Six Things You Should Know about Energy Burden in Charlottesville

Last month we released an important first-of-its kind report on energy inequity highlighting the disparities that exist among many households in Charlottesville. Over 100 people attended our webinars to learn about the key findings of the report from the lead author and Director of Climate Policy for C3, Caetano de Campos Lopes, and we are grateful for the partnership of local affordable housing advocates, Laura Goldblatt, commissioner for the Charlottesville Housing and Redevelopment Authority and Javier Raudales, Client Services Coordinator for Sin Barreras.

First, let’s know the terms.

Energy burden is the percentage of income a household spends on energy bills. To determine your own household energy burden, divide your household annual income by the total cost of your home energy bills (including electricity, gas, propane) for that same year.  Energy costs are considered to be unsustainable if they make up more than 6% of your household annual income. Energy costs are also a part of total housing costs.  Housing is considered to be affordable if total costs, including energy costs, are less than 30% of the occupying household’s annual income.

Secondly, it is important to look beyond the averages.

The average energy burden in Charlottesville is 2.3%. On the surface, it looks like we don’t have an energy problem in Charlottesville. However, we had a feeling that Charlottesville’s significant wealth gap between household income levels might be hiding energy inequities within the average. Using census tract data and the U.S. Low-Income Energy Affordability Data (LEAD) tool, we discovered that nearly 5,000 Charlottesville households experience unsustainable levels of energy burden.

Some households are significantly impacted by energy burden.

851 households in Charlottesville pay 20% or more of their income on utility bills. In other words, a household that makes $23,340 per year (or 30% of the average median income) would pay $389 per month on energy costs alone! 

The most impacted census tract was the 10th and Page and part of Venable neighborhoods. 54% of those households are paying 10% or more on their income on energy bills. 

And extremely-low income households face the highest average energy burden, paying approximately 16% of their income on energy alone. 

The primary drivers of energy burden are energy costs and income, but what else?

You might think that the age of the home would be a primary driver of energy burden—and while that may be true that some older homes are inefficient, we found that when controlling by income, age of the home had no direct link with high energy burden. That’s primarily because the majority of Charlottesville’s households live in homes (88%) that were built after 1960.  

A more important factor was homeownership. Given the same built year, renters seem to bear twice the energy burden levels of homeowners. Census tracts with high concentrations of populations of color were also more likely to be energy burdened, as seen on the map below. 

This map shows higher concentrations of energy burden in orange, overlaid with the blue dots that show a higher percentage of people of color.

Top targeted energy efficiency programs+low-income solar programs = energy burden alleviation

C3’s report models a hypothetical program, including energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy access, for the top 1,000 energy burdened households. This model demonstrates that it is possible to reduce energy burden from 24% to 6% for those households resulting in annual savings of $1,280 per household. Scaled up to 1,000 households,  this hypothetical program could put $1.28 million dollars back into the pockets of 1,000 households; remove the carbon emissions equivalent of 850 households; create local jobs; and result in healthier homes overall!

Finally, by designing a comprehensive program to address energy burden, we can also improve outcomes for three issues facing our community: housing affordability, climate emissions reductions, and equity!

Laura Goldblatt, Commissioner for the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority says, “In mapping energy burden across our city, C3 has provided crucial insights into such questions and given a moral imperative to craft targeted policy that simultaneously lowers emissions, improves affordability, and delivers climate justice to our most vulnerable populations.”  

Let’s get to work on solutions that will alleviate Charlottesville residents experiencing these energy burdens.