Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak and Burlington Electric Announce Significant Progress in Annual Net Zero Energy Roadmap Update, Additional Electrification Programs for 2025

Burlington, VT – Today, Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak and Burlington Electric Department (BED) shared Burlington’s Net Zero Energy (NZE) Roadmap update for 2024 and announced new programs to accelerate electrification throughout the Burlington community. The Roadmap update shows that Burlington’s greenhouse gas emissions in the ground transportation and thermal/buildings sectors are down 19 percent in 2024 compared to the 2018 baseline, representing a 2.8 percent reduction in 2024 compared to updated 2023 data, demonstrating continued climate progress in the two largest emissions sectors in Vermont.

Read the 2024 NZE Roadmap Update

“Climate action is among the top priorities for my Administration, and I appreciate that the Net Zero Energy Roadmap update shows continued reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in 2024,” stated Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak. “Burlington Electric is leading with strong incentives and programs to help ratepayers switch to electric technologies and reduce emissions. Importantly, our climate efforts include not only emissions reduction, but also resilience and adaptation, and there is great work on these issues happening across our City Departments and in our community. My Community Climate Advisors will be helping to examine additional ways to make progress and fill program gaps to create a comprehensive, citywide climate strategy.”

As part of the 2024 update process, Synapse Energy Economics, BED’s Net Zero Energy Roadmap partner, updated prior year data including for 2023 with new data available on vehicle miles traveled, transit and school bus diesel use, and renewable gas consumption. The update indicates that 2023 emissions reduction represented a 17 percent reduction from 2018 levels and, with today’s report showing further progress in 2024, that the City stands at a 19 percent emission reduction compared to 2018 levels. Calendar year 2024 also represented the lowest natural gas consumption for Burlington since the baseline tracking began in 2018, likely due to a combination of warmer weather, energy efficiency, and continued deployment of heat pumps and other electrification technologies. In addition, the City saw progress with continued vehicle electrification, with nearly 1,300 electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids registered as of 2024, representing nearly six percent of all vehicles registered in Burlington.

“The Burlington Electric team is excited to see additional progress toward our Net Zero Energy goals with 19 percent emissions reduction in the thermal and ground transportation sectors since 2018, an achievement that outpaces state and national trends,” said Darren Springer, General Manager of BED. “We are pleased today to announce additional steps to further our efforts to help customers electrify, including expanding significantly our EV charging rate hours, working to provide direct bill credits for some of our electrification incentives, and announcing next steps on two key pilot programs around heat pumps and battery storage.”

Decline in Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Ground Transportation and Thermal Sectors

Greenhouse gas emissions in the ground transportation and thermal sectors declined 19 percent in total, to approximately 174,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent in 2024 compared to approximately 215,000 metric tons in 2018. While Burlington is not on the very ambitious Net Zero Energy Roadmap pace, the emissions reductions achieved so far are relatively in line with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) targets for reductions by 2030, represented in the graph below.

Further, it is important to note that Burlington is outpacing state and national trends in our emissions reduction progress. For example, comparing Burlington natural gas consumption to Vermont’s natural gas consumption, Burlington had a nearly double reduction of 18.1 percent compared to 9.4 percent statewide over the same timeframe. In addition, Burlington saw larger reductions in ground transportation emissions/fossil fuel consumption than we saw statewide during the same time period.

The Mayor and GM Springer were joined by Edmunds Elementary School (EES) students Julian Chandler, a 10-year-old fourth-grader and member of the EES Earth Lovers Club, and Harris Tetsill, a nine-year-old third-grader from a family that drives electric vehicles. The students shared the following thoughts: “As Burlington School District students, and young people growing up in Burlington, we’re glad to know that our City is working to be more sustainable by using less fossil fuels. Our future depends on it.”

In January 2025, Mayor Mulvaney-Stanak and BED announced a significant set of new and expanded NZE electrification incentives, highlighting EV, EV charger, heat pump, heat pump water heater, electric bicycle, and electric lawnmower rebates, including boosted incentives for low-income customers (read press release here). Also in January, BED previewed upcoming pilot programs for both residential battery storage and a heat pump bill credit rate. Today, BED announced next steps regarding those pilot programs, plus introduced a new option under its home EV charging rate and a new pilot to offer certain rebates as on-bill credits.

• EV Charging Rate – Flexible Load Option: BED now offers a new home EV charging rate option, called the flexible load option, which expands the permissible off-peak charging window. Under the fixed EV charging option, customers charge their vehicles from 10pm to 12noon the next day. Under the flexible load option, customers may charge any time of day or night and receive the charging credit, except during a limited number of peak events each month, each lasting on average three to five hours. BED will notify flexible load option customers the morning of a peak event that such an event will take place that evening and will remotely turn off customer EV chargers during that peak period. Customers may override this no-charging period to charge their vehicle during a peak event, but would lose the benefit of the EV charging credit for that month. The flexible load option, compared to the fixed schedule option, will significantly expand the number of daily hours eligible for the EV charging credit, making EV driving even more cost-effective and affordable for BED EV rate customers. To learn more and sign up for the flexible load option of the EV charging rate, please visit burlingtonelectric.com/evrate.
• Residential Battery Storage Pilot: BED will begin a customer sign-up process for a residential battery storage pilot. Working with Moduly, an energy business that was part of the DeltaClimeVT business accelerator program cohort in 2024 (run by Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund), BED will offer 10 customers at a time the opportunity to pilot Moduly’s in-home battery storage technology, which operates by plugging the Moduly stand-alone unit into a regular 120-volt wall outlet. This configuration – with no permanent installation – will begin to make battery storage technology available to more customers, including renters. Moduly batteries are available in modular form and may be stacked to increase electricity storage. BED expects to pilot 5 kWh and 7.5 kWh size batteries, testing Moduly’s app and interface that will allow BED to use the batteries during peak events, while reserving battery use for customer reliability at other times. Interested customers should visit the BED website to sign up.
• Heat Pump Bill Credit Pilot: As part of BED’s Building GIANTS (Grid-edge Integration and Aggregation Network of Thermal Storage) program, funded by a competitive federal grant, BED will provide heat pump customers with a free smart thermostat and home energy monitor to enable peak reduction initiatives that may result in savings for all BED customers. BED’s goal is to enroll in this program 1,000 or more heat pumps (of the more than 2,500 installed in Burlington). Under a pilot rate tariff that BED plans to file with the Public Utility Commission (PUC) this summer pending vendor negotiations, BED would provide participating customers with a $5 per month bill credit as a first step toward reducing the operating cost of a heat pump. Longer term, BED hopes to offer a permanent end-use heat pump rate, similar to BED’s home EV charging rate, which would provide a reduced operating cost for heat pumps during off-peak periods.
• On-Bill Rebate Credit Pilot: This spring, BED will implement a trial of providing rebates for certain beneficial electrification efforts as bill credits rather than through the issuance of paper checks. Specifically, BED will provide rebates for electric lawnmowers, induction cookstoves, and efficient clothes washers as credits on customer electric bills. This method should be more convenient and efficient for both customers and BED. If successful, BED may expand the pilot to other rebate programs. 

GM Springer will present the 2024 Net Zero Energy Roadmap update before the City Council on April 14, and the presentation slides are available here.

GM Springer and Amber Widmayer, BED’s Legislative and Regulatory Specialist, recently published One City’s Journey to Net Zero Energy: A Burlington, VT Five-Year Retrospective, in American University Washington College of Law’s Sustainable Development Law and Policy journal, outlining a number of the policies, programs, and initiatives Burlington has undertaken on Net Zero Energy.