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Multifamily Resilience and Solar Assessment Tool

Solution Overview

The District of Columbia developed a Multifamily Resilience and Solar Assessment Tool to comprehensively identify opportunities to improve the resilience of affordable housing properties to climate change impacts.[5] This initiative emerged from Washington, D.C.'s Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE) planning efforts to prepare the district for a changing climate, which included developing a tool to assess affordable multifamily housing for resilience.[3] Kate Johnson, the chief of the green building and climate branch at DOEE, stated that one of the actions needed was a much deeper assessment of vulnerability of affordable housing after seeing maps showing how vulnerable the housing could be in the future due to flooding from severe storms.[3]

Technical Components

The assessment tool is comprised of three main components: a resilience assessment, an energy and water savings opportunity assessment, and a solar + storage assessment.[2] This system enables affordable housing owners to assess the vulnerability of properties to climate change impacts and to identify opportunities to improve resilience, reduce energy use, install solar and install battery storage systems.[1] The Cadmus Group LLC prepared a user manual for the DC DOEE Resilience Tool, Version 1.0, dated August 28, 2019.[4] Following the creation of the tool and the pilot site assessments, New Ecology, Inc. (NEI), Enterprise Community Partners, and the National Housing Trust (NHT) commenced work on a user manual for the tool, to be presented during trainings to housing owners and professionals in order to grow the technical capacity for resilience planning in the affordable multifamily space.[2]

Implementation Details

DOEE awarded $250,000 to Enterprise Community Partners, in partnership with New Ecology, the National Housing Trust, and the Clean Energy Group, to develop the vulnerability assessment and resilience tool.[1] The funding came from the District of Columbia's Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE) Solar for All program, which supported New Ecology, Inc. (NEI), Enterprise Community Partners, the National Housing Trust and Clean Energy Group to develop the vulnerability and resilience opportunity assessment tool for affordable housing owners to promote sustainability and resilience in their properties.[2] The final component of this project is a strategic map to illuminate the routes to incorporating resilience assessment into existing funding, financing, and regulatory processes in the District, showing the key touch points and funding co-benefits for resilience planning for affordable housing management and development.[2]

Climate Adaptation Relevance

The project advances the goals of Climate Ready DC, a project led by Kleinfelder, and DC's plan to prepare for the impacts of climate change including heatwaves, flooding, and severe storms.[2] This approach directly addresses the vulnerability of affordable housing to climate impacts that were identified through mapping exercises showing future flooding risks from severe weather events.[3]

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