This month’s CACE call featured an inspiring presentation on the Oakland EcoBlock—a groundbreaking model for neighborhood-scale clean energy transformation.
Dr. Therese Peffer, Project Manager and Researcher at UC Berkeley’s California Institute for Energy and Environment, walked us through the vision, implementation, and real-world lessons of the EcoBlock project. Designed to help entire neighborhoods reduce emissions, increase resilience, and improve equity, the EcoBlock integrates solar, storage, electrification, and shared community infrastructure.
Key topics included:
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How the EcoBlock approach supports climate goals while serving local communities
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Lessons learned in designing and deploying a block-scale retrofit
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Policy implications and opportunities to replicate this model elsewhere
This session is especially relevant for anyone working toward community-driven, resilient, and equitable energy systems in California.
Whether you’re a policy advocate, local organizer, or clean energy practitioner, this call offers valuable insights into what’s possible when we think beyond individual homes and start building energy justice block by block.
Speaker Bio:
Therese Peffer, PhD, is a project manager and researcher at the California Institute for Energy and Environment (CIEE) within the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) at the University of California, Berkeley. Therese manages and conducts research in smart building technologies, building-to-grid, demand response, and smart grid research projects with the objective of creating comfortable and energy efficient livable spaces. She serves as an Associate Director for CIEE and for the CITRIS Climate initiative and is the co-Chair of the annual Behavior Energy and Climate Change conference. She is currently managing the Energy Commission funded EcoBlock and large commercial decarbonization projects, and supporting Frontier Energy in an SDG&E-funded project to train contractors to bid, install and maintain high quality HVAC system in homes. Previous research includes energy consumption displays, thermostats, consumer behavior, and user interface usability research.
Therese completed a Ph.D. in Architecture with an emphasis on building science at UC Berkeley. As an architect, she worked in San Francisco and Pismo Beach. Therese earned a Master’s degree in Architecture at the University of Oregon. She lived on a solar and wind-powered homestead while working for Home Power magazine.
A recording of this presentation is now available here. You can access all CACE videos at our YouTube channel, here.