Citywide Sustainability Projects

Major Solar Installation

The City has installed 3.5 megawatts of solar at six different City facility locations. At three of the six sites, the solar structures have been designed to provide shade for employee and customer parking. This installation includes over 22,000 panels and enough energy to power 500 homes. It is providing 6.7 million kwh in clean energy production that no longer needs to be produced by natural gas.

City Facilities

The City continues to lead the way in the region for greening its own facilities. Its goal is to reduce GHG in City facilities 15% by 2020. And we are well on our way.

Over the past 2 years the City replaced lighting in all eight City-owned garages with cutting edge LED lighting technology. Replacing all 4,000 fixtures will save 2.9 million kwh and $300,000 in energy bills annually.

In addition, the City retrofitted the mechanical equipment at the Samuel Pannell Community Center and the Central Library, completed lighting upgrades at the Convention Center and North Area Corporation Yard, and improved the energy efficiency of its IT data center. These projects combined are saving 4 million kwh annually.

Finally, to reach our 2020 goal, the City has identified energy upgrade projects at ten additional facilities which, when implemented, will reduce the City’s energy use by an additional 3.6 million kwh.