ON AN ICY GRAY MORNing in December that held the promise of snow, BlocPower co-founder and CEO Donnel Baird arrived at City Hall in Ithaca, New York, to face one of the biggest tests yet in his effort to help American cities decarbonize their neighborhoods.
For years, Baird, a former community organizer, had been pitching venture capitalists on his vision to electrify buildings by installing technologies like heat pumps and solar panels. BlocPower would play a dual role, acting as an implementation partner for local governments and utilities sponsoring decarbonization initiatives, and as a lender and project manager for homeowners and landlords looking to eliminate emissions through electrification. Though Baird had raised more than $20 million in venture funding from investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Kapor Capital, he’d also met ample skeptics along the way. How could BlocPower turn every home into the equivalent of a Tesla, some investors asked, when Baird was determined to focus on buildings in low- and middle-income communities?
In New York City, Baird had demonstrated the viability of his plan through retrofits to more than
