The IRA Helped Me Break Up With Fossil Fuels

The Inflation Reduction Act let me break up with fossil fuels.

Last April, I decided to break up with my gas company. It wasn’t me; it was them. Like so many other fossil-fuel companies, SoCalGas was lobbying against clean energy while it continued to spew carbon pollution into the atmosphere. Yet here I was, an academic who had devoted my life to advancing clean energy, still paying them money, month after month. I’d had enough.

But like a divorce after a long marriage, the process was even more complicated than I had thought. I had to remove all the appliances running on gas and swap them for clean, electric machines. Goodbye gas furnace. Goodbye gas stove. Goodbye gas fireplace. And good riddance. SoCalGas wasn’t my sole energy provider, but I vowed to go one step further and run my home without burning any fossil fuels at all.

In addition to my home renovation, I was also working on a much bigger decarbonization project last year: getting a climate bill out of Congress and onto President Joe Biden’s desk. Those efforts were repeatedly stymied—until out of nowhere, a year ago this week, the Inflation Reduction Act became law. By far the biggest climate bill in American history, the IRA is stuffed with programs: hundreds of billions of dollars to spur clean-energy manufacturing in the United States, push coal plants into retirement, and clean up pollution. But the parts of the law that are most quickly changing the country are the incentives that make it cheaper for Americans to break up with fossil fuels. One home improvement at a time, I’ve seen firsthand just how transformative the IRA will be—and what is still needed to ensure that this law lives up to its full potential.

In a sense, my electrification journey started long before I vowed to part ways with my gas company. When I bought my electric vehicle six years ago, federal and state tax credits brought down the sticker price by $10,000. But, over time, many cars no longer qualified, making EV purchases more expensive up front. Last August’s law fixed that, providing new, more generous tax credits for both new and used EVs. If electric cars seem to suddenly be everywhere, this is a big reason. Even though rolling out the rules for these incentives has taken time, EV purchases have rapidly accelerated; in California, one in every four new cars sold is now electric.

America is finally realizing just how great these cars can be. As many other EV owners have learned, these cars are cheaper to charge than their gas cousins are to fill up at the pump, and they require less maintenance. Apart from replacing the tires, I think I’ve spent $150, total. And the best is yet to come: Starting next year, buyers will be able to get their EV refund at the dealership, instead of having to claim a credit when they file their taxes.

The IRA supercharged my electrification journey. These kinds of home improvements can be expensive, but they became significantly cheaper after many of the law’s provisions went into effect in January. From the beginning, I knew I wanted to cover my roof in solar panels. That way, I could generate clean energy for my house and car. I also got a battery that plugged into the solar panels so I could have backup energy at night and during a power outage. The IRA extended solar-panel discounts that have existed for decades, and applied them to the battery costs too. This essentially made the whole system 30 percent cheaper.

Over and over again, I was greeted with discounts. At the top of my wish list was a heat pump. These machines are like magic: They draw heat from the air outside (even in the winter!) to heat water, or heat and cool the air in your home, without directly using any fossil fuels. In January, I installed two heat pumps—one for water and one for the air—and I’ll get $2,000 back on my taxes next year. Last year, heat pumps outsold gas furnaces, and the IRA will undoubtedly increase that margin dramatically.

With a home decked out with solar panels and heat pumps, my goal was finally in sight. One of the last and most important decisions I made was to replace my gas stove with an induction cooktop and electric ovens. From a carbon-pollution perspective, this was not the biggest project. But for my family’s health, it was essential. A few months ago, I bought a small air-quality monitor and started to observe with my own eyes what scientists have been telling us: Cooking with a gas stove is, by some measures, on par with secondhand smoke. No one is “taking away gas stoves,” but if you have one, you might consider replacing it. Your lungs will thank you. With an induction cooktop, my home is healthier. And did I mention that it boils water way faster? No wonder many chefs love them. They’re better.

Last month, when I received a refund check from SoCalGas, I knew I’d finally done it. I’d severed my last connection with the company. And thanks to the IRA, it was easier than I’d expected to fully electrify my home: When I file my taxes next year, I’ll save thousands. But my home is just one in this country. If we want to meet our climate goals, we’ll need a lot more people to go all electric, a lot faster. According to the electrification nonprofit Rewiring America, where I am a senior adviser, over the next three years we need the federal law to spur an additional 14 million clean purchases: heat pumps, solar panels, EVs, and more. And opting for clean energy at home is particularly important going forward. As climate change accelerates, our homes are becoming even more important refuges. Near the end of July, almost 200 million Americans were under a heat or extreme-weather advisory; a month earlier, 120 million people had been cloaked in thick smoke.

Even with the IRA, electrification journeys like my own can be challenging. Figuring out which machines to purchase, finding contractors, and paying for the up-front cost of new appliances can be a hefty burden. In my case, the HVAC technician was extremely difficult to pin down, delaying the installation of my heat pumps by weeks. This is a common experience, because there’s a shortage of skilled workers. Other homeowners have found that some contractors, unfamiliar with modern technology, keep recommending a gas furnace even when a client says they don’t want one. Clearly, we have a ways to go on building up the electrification workforce, and unfortunately, that wasn’t a big focus of the IRA funding.

Although the IRA helps, swapping out all these electric machines is expensive. We cannot just electrify wealthier households and leave disadvantaged communities hooked on fossil gas, saddled with costs that will only grow as more people exit the system. The law continues the pattern of relying heavily on tax credits to support clean tech, including EVs and solar panels. Waiting a year-plus to get money back is a tough proposition for many households, even before you consider just how complicated filing taxes is. As a result, most solar adoption has happened in wealthier households.

Over time, such technology should get cheaper. The IRA includes about $50 billion in funding for low-income and disadvantaged communities. Most households will also soon be able to receive upwards of $10,000 to make climate-friendly installations, including insulation and induction stoves. Plus there’s an additional $7 billion for low-income households looking to install solar panels. The brilliance of the IRA is that the law is designed to build up clean manufacturing here in the United States, which will spur innovation and lower costs.

A year out, the IRA is like an infant that has just become a toddler: It’s still too early to tell exactly how it will grow up, but the signs, so far, are promising. We can see that in the numbers—there are now more EVs and more solar panels and, yes, many more heat pumps. But the law is so much bigger than consumer incentives for clean machines. It’s also reshaping the economy, generating more than 170,000 new jobs and $278 billion in new investments in battery manufacturing, wind-turbine factories, and solar manufacturing plants. In another decade, the IRA—although not perfect—may prove to be an inflection point in America’s relationship with fossil fuels. Thanks to this law, millions more people will have electrified their homes, and our old relationship with the gas company will feel like a distant, bad memory. We’ll look back and wonder: Why did we put up with them for so long?