City of Atlanta Energy Efficiency Education

This community-research project employed innovative diagnostic techniques that hold promise for achieving significant cost savings compared to traditional building energy auditing practices in the Thomasville Heights community in the City of Atlanta. Partners from Georgia Tech, Morehouse School of Medicine, and non-profit Focused Community Strategies worked together to advance the project. By analyzing building envelope exteriors using drones equipped with remote sensing instruments, the approach was minimally invasive, avoiding much of the labor-intensive interior inspection typically required during the energy audit phase. This method also helped address homeowner hesitancy during the marketing and recruitment stages of weatherization programs. Scalability emerged as a key strength of the project, with the approach designed for replication across distressed neighborhoods throughout the city. The project was especially timely in the Thomasville community, where ongoing challenges such as unemployment and poverty have been compounded by the closure of a long-neglected subsidized housing development and the resulting population loss.