Local Government

The City of Hillsboro (OR), which plans to reduce municipal facility energy use by 60% by 2030, overcame inconsistent access to capital for efficiency projects by setting up a Sustainability Revolving Fund that has achieved an estimated $24,000 in annual cost savings.

The City Operations Sustainability Plan encourages collaboration among municipal departments and creates a cohesive strategy to accelerate sustainability initiatives throughout city operations, leading to a 24% energy reduction and an annual savings of approximately $270,500.

King County created the Fund to Reduce Energy Demand (FRED), a financing tool where the county budget office issues bonds and provides loans to county divisions for equipment upgrades to reduce energy use, and resulting utility bill savings are then used to pay back the bonds, resulting in a neutral or positive cash flow.

The City of Atlanta leveraged a public–private partnership to create the Atlanta Better Buildings Challenge, which provides access to project financing, free building assessments, education and training, and public recognition.

Through its Energy Challenge, Retrofit Chicago leveraged public-private partnerships to deliver building owners customized Energy Road Maps with valuable strategic and tactical recommendations to help them meet a 20% energy reduction commitment. On average, the Road Maps identified opportunities for each building to cut energy use by 22%, for an annual savings of $254,000.

Washington, D.C. took a multi-pronged approach to achieve the city's energy reduction goals with its community-wide planning initiative, legislation, and public-private partnerships.

The City of Hillsboro formed the South Hillsboro High-Performance Building Partnership—a public-private partnership—to spur above-code development by packaging existing and new incentives and support services for developers and builders, so that they can contribute to the City's ambitious sustainability goals.

To advance its energy efficiency goals, Salt Lake City introduced an Executive Order requiring all City-owned buildings enact an energy management policy. 

As part of its multi-departmental Climate Protection Program, the City of Chula Vista developed and passed an ordinance establishing the FREE Resource & Energy Business Evaluation (FREBE) Program to encourage and assist local businesses in improving their energy and water efficiency resulting in energy savings estimated at 80,000 kWh annually.

The King County Airport Terminal project is a deep energy retrofit that shows how a modern design approach to mechanical and lighting systems can dramatically reduce energy use, and how older and historic buildings can achieve deep energy reductions and exceed advanced energy code requirements.

King County achieved 24% annual energy savings and $107,000 annual cost savings by implementing HVAC and lighting improvements to their aquatic center. Upgrades include heat recovery, a new condensing boiler, energy efficient interior and exterior lighting, and a 100kW solar PV array.

LED lighting retrofits to both court and back of house lighting plus comprehensive HVAC upgrades helped reduce energy use at the first LEED Gold certified NBA facility and achieve nearly $1 million in energy cost savings.

The Boston Public Library’s Central Library in Copley Square was selected to undergo improvements to its significantly outdated energy management system. As a result of these efforts, the facility achieved annual energy savings of 25% and annual cost savings of 11% in less than a year.

Fort Worth identified cost-effective efficiency solutions including lighting, air conditioning, enhanced controls, and water system improvements. These measures save 47% energy annually. 

King County, WA has targeted their trails maintenance complex for zero energy via lighting and HVAC retrofits, plus a rooftop solar PV system, reducing energy use by 35%.

The City of Hillsboro, Oregon, decided to renovate the Shute Park Library after an assessment identified the need to replace the entire roof, update the insulation, and replace the HVAC system. The renovation resulted in 31% annual energy savings.

Clark County, NV cut annual energy consumption by 37% at their new fire station with an LED lighting and HVAC upgrade project.

Innovating financing models and performance contracting allowed this convention center to undertake a comprehensive energy efficiency upgrade including rooftop solar, new lighting and controls, boiler and HVAC replacements, and an updated energy management system. Altogether the project saves more than $300,000 annually in energy costs.

On the Georgia Tech Research Institute campus, the TSRB building team implemented a continuous commissioning program to maintain optimum HVAC performance. TSRB reduced it's annual energy cost by 32% and water costs by 9% compared to baseline years, saving more than $123,000 annually.

As part of a city-wide energy audit program, the Central Library was identified for energy efficiency improvements, including conversion of existing pneumatic controls to digital control and installation of new high-efficiency chillers, variable frequency drives, and a reflective roof. These upgrades save more than $100,000 in energy costs annually.

A cross-functional effort leveraged energy and water efficiency improvements including lighting retrofits, green plumbing and toilet retrofits, fan system upgrades, and the installation of an energy efficient chiller, all of which brought 37% in energy savings and over $1.7 million savings in energy cost.

The Arlington Central Library is one of the County’s energy performance success stories. Since 2000, investments in lighting efficiency retrofits and energy management practices have reduced electricity use at the site by over 40%.

Chattanooga is executing a three-pronged approach to a major energy-efficiency and revitalization effort for the library, including lighting, HVAC equipment, and digital control upgrades with a 41% projected energy savings.

Arlington County’s Equipment Bureau replaced its HVAC system, performed an LED lighting upgrade, and installed lighting controls to reduce energy consumption. Since implementation, this project has saved nearly 2,500 MMBtu, (34% savings over the baseline), earning $22,000 in annual cost savings.

The Sanford-Kimpton Building, housing the Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services Department, received a complete recommissioning of its HVAC systems and lighting retrofits. Upgrades to these systems led to 33% in annual energy savings as well as improved tenant comfort.

Shed Aquarium developed an energy efficiency roadmap to reduce energy consumption by 50% by 2020. Key elements included submetering, enhanced automation systems, energy storage, onsite renewables generation, and various other fixture and system upgrades.

The City of Milwaukee’s three-pronged business and community engagement strategy includes incentives, education and outreach, and recognition to encourage local businesses and K-12 schools to join BBC-MKE and implement energy efficiency projects in their buildings.

To improve the city’s energy management process, Boston implemented a programmatic overhaul, including a blend of in-house and outsourced strategies, to optimize how energy data was collected, analyzed, and reported.

LED technology has improved dramatically over the past ten years, with enhanced manufacturing processes, materials delivering consistently high-quality light output by way of smaller components, and greater interoperability with other digital platforms. Evaluating the expected performance, reliability, and the rapidly changing nature of the technology play a role in the decision making process around an LED conversion.

This toolkit helps water resource recovery facilities establish and implement energy management and planning by collecting best practices and innovative approaches used by wastewater facilities who partnered with DOE's Sustainable Wastewater Infrastructure of the Future (SWIFt) Accelerator.

The Energy Data Accelerator Toolkit is a collection of resources enabling other utilities and communities to learn and benefit from the work of the Accelerator, specifically on how to gain data needed for benchmarking.

This toolkit offers FAQ's, decision guides, and contract templates to help commercial building owners evaluate installing solar PV, including guidance on mounting rooftop PV systems and financing projects.

Within the framework of the Outdoor Lighting Accelerator, we worked to help state and local governments move closer toward a clean energy economy using high performance technologies that reduce the cost of an essential public service--street lighting.

The ESPC Toolkit is a collection of resources that will enable state and local communities to learn and benefit from the work of the ESPC Accelerator. It includes the best practices and innovative approaches that states, cities, and K-12 schools have used to successfully establish and implement performance contracting.

The Seattle 2030 District was one of the first three cities to participate in the Better Buildings Challenge program. The program offers several things - a national showcase of projects, connections to financial allies to fund efficiency projects and technical expertise to implement.

Whole Foods Market, Houston, TX, and General Motors each described how they have collaborated with utilities to bring big energy savings to their portfolios and help reduce the overall peak electricity demand for the utility. Presenters offered recommendations for working with utilities to create innovative energy savings opportunities customized to your portfolio type.

David Hodgins, executive director, Los Angeles Better Buildings Challenge, talks about how the city has received an implementation rate of about 42%, with more than 35 million square feet of properties participating in the Better Buildings Challenge.

A little rivalry goes a long way when it comes to reducing building energy use through behavior change. In this webinar, Better Buildings Challenge Partner City of El Paso and Better Plants Partner Legrand shared their experiences leveraging friendly competitions to drive building energy efficiency within their organizations.

Austin Blackmon spoke at the 2016 Better Buildings & Better Plants Summit on Boston's use of reporting and analytics to implement energy efficiency upgrades in city buildings.

Mayor Kasim Reed of Atlanta speaks on plans to meet energy reduction goals.

This webinar explored DOE’s State and Local Planning for Energy (SLOPE) Platform, which integrates and delivers data on energy efficiency and renewable energy into an easy-to-access online platform to enable data-driven state and local energy planning. Attendees also learned how Milwaukee, Wisconsin uses SLOPE in its energy planning process.

The webinar examined Steps 1 and 2 in the Department of Energy’s Energy Data Management Guide, a web-based resource that provides public-sector organizations with a seven-step approach to establish a robust and sustainable energy data management program

The webinar examined Steps 3-5 in the Department of Energy’s Energy Data Management Guide, a web-based resource that provides public-sector organizations with a 7-step approach to establish a robust and sustainable energy data management program, and features proven practices.

The webinar examined Steps 6 and 7 in the Department of Energy’s Energy Data Management Guide, a web-based resource that provides public-sector organizations with a seven-step approach to establish a robust and efficient energy data management program, and featured proven practices from North Carolina and the District of Columbia.