这个故事是快速公司的一部分德赢提款2022年最具创新性的公司。探索正在重塑其业务，行业和更广泛文化的公司的完整列表。
在冰冷的灰色早晨Ing在雪上承诺的12月，Blocpower创始人兼首席执行官Donnel Baird到达了纽约伊萨卡市的市政厅，面临着迄今为止最大的测试之一，以帮助美国城市脱碳。
多年来，前社区组织者贝尔德（Baird）一直通过安装热泵和太阳能电池板等技术来宣传风险投资家，以使建筑物充电。BlocPower将扮演双重角色，充当地方政府和公用事业赞助脱碳计划的实施合作伙伴，并作为希望通过电气化消除排放的房主和房东的贷方和项目经理。尽管Baird从Andreessen Horowitz和Kapor Capital等投资者那里筹集了超过2000万美元的风险资金，但他一路上也遇到了充满怀疑论者。一些投资者问，贝尔德决心专注于低收入和中等收入社区的建筑物时，Blocpower如何将每个房屋变成相当于特斯拉的相当于特斯拉？
在纽约市，贝尔德通过改造了800多家多户公寓楼，250户家庭房屋以及100多套礼拜堂和小型企业，证明了他的计划的可行性。现在，他有机会在自己的视野范围内做好良好的范围。在今年早些时候，伊萨卡市的城市领导人批准了一项雄心勃勃的计划，到2030年之前成为碳中立的计划，他们选择了Blocpower来帮助他们实施能源效率改造，并用热泵代替现有的供暖和冷却系统。该市计划的第一阶段呼吁集体力将1,600座建筑物（包括1,000户房屋）脱碳和电气化。不过，为此，这家初创公司必须赢得当地居民的胜利，这些居民有资格通过在政府激励措施的帮助下设计设备租赁或低息贷款，以使安装和租赁气候友好的家庭技术负担得起对所有人。贝尔德（Baird）有很多人聚会的人，并从伊萨卡（Ithaca）各地参观社区，伊萨卡（Ithaca）是一个进步的大学城，贫困率接近40％。
从筹集资金的经验中，贝尔德习惯了面对怀疑者。这次，他不是投资者，而是与代表伊萨卡（Ithaca）的黑人和棕色居民的社区领导人会面，希望他们鼓励他们的选民使自己的房屋和建筑物效率高效和电动。Inside a room in Ithaca’s modest red brick City Hall, Baird, who is Black, doffed his winter gear and took a seat at a horseshoe-shaped table alongside representatives from organizations including the Latino Civic Association, the Southside Community Center, and Black Hands Universal, a local nonprofit focused on providing Black youth with training and employment opportunities.
They had seen promises of community development fade to disappointment over the years, and they were wary of more of the same.We’re hurting. We need jobs. We need opportunity. We need to be protected from gentrification，领导人告诉贝尔德及其团队。在该市与气候相关的投资中，他们看到了希望的理由。他们问过，Is BlocPower going to solve all our problems?Baird didn’t hesitate. “No, of course not,” he responded.
For Baird, the climate crisis is simply too urgent to waste time on rosy-hued assurances. “We’re not going to sales talk our way into solving climate change,” he says, recalling the meeting. “You’ve got to trust people and say, ‘Look, I got kids; you got kids. We’re trying to do this for future generations. Here’s what’s possible right now.'”
那个激进的诚实是房间想听的。伊萨卡（Ithaca）的可持续发展总监路易斯·阿奎尔·托雷斯（Luis Aguirre-Torres）说：“您可以告诉某人丢下面具并成为真实的那一刻。”
随着贝尔德（Baird）在伊萨卡（Ithaca）以及最近几个月与他联系的其他三十个城市（其他十几个城市）推出集团，他对未来的挑战清醒了。还不足以赢得硅谷，华尔街和市政厅。他需要当地社区才能获得自己的愿景并升级其建筑物。赌注不可能更高。贝尔德说：“我只知道我们可以大规模解决气候危机。”“我不知道我们是否会。但我知道我们可以。”
在美国，Consump住宅建筑物的化石燃料每年产生9亿吨二氧化碳，使该行业成为仅次于运输和工业的第三次发射。Solar panels and advances in energy efficiency have made a dent in the building sector’s carbon footprint, but until recently, no one was addressing the heart of the issue, at the heart of the home: removing the furnaces, boilers, stoves, and other oil- and gas-based products that drive demand for fossil fuels.
These outmoded appliances are exactly what Baird is tackling with BlocPower, which he founded eight years ago while attending business school at Columbia University. Baird had been attuned to climate change since his undergraduate years at Duke, when a friend insisted he watch Al Gore’s不便的真理。后来，在担任社区组织者之后，他为巴拉克·奥巴马（Barack Obama）竞选，然后担任政府的顾问，专注于实施绿色建筑和绿色工作政策。当时，正是面对该行业在电气化方面的缓慢进步，他开始制定一项计划，从融资到安装。
为了证明Blocpower的模特，他在布鲁克林成立了一个办公室，并将其销售推销到纽约市的低收入社区。除了说服房屋和建筑所有者升级绿色技术并为他们提供低息贷款以便这样做之外，该公司还为潜在的热泵和太阳能电池板安装人员创建了自己的培训计划，毕业了800多人。从公司打算提供服务的同一条街道。
The work has been slow, but it has laid the foundation for BlocPower to become the go-to solution for cities like Ithaca that are looking for a green-buildings-implementation partner with urban expertise. And cities, thanks to climate change denialism at the federal level during the Trump administration, have become the epicenter for climate activity. More than 600 local governments, from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to Menlo Park, California, have made commitments to reduce emissions since 1991, according to an analysis by the Brookings Institution. Riding a wave of momentum from its Ithaca contract, BlocPower is preparing to start work on new projects with partner cities in California, Georgia, and Wisconsin.
尽管气候政策承诺在城市层面上做出了基础，但筹集资金最多的气候初创公司倾向于专注于精美的技术，而不是社会和政治解决方案。建立Kapor Capital的Mitch Kapor说：“硅谷过于全神贯注于魅力，而实际上使世界变得更美好的地方和建立经济体并不是那么迷人。”他在2014年为Blocpower提供了首个种子资金，此后进行了重新投资。Blocpower植根于Baird对政治和社区组织的了解，是罕见的创业公司，旨在将目的推向地方一级的排放。
在美国郊区，电动汽车通常是房主考虑清洁能源升级的催化剂。毕竟，如果它依靠的电网供电是化石燃料，则车道上的电动汽车并不好。毫不奇怪，第一波公司脱碳化的房屋专注于太阳能装置。现在，第二波正在形成，针对早期辅助市场等郊区房主，例如科罗拉多州，他们正在寻找方法来脱碳，使他们的生活的各个方面都安装了从电池到电动炉灶。
相比之下，在低收入社区的工作，布洛克力通常像在伊萨卡一样开始，只是通过简单地提高人们对绿色家庭技术的好处的认识。布鲁克林贝德福德·斯图维森特（Bedford-Stuyvesant）社区的软件工程师托尼·罗宾逊（Toni Robinson）说，她在社区董事会会议上的一次信息会议上首次遇到了Blocpower。她拥有的行房屋中的油基暖气系统应进行维修，她逐渐温暖了转向电动热泵的想法。她说：“这一切的便利确实使我陷入了困境，而不必考虑[石油输送]。”
Depending on oil prices, Robinson could save money over time, as she pays BlocPower rather than a heating bill. (Her house may also appreciate at a higher rate; in places like California, green homes have a greater market value.) The potential for cost savings extends to multifamily apartment buildings, which BlocPower is also targeting. In New York City, these larger buildings have become a locus of retrofit activity, thanks to Local Law 97, a 2019 rule that requires buildings over 25,000 square feet to comply with stricter energy-efficiency and carbon-emissions limits by 2024.
Green retrofits require financing, of course, which can be tricky to secure in the neighborhoods where BlocPower works. In 2020, it negotiated a transformative deal with Goldman Sachs Asset Management that has the bank providing a $50 million debt facility to power BlocPower’s loans. (In January, BlocPower also negotiated a $30 million facility with Microsoft.) Government carrots (in the forms of incentives to homeowners) and sticks (such as Local Law 97) have helped banks get comfortable backing such loans. The challenge is finding the right partner. “We’ve learned over time that successful projects come down to the people executing on the ground knowing their customers,” says Michael Lohr, a managing director of Goldman’s Urban Investment Group. “BlocPower’s ability to interact with building owners and work in communities is very important.”
贝尔德（Baird）对他工作的社区的理解非常深入。他的童年时代距离鲁滨逊的排屋不远。他的父亲是他的祖国圭亚那的前采矿主管，他在霍华德大学学习机械工程，为大都市运输管理局的锅炉工作。在家里，他们经常依靠炉子来加热，因为公寓楼中的锅炉频率如此频繁。后来，贝尔德（Baird）是布鲁克林的社区组织者，将拜访住在冬天死亡的公共住房中的家庭，并注意到他们的窗户。热量是如此不一致，以至于有些租户会发抖，而另一些租户出汗。他回想起思想，真是太可怕了化石燃料。问题持续下来：一月份，布朗克斯公寓楼的一个有故障的太空加热器带有不可靠的热量，引发了一场大火，炸死了17人，其中包括8个孩子。布朗克斯悲剧强调了贝尔德的核心信息之一：改造建筑物不仅对地球更好，对人来说更好。
当他将集团转移到其他城市时，Baird急躁，但乐观。He points out that he never expected to be part of the campaign team that elected America’s first Black president.他说：“您会看到这些事情发生，您永远不会相信会发生在您的一生中，气候可以那样。”