Electricity efficiency and conservation

General

• Adopt a sustainable purchasing policy that requires ENERGY STAR and EPEAT rated electronics and appliances
• Hold an energy conservation competition for city departments and/or building to incent energy conservation practices
• Educate staff about best energy conservation practices and provide periodic energy conservation tips (e.g. turning off lights when leaving room, or changing the settings of computers, laptops and other electronics)
• Strategically install motion sensors throughout city buildings, targeting areas with an intermittent flow of traffic and large lighting loads

Efficient street and traffic lighting

• Replace traffic intersection signals with LED (light emitting diode) signals
• Replace street lights with LED lamps  
  • Key advantage sof quality LED street lights include (resource):
  • Improved night visibility due to higher color rendering, higher color temperature and increased illuminance uniformity
  • Significantly longer lifespan
  • Lower energy consumption
  • Reduced maintenance costs
  • Instant-on with no run-up or re-strike delays
  • No mercury, lead or other known disposable hazards
  • Lower environmental footprint
  • An opportunity to implement programmable controls (e.g. bi-level lighting)
• Reduce street light operating hours - where possible without compromising public security and safety
  • optimizing photoelectric switching is one technology available to make sure street lamps operate only when daylight levels reach a certain level
• Reduce the number of lamps - where possible without compromising public security and safety

Generation

• Use the purchasing power of your city government to encourage local utilities to reduce the carbon intensity of their generation portfolio
• Use on-site or building integrated solar and/or wind energy to generate a portion on city hall's electricity

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Additional resources and best practices

LED lighting

• Technology Fact Sheets: LED Basics. U.S. DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
• Learn About LEDs. ENERGY STAR. U.S. EPA and U.S. DOE
• Ann Arbor LED Street Lighting - C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group Best Practices
• Portland LED Traffic Signals - C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group Best Practices
• Energy Efficient Traffic Signals. Consortium for Energy Efficiency
• Guide for Energy Efficient Street Lighting Installations. e-streetlight.com
• Energy Efficiency in Street Lighting and Transport Infrastructure. Reference material from Competence

Energy

• State and Local Government Purchasing Initiative. Consortium for Energy Efficiency

Local best practices

• 9 cities in Northeast Ohio have completed or are in the process of conducting energy audits of their city facilities
• 27 cities in Northeast Ohio are using CFLs in all their city buildings and 20 more are updating their lighting systems in other ways, such as by installing occupancy sensors/motion detectors.
• Euclid installed solar panels on one of its municipal buildings and is making plans to install panels on other city complexes as well
• North Royalton collaborated with other organizations and the state of Ohio to push development of a wind farm on Lake Erie and its city offices have committed to being paperless