Cost Reduction Lab

MassCEC / High Performance Buildings / Funding / Cost Reduction Lab

The Challenge

Small residential buildings account for over 60% of Massachusetts buildings’ greenhouse gas emissions. Decarbonizing small residential buildings is often hindered by high costs and fragmented delivery. For example, electrification can trigger expensive electrical upgrades, projects are rarely coordinated to capture whole project savings, geothermal and heat pump deployments remain costly due to drilling, design, and lack of standardization, and high upfront and soft costs for solar further slow adoption, despite declining equipment prices. The Cost Reduction Lab will support selected applicants to demonstrate, document, and disseminate novel cost reduction approaches for decarbonizing existing small residential buildings to address these challenges.

About the Cost Reduction Lab

The Cost Reduction Lab is seeking proposals for projects that demonstrate solutions to lower the cost of decarbonization in existing small residential buildings (1-4 units) in Massachusetts, with a focus on business models, market approaches, and technologies that can drive cost reductions.

The Cost Reduction Lab aims to identify and publicly disseminate open-source solutions that are freely available for implementation and whose benefits are not limited due to their proprietary nature or status as intellectual property.  

Applicants are expected to propose solutions to a Problem Statement with a Demonstration Project to test the effectiveness of the proposed solution.

The following are example Problem Statements applicants may choose to provide solutions to:

• Electrical Upgrade Triggers: Reducing need for costly panel upgrades with load management solutions.
• Lack of Project Coordination: Leveraging complementary projects to capture whole-project savings.
• Geothermal Cost Barriers: Reduce costs with new business models, drilling tech, financing innovation.
• Non-Standardized Heat Pump Installation: Streamlining heat pump design and deployment.
• High Upfront Costs to Solar: Reducing soft costs and accelerating adoption.
   

Cost Reduction Lab - Flyer

Who's Eligible

This program is open to applicants who will demonstrate cost savings of a decarbonization solution, including, but not limited to:

• Home performance contractors
• Technology installers
• Technology providers
• Academics
• Consultants

Proposals must be for projects that will demonstrate decarbonization cost reductions applicable to Massachusetts.

Connect

We encourages applicants to develop new partnerships to brainstorm ideas, build industry connections, and eventually collaborate as project partners.

Join our collaboration platform to discuss potential projects with other interested applicants. Please note, conversations on our platform are public record. For private conversations, please connect outside of our platform with potential collaborators.