to allow you to control and monitor your home’s energy use from a smartphone or tablet. You can gather information on how your home is generating, storing, and utilizing energy as it is happening. Namaste Solar also offer these as an add-on to other services.

OK, What Now?

We know the options may seem overwhelming. Ultimately, we want to help you make a positive impact on the environment, avoid rising energy costs, capture all available incentives and rebates, and protect your family from poor air quality.

And as always, we’re here to be your partner, not just give you a pushy sales pitch. In fact, we’ll be the first to talk you out of solar! Reach out for a free quote, and we’ll talk through your home electrification options together.