Turn A New Leaf

Four things every municipality needs to know

With the opening of the Hotel Marcel on New Haven’s Long Wharf, it’s become apparent that projects big and small can be powered by 100 percent renewable energy. But what about an entire city? According to the National League of Cities, hundreds of municipalities around the country are setting those targets.

To help foster progress the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) has come up with the Local Energy Action Framework (LEAF) in collaboration with several local governments around the country. Adapted from an NLC Citiespeak Blog Post by Peyton Siler Jones, here are four things City Leaders need to know about LEAF to reach their energy efficiency goals.

Prioritizing energy efficiency improvements in facilities with the highest electricity demands leads to more energy savings.

According to RMI and their partner cities, they’ve found that water and wastewater facilities can account for up to 70 percent of a municipality’s electricity usage. In some cases, focusing on the largest demands can see savings that outstrip any costs required to make the improvements in the first place.

1. Electrifying heating and vehicle fleets can significantly decrease carbon emissions but will increase building load (excluding water facilities) by 5-17 percent annually. While electric vehicles, or EVs, are clearly part of the wave of the future, they can have an impact on a buildings electric usage. So just because you install charging stations at town hall or in a municipal parking garage, in order to truly reach decarbonization goals, the local grid itself must be decarbonized. The same goes for electric heating, especially in colder climates.

2. To move toward 24x7 clean electricity, flexible loads and batteries can help shift demand to hours of the day with lower electricity usage or when more renewable energy will be available. According to RMI, their partner cities find that between 60 and 80 percent of their electricity consumption happens between 5 p.m. and 8 a.m. due to conditions like water treatment plants and overnight lights. Using batteries to shift the loads to optimize charging and deploying of electrical needs is one solution.

3. Municipalities can purchase off-site renewable energy, especially non-solar resources, to fill the remaining gap.

4. It’s extremely likely that most municipalities cannot place or retrofit enough solar to adequately supply their municipal buildings with clean electric. There are other options like wind power and geothermal that can help fill gaps. Connecticut will likely benefit from several planned windfarms in the coming years off the coast.

Lofty goals require high-minded actions. For municipalities that are looking for guidance on moving to 100 percent renewable energy or carbon-neutral municipal grids, visit the RMI website to see the LEAF guidelines: Local Energy Action Framework (LEAF)