Cities Uniting to Reduce Energy Insecurity (CUREi)
Overview
Energy insecurity is one of the most urgent challenges facing urban communities today, shaping everything from climate resilience and energy access to household stability, public health, and equity. The Cities Uniting to Reduce Energy Insecurity (CUREi) initiative builds on years of interdisciplinary research into the causes and consequences of energy insecurity and adapts the co‑city methodology to develop a comparative, community‑centered framework for local action.
Led collaboratively by Columbia’s Energy Opportunity Lab and LabGov, CUREi brings together expertise from social sciences, public health, law, policy, and climate science. The initiative leverages the unique strengths of municipal partners—including their proximity to impacted residents, flexible policy tools, and established community relationships—to build local capacity, generate evidence‑based resources, and identify opportunities for targeted pilot interventions.
Over an initial one‑year seed phase, three participating U.S. cities (Atlanta, Denver, and New York) are demonstrating how cities can deliver near‑term relief while laying the foundation for scalable, long‑term solutions.
Key Components
Enabling Environment Framework
CUREi analyzes the institutional contexts that shape what cities can do to address household energy insecurity. The framework identifies three tiers of enabling environments—Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced—based on municipal authority, state support, institutional capacity, and engagement with utility decision‑making.
City Case Studies: Atlanta, Denver, New York
Three in‑depth case studies illustrate how cities pursue energy insecurity interventions under different enabling conditions. Each case maps the policy landscape, institutional actors, community partnerships, and implementation challenges shaping municipal action.
National Environmental Scan & Intervention Pathways
A scan of more than 100 municipal initiatives across the United States identifies five programmatic pathways cities are using to confront energy insecurity:
- Financial innovations
- Legislative and regulatory approaches
- Catalytic partnerships
- Data and targeting strategies
- Community organization and advocacy
These pathways help cities identify approaches used by peers operating under similar enabling conditions.
Why It Matters
As federal support for energy assistance, weatherization, and efficiency programs declines, cities are increasingly responsible for addressing household energy insecurity. CUREi provides a structured way for municipalities to understand their enabling environment, identify feasible interventions, and build toward more supportive conditions over time. The work centers equity, community partnership, and shared governance—core pillars of the Co‑Cities framework.
Partners
- Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy (Energy Opportunity Lab)
- City partners: Atlanta, Denver, New York
- Research team across public health, law, policy, climate science, and social science
Status
Major report published 2026
StoryMap released 2026
Additional city partnerships forthcoming
Learn More
Full Report (Center on Global Energy Policy)
Explore the pathways below to see how cities can leverage existing tools to confront energy insecurity.
Basic Pathway
The Basic pathway consists of interventions that any city can pursue, regardless of structural constraints or regulatory authority. They rely primarily on administrative capacity, budget decisions, and partnerships with trusted community organizations. These tools help cities reduce energy insecurity at scale by simplifying access to benefits, building navigator networks, integrating data to reach un‑enrolled households, and protecting tenants from the costs of building upgrades.
Digital navigation tools help residents understand what programs they are eligible for, guide them through applications, and reduce the paperwork burden that prevents many households from accessing assistance. These tools do not require new state legislation; they rely on city leadership, cross‑agency coordination, and philanthropic or technical support.
Examples:
ACCESS NYC and ACCESS Human Resources Administration (HRA) — New York City
Code for America Digital Benefit Platforms — Multi-State/City
Community navigator networks fund trusted community‑based organizations to provide direct, in‑person assistance. Navigators meet residents where they are—community centers, libraries, faith institutions—and help them navigate multiple benefit programs. This model is especially powerful for households facing language barriers, limited digital access, or distrust of government institutions.
Example:
Data integration programs use existing administrative data—utility billing records, tax filings, social services enrollment—to proactively identify households likely eligible for assistance. Cities can either enroll households automatically or generate targeted outreach, shifting the burden from residents to government.
Example:
Integrated Data for Evidence and Action (IDEA) — Philadelphia, PA
Tenant‑facing interventions address a core challenge in multifamily housing: landlords often capture the financial benefit of energy assistance or efficiency upgrades rather than passing savings on to tenants. Cities can use disclosure requirements, know‑your‑rights campaigns, or mechanisms that ensure benefits flow directly to households.
Example:
Social RECs (renewable energy certificates) from solar projects directly benefit historically excluded communities. Solar Stewards’ marketplace connects corporate buyers (“Climate Stewards”) with solar projects sited in or serving underserved neighborhoods. Revenue from Social RECs flows entirely to community projects through enforceable Community Benefit Agreements, supporting schools, affordable housing, places of worship, and nonprofits.
Example:
Intermediate Pathway
The Intermediate pathway requires moderate municipal authority, productive partnerships with utilities, or a supportive state‑level enabling environment. Cities in this tier can formalize utility partnerships, establish building performance standards, create green financing institutions, and mount targeted multifamily programs. These interventions typically require investment in legal, technical, and institutional capacity that not all cities currently have.
Formal partnership agreements between cities and utilities—whether investor‑owned or municipal—are a powerful lever for expanding energy‑affordability programs without requiring new state legislation. These agreements typically take the form of MOUs that define shared goals, resource commitments, and accountability mechanisms. They work best when a city has meaningful leverage over a utility through franchise negotiations, PSC/PUC proceedings, or municipal ownership.
Examples:
Building performance standards require large buildings to meet energy‑efficiency or carbon‑emission targets within defined compliance periods. When penalties for non‑compliance are directed into a dedicated reinvestment fund, rather than a general budget, they can generate a durable revenue stream for low‑income energy assistance and affordable‑housing retrofits. The design of the reinvestment mechanism is as important as the standard itself.
Examples:
DC Building Energy Performance Standards (BEPS) — Washington, D.C.
Green banks are public or quasi‑public institutions that use relatively small amounts of public seed capital to attract and leverage private investment in clean‑energy and efficiency projects. They are particularly effective at reaching affordable multifamily housing and community‑serving buildings where retrofit economics are complex and conventional lenders are reluctant to participate.
Examples:
DC Green Bank (DC Green Finance Authority) - Washington, D.C.
Targeted multifamily programs address the structural complexity of improving energy performance in affordable and naturally occurring affordable housing, where building owners, tenants, financing constraints, and regulatory requirements all interact. Evidence shows that multifamily efficiency programs reduce operating costs and preserve affordability. These programs typically require coordination between city energy and housing agencies, a technical implementing partner, and layered funding from utility portfolios, state programs, and philanthropy.
Examples:
Chicago Preservation Compact — Chicago, IL
NYC HPD Multifamily Energy and Electrification Partnerships — New York City
Advanced Pathway
The Advanced pathway depends on favorable state policy, substantial municipal powers, or significant financial and institutional resources. Community choice aggregation requires explicit state authorization. Meaningful intervention in utility rate cases requires legal standing and sustained expertise. Cap‑and‑invest revenue reinvestment requires a state program to exist in the first place. These interventions are not available to every city today, but understanding them matters both for cities already positioned to pursue them and for cities working toward the conditions that would make them possible.
At the most ambitious end of municipal action are two pathways that fundamentally reshape how electricity is sourced and delivered:
- Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) allows cities to pool the purchasing power of residents and businesses to procure electricity without owning distribution infrastructure.
- Municipalization involves a city purchasing the physical utility network outright.
Both require state‑level enabling conditions, and municipalization in particular is long, costly, and legally complex.
Case Studies:
Community Choice Aggregation Case Studies
- CleanPowerSF — San Francisco, CA
- Boston Community Choice Electricity — Boston, MA
- Rockland County Power - NY
City Municipalization Case Studies
- Seattle, WA
- Los Angeles, CA
- Winter Park, FL
State public utility commissions (PUCs/PSCs) regulate investor‑owned utilities’ rates, programs, and capital investments. Cities that establish themselves as formal intervenors can influence outcomes across a wide range of utility actions—from rate design to affordability programs to capital investments in low‑income communities.
Effective engagement is ongoing, not episodic: cities maintain long‑term institutional presence in regulatory proceedings and represent the needs of communities they know closely.
Scope of possible advocacy includes:
- Customer classification (e.g., separating low‑income and high‑demand industrial classes)
- Equitable rate design (lifeline rates, inclining‑block rates)
- Income‑based bill mechanisms (PIPPs, income‑graduated fixed charges)
- Energy assistance program design (funding, enrollment, arrearage relief)
- Disconnection protections (seasonal moratoria, medical exemptions)
- New York, NY
- Ann Arbor, MI
- El Paso, TX
Cap‑and‑invest programs set a declining limit on greenhouse gas emissions, require covered entities to purchase allowances at auction, and direct revenue toward climate and community investments. For cities, the key opportunity lies in allocation of proceeds—advocating for revenue to support local energy affordability, weatherization, and bill assistance rather than flowing into a general state fund.
Examples:
New York Cap-and-Invest Program (NYCI), New York State (Proposed)
At their best, state energy programs and city delivery infrastructure are not parallel systems—they reinforce each other. States set funding levels, eligibility criteria, and performance goals; cities operate as the local delivery platform, deploying community outreach, navigator networks, and technical assistance to households that state agencies cannot efficiently reach.
Achieving this integration requires trust, shared data systems, and aligned goals between levels of government.
Example: