D.C.’s Healthy Homes Fair on May 10 was a modest affair, drawing a few hundred people to Catholic University’s Pryzbyla Student Center, but what I heard and saw provided a glimpse of the future of home electrification – both the opportunities and the pain points ahead.

First, let’s start with some basic definitions. Home electrification starts with energy efficiency — big time. Depending on the house, we’re talking about switching to LED light bulbs, sealing ducts and insulating attics and walls, and replacing roofs, doors and windows. 

The second step is swapping out gas appliances for electric — gas furnaces and water heaters for heat pumps – air source or geothermal — gas stoves for induction and even traditional clothes dryers for heat pump dryers. 

Rooftop solar can be the icing on the cake, offsetting any increase in electricity consumption from the new appliances, which in general are highly efficient to start with. 

Yes, doing all this work can be expensive, but the market is moving on a few different levels to make electrification simpler, easier and cheaper. 

To begin with, as might be expected, electric appliances are getting better and smarter. For example, installing a heat pump or induction stove has generally meant a potentially pricey upgrade of a home’s electric system to handle the added power these appliances draw. What an electrician would probably tell you is you need a new panel — that is, the fuse or circuit breaker box that connects your home to your utility’s local power lines. 

But now some companies, like Span and Schneider Electric, have developed “smart panels” that can manage the added electrical demand — and use electricity more efficiently — without a major panel upgrade.  

Span was at Healthy Homes, and National Sales Director Mike DiRico explained that most homes rarely exceed their panels’ capacity, even older homes that have 100 amp panels, because rarely are all your appliances drawing all the electricity they might all at one time. (I am not going into the very wonky details on what amps measure and why residential electrical panels are set up to measure them, but here’s a good explainer from Rewiring America.)

The Span smart panel manages a home’s electricity flow and, of course, comes with a cell phone app that can track how much power each of your appliances is drawing. In the event of a potential overload or outage, it can briefly turn down or turn off appliances to keep the system in balance and the lights on. 

Similarly, as I wrote previously, induction stoves and window-unit heat pumps are now available that plug right into an existing socket, no panel upgrade needed. 

^{The business case}

Which brings me to a second and equally important point — home electrification is potentially big business. The market is dynamic and expanding, with both startups and major brands competing to improve their products and win customers.

Heat pumps have been outselling gas furnaces since 2022 and, in 2024, had a 32% lead, according to figures from the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute, an industry trade group. Three major companies that built their business on gas furnaces and traditional air conditioning systems were at Healthy Homes with their latest and greatest heat pumps — Daikin, Midea and Rheem.  

All three have cold weather heat pumps that will keep a home warm and comfortable at 5 degrees Fahrenheit or even lower and are working on making their products more compact and efficient. 

Challenges remain. Midea has a plug-in window-unit heat pump, which CEO Susan Zhang told me weighs in at 300 pounds and requires two or more installers to set up. 

Sales of induction stoves may not be overwhelming yet, but online and media buzz is building as even hardcore devotees of gas stoves find induction cooks faster, safer and allows more control. Single burner, portable induction cooktops are now available – in the $50-$120 range at Home Depot, Amazon and IKEA, among others – for those who want to try out the technology. 

Takoma Park, Md., a progressive-leaning D.C. suburb, has four single-burner induction cook tops that they loan out to residents for two-week rotations, and I was told, the town has a waiting list.

Building the narrative

The question now is how do we get to the tipping point where electrification is the norm for both new home construction and appliance replacements? How do we make it simpler and easier, a no-brainer, to go electric?

Again, based on what I heard at Healthy Homes, the momentum we need could come from two different, but complementary narratives: homeowners who have the financial means to electrify and low-income households that may need a one-stop, heavily subsidized program.  

Go Electric DMV is a volunteer group of homeowners who have electrified their own homes in the District, Maryland and Virginia, and provide free coaching and support for others moving through the process.

Their approach is to break down home electrification into manageable steps. Do efficiency first; plan out a schedule for replacing appliances and installing solar; minimize costs by taking advantage of holiday sales and federal and state tax credits and rebates. 

The goal is to give people someone to talk with when they hit a wall or feel overwhelmed, someone who also knows what it’s like to deal with contractors and local permitting — and who just might recruit them to become coaches themselves. 

On the low-income side, the D.C. Sustainable Energy Utility has a great program that serves as a one-stop shop for electrifying low-income homes. Speaking at Healthy Homes, D.C. resident Cerise Turner couldn’t say enough about how DCSEU coordinated her home upgrades, which included a new roof so she could install solar, heat pumps for space and water heating, and an induction stove, all for free. 

Her electric bills are running at under $20 per month, she said, and she is encouraging others to go electric.

For low-income residents like Turner, home electrification is about cutting bills first, decarbonization second. The more well-off demographic tends to be climate- and health-motivated, concerned about leaks and methane emissions from gas appliances, but they also appreciate savings. 

Both sides say more education, more stories like their own, are needed to raise public awareness and interest, to show that home electrification is doable and provides benefits for everyone. 

The Republican attack

What those stories will need to include is the role of electrified homes as potential grid assets that can help meet the current challenges of demand growth now roiling the country with warnings about future blackouts and the need to quickly build new natural gas plants.

Home electrification could be part of the counternarrative that focuses on cheaper, cleaner and more dynamic alternatives, while also encouraging people to see themselves as an active part of the solution.

Solar, smart panels and electric appliances can all be used to manage demand at the local level and provide flexible support for the larger grid that moves electricity long distances within and across state lines. At times of high demand, certain home appliances can be turned down or off for brief periods of time without compromising homeowner comfort or safety. 

Providing that support could also be an extra source of income for homeowners, further offsetting the cost of electrification.

Moving forward, our stories will also need to manage expectations about federal and state support — or lack thereof — for home electrification and hold our lawmakers responsible. 

When the Inflation Reduction Act was passed in August 2022, expectations were high that its rebate programs for low-income home electrification would be up and running in a matter of months, providing a major stimulus for the market, while driving down prices and electric bills.

What former President Joe Biden did not take into account was the time required to develop federal and state guidelines, and then to design, plan and implement individual state initiatives.

As of Jan. 30, 2025, appliance rebates were available in only 10 states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina and Wisconsin — according to an online home energy rebates tracker compiled by Atlas Public Policy. 

Speaking at Healthy Homes, officials from the Maryland Energy Administration said they are still working with a project manager at the Department of Energy to get final approvals for their program. They hope to actually roll out the long-promised low-income rebates by 2026.

Whether the federal funding will be available remains an open question. Republicans in Congress have unveiled a proposed budget that would decimate the IRA’s clean energy programs to pay for Trump’s tax cuts. Rolling back energy efficiency standards while expediting the permitting of fossil fuel-fired generation is also part of the package.

Beyond the shameless hypocrisy, the Republican attack on energy efficiency and home electrification reflects amazing levels of fear and insecurity, backed up with rigid ideology. Electric appliances that cut consumer energy bills and increase consumer comfort pose no threat to national security or energy dominance, however those terms are defined. 

We need to ask our lawmakers and government officials, “What are you scared of?”