Montgomery County Council is weighing legislation that would require full electrification of new buildings going forward.
Montgomery County Council is considering passing Bill 13-22, which aims to require full electrification of all new buildings going forward. Montgomery County would become the third political subdivision on the east coast to enact such a policy if passed. Several council members have already signaled support, as well as County Executive Elrich.
According to Maryland Matters:
“The latest U.N. report on climate change delivered a stark warning, but also a path forward to avert calamity,” Riemer said in a June 13 statement. “We need action — at all levels of government and society — now. This legislation, combined with cleaning up the electricity grid and retrofitting existing buildings, will go a long way to reducing and eventually eliminating climate change causing emissions from our County’s building sector.”
Electrification is a significant debate statewide, often seen as the key solution to climate change, but also critics point to a current lack of generating capacity to support a full transition from fossil fuels. Detractors point to a lack of power generation from renewable resources, saying that charging thousands of electric vehicles (EVs) and powering homes with electricity from fossil fuels simply moves the source of pollution but does not eliminate it.
Regardless of the current state of electrification or power generation, full electrification remains a viable policy solution to reduce pollution and lessen climate change. Work remains to be done on increasing power generation from more sustainable sources, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.
