By: Deborah Johnson Wood
This week the City of Grand Rapids announced its induction into the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Power Leadership Club. The induction recognizes organizations that have significantly exceeded the EPA’s minimum purchase requirements of green energy.
The EPA’s requirements range from 20 percent clean energy to 60 percent, depending on the overall total kilowatt hours used. Grand Rapids qualified by purchasing 20 percent of its power from green energy sources; and that goal was reached in November 2007, one year ahead of Mayor George Heartwell’s initial goal.
Mayor Heartwell has since set a goal of obtaining 100 percent of the City’s electrical power from renewable sources by December 31, 2020.
“We’re really excited about this,” says Haris Alibasic, assistant to the city manager and a three-year member of the Mayor’s Renewable Energy Team. “Renewable energy is really huge all over Europe. I lived in Europe and I saw that [renewable energy] really creates new jobs and huge environmental savings.”
The Renewable Energy Team began in 2005 and consists of city commissioners, higher education leaders and city staff.
“We developed a renewable energy business plan which we are following very closely, with short-term, medium-term and long-term goals, and we are achieving them in a business-like manner,” says Alibasic.
The team has six focus areas: developing green power sources and purchasing that power; being fiscally responsible with those purchases; providing the City with power options; improving energy efficiencies in city-operated buildings and providing Grand Rapids homeowners with help on green energy options; legislatively advancing the agenda for green energy; and determining possible options for wind and green energy zoning.
Source: Haris Alibasic, City of Grand Rapids
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Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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