Cities Uniting to Reduce Energy Insecurity (CUREi)

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) will focus on demonstrating how cities can deliver near‑term relief while laying the foundation for scalable, long‑term solutions.

Explore the pathways below to see how cities can leverage existing tools to confront energy insecurity.

Universal Pathways

Digital navigation tools are online platforms that help residents understand what programs they are eligible for, guide them through the application process, and reduce the paperwork burden that keeps many households from claiming the assistance they need. These tools do not require new state legislation; they are built through city leadership, cross-agency coordination, and, in many cases, philanthropic technical assistance.

ACCESS NYC and ACCESS Human Resources Administration (HRA) — New York City

CiviForm — Seattle, WA

Code for America Digital Benefit Platforms — Multi-State/City

My Energy Portal — New York City

Community navigator networks fund trusted community-based organizations to provide direct, in-person application assistance. Navigators meet residents where they are, in community centers, libraries, and faith institutions, and help them navigate the complexity of multiple benefit programs. This model is especially powerful for households facing language barriers, limited digital access, or distrust of government institutions.

NYC Benefits — New York City

Data integration programs use existing administrative data such as utility billing records, tax filings, and social services enrollment to proactively identify households likely eligible for assistance and either enroll them automatically or generate targeted outreach. These approaches shift the burden from residents to the government, reaching households that are unlikely to find their way to an application portal

Integrated Data for Evidence and Action (IDEA) — Philadelphia, PA

Tenant-facing interventions address a fundamental problem in multifamily housing: landlords often capture the financial benefit of energy assistance and efficiency investments rather than passing savings on to tenants. These interventions can take the form of mandatory disclosure requirements, know-your-rights campaigns, or mechanisms that ensure benefits flow directly to households.

Tenant Protection Plan — New York City

Social RECs are renewable energy certificates from solar projects that directly benefit historically excluded communities. Founded in 2016, Solar Stewards operates a patented marketplace connecting corporate buyers, known as Climate Stewards, with solar projects sited in or serving underserved communities. Corporate buyers purchase Social RECs to meet their sustainability goals; 100% of REC revenue is directed to community projects through legally enforceable Community Benefit Agreements. Projects have supported schools, affordable housing, places of worship, and nonprofits in marginalized communities.

Social RECs (Solar Stewards Marketplace) — Atlanta, GA

Universal Pathways can be pursued by any city regardless of structural constraints, with varying levels of resource capacity. They rely primarily on administrative authority and budget decisions and include tools available for reducing energy insecurity at scale: simplifying access to benefits, building navigator networks, integrating data to reach un-enrolled households, and protecting tenants from the costs of building upgrades.

Intermediate Pathways

Formal partnership agreements between cities and utilities, whether investor-owned or municipal, are a powerful lever for expanding energy affordability programs without requiring 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 agreement negotiations, PSC proceedings, or municipal ownership.

Boston Energy Saver Program — Boston, MA

Seattle Utility Discount Program — Seattle, WA

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.

DC Building Energy Performance Standards (BEPS) — Washington, D.C.

NYC Local Law 97 — New York City

Green banks are public or quasi-public institutions that use a relatively small amount of public seed capital to attract and leverage private investment in clean-energy and efficiency projects that would otherwise not be financed at scale. They are particularly effective at reaching affordable multifamily housing and community-serving buildings where the economics of energy retrofits are complex and conventional lenders are reluctant to participate.

DC Green Bank (DC Green Finance Authority) - Washington, D.C.

NYC Energy Efficiency Corporation (NYCEEC) - New York City

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. National evidence shows that multifamily energy-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 efficiency portfolios, state programs, and philanthropic sources.

Chicago Preservation Compact — Chicago, IL

NYC HPD Multifamily Energy and Electrification Partnerships — New York City

Intermediate Pathways require either some municipal authority over buildings or utilities, a productive partnership with the serving utility, or a state-level enabling environment that makes certain tools legally available. Cities in this tier can formalize utility partnerships, establish building performance standards, create green financing institutions, and mount targeted multifamily programs, but doing so requires investment in legal, technical, and institutional capacity that not every city currently has

c. Advanced Pathways

At the most ambitious end of the city action spectrum are two pathways that fundamentally change a city's relationship to how electricity is sourced and delivered: community choice aggregation (CCA) and full utility municipalization. CCAs allow cities to pool the purchasing power of their residents and businesses to procure electricity without taking ownership of distribution infrastructure. Municipalization involves a city purchasing the physical utility network outright. Both require state-level enabling conditions, and municipalization in particular is a long, costly, and legally complex undertaking.

CleanPowerSF — San Francisco, CA

Rockland Community Power — Rockland County, NY

Boston Community Choice Electricity — Boston, MA

Municipalization: Winter Park Electric Utilities — Winter Park, FL

Boulder Local Power — A Cautionary Case

Hudson Valley Power Authority Act, Hudson Valley, NY (Ongoing Attempt)

State public utility commissions and public service commissions regulate investor-owned utilities' rates, programs, and capital investments. Cities that establish themselves as formal intervenors in these proceedings can influence outcomes across a wide range of utility actions, from the rates households pay to the capital investments utilities make in low-income communities. This pathway is ongoing, not episodic: the most effective cities maintain a long-term institutional presence in regulatory proceedings and represent the needs of communities they know closely.

The scope of possible advocacy includes:

  • Energy-infrastructure planning proceedings: advocating for capital investments in underserved areas
  • Revenue-requirement debates: ensuring community affordability challenges are reflected in rate-setting
  • Customer classification: seeking separate low-income and high-demand industrial classifications
  • Equitable rate design: including lifeline rates, inclining block rates, and income-based fixed charges
  • Percentage-of-Income Payment Plans (PIPPs) and energy assistance programs
  • Disconnection protection

NYC Rate Case Interventions, New York

Cap-and-invest programs set a declining limit on greenhouse gas emissions, require covered companies to purchase allowances at auction, and direct the resulting revenue toward climate and community investments. For cities, the key opportunity is in the allocation of proceeds: advocating for revenue to flow toward local energy affordability, weatherization, and bill assistance, rather than disappearing into a general state fund.

New York Cap-and-Invest Program (NYCI), New York State (Proposed)

California Cap-and-Trade / Cap-and-Invest, California

At their best, state energy programs and city delivery infrastructure are not parallel systems; they are designed to 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 on their own. Achieving this integration requires trust, shared data systems, and aligned goals between levels of government

Green Jobs-Green New York + NYC Clean Energy Hubs, New York

Advanced Pathways depend on favorable state policy, substantial municipal powers, or significant financial and institutional resources. Community choice aggregation requires 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 pathways are not available to every city today, but understanding them matters both for cities that are already positioned to pursue them and for cities that want to work toward the conditions that would make them possible.