Silicon Valley’s Menlo Park Plans to Electrify 10,000 Buildings
The Bay Area city that’s home to Facebook is partnering with BlocPower to install thousands of heat pumps, solar panels and batteries by 2030.
A contractor installs solar panels on the roof of a home in Lafayette, Calif.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/BloombergFacebook’s hometown of Menlo Park, California, has struck a deal to decarbonize 95% of its buildings by 2030, replacing the city’s fossil-fuel infrastructure with climate-friendly heat pumps, solar panels and electric car chargers.
The wealthy Silicon Valley enclave on Wednesday announced a partnership with BlocPower, a New York-based company that, in founder Donnel Baird’s words, “turns buildings into Teslas.” In New York City, the startup coordinates and finances retrofits of apartment buildings, replacing natural-gas and oil boilers with high-efficiency heat pumps and solar panels. BlocPower has focused on low-income communities and last year the city of Ithaca, New York, chose the company to lead an initiative to decarbonize its building stock.