Description:

Below is the text version for the video Technical Assistance: Housing. In this video, Bruno Grunau of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL's) Cold Climate Housing Research Center discusses climate- and location-appropriate design for new and retrofitted homes as part of the technical assistance offered through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project (ETIPP).

Text Version

[Music plays, title screen shows “Energy Transitions Initiative, U.S. Department of Energy: Partnership Project, Technical Assistance”]

[Man starts speaking]

I'm Bruno Grunau, the regional director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Cold Climate Housing Research Center here in Fairbanks, Alaska.

NREL supports the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project, or ETIPP, which aims to identify and advance solutions that prioritize community challenges, values, and goals. At the heart of the project is helping communities become more resilient.

One of the most critical pieces of a community’s resilience is housing. This is true here at the top of the world, but it is also a challenge globally as communities look for ways to adapt to environmental change and to house their populations.

[Image of buildings covered in snow]

In remote and island communities, we need thousands of new homes that are healthy, climate-appropriate, and sustainable. We also need to retrofit thousands of existing homes. And we think we can help with both. 

[Video returns to man speaking]

Technical assistance on housing includes climate- and location-appropriate design for building envelopes, ventilation, mechanical and plumbing systems, and foundations.

Retrofit assistance is available as communities look to weatherize homes, to make indoor air healthier, and to modernize mechanical and ventilation systems.

And we can also work closely with your community to understand how housing and energy interacts with the operation of the local grid, what job training may be needed, and local manufacturing opportunities that could be part of the housing development.

[Image of an Alaska Native village covered in snow]

We help Alaska villages, remote, and island communities adapt to climate change by working closely with the community’s leadership to design affordable, energy-efficient, durable and healthy buildings.

[Video returns to man speaking]

And we work with these same communities to co-create community-wide housing master plans. 

[Image of person holding a whiteboard]

Our work over decades with indigenous communities has a foundation of respect and listening to the wisdom of cultures who have successfully adapted to their environment for thousands of years.

[Video returns to man speaking]

And it is through this dialogue that we incorporate traditional cultural considerations including food security, sanitation, and clean water into the housing design and construction.

[Image of a woman talking to Alaska Native village members]

And finally, we listen. This work is about you, it’s not about us.

So how can we combine your local knowledge with 21st-century technology to make your community more resilient?

[Video returns to man speaking]

Together we can build on success and lessons over the last 45 years and create a brighter future for you and the generations that follow.

[Music plays, title screen with “Energy Transitions Initiative, U.S. Department of Energy – Partnership Project | Technical Assistance, Office of Strategic Programs| Solar Energy Technologies Office| Water Power Technologies Office | Office of Electricity]