Denver: From the brown cloud to the green light

Guest blog by Cara Miale
July 20, 2011

When it comes to the green energy race, it’s not over until it’s over. Just look at the city of Denver.

For years the Mile High City was notorious for its brown cloud, a dirty layer of pollution that not only marred the city’s pristine mountain image, but also caused serious health problems.

Now Denver is the fifth greenest city among 27 rated in the recent US and Canada Green City Index. It falls just behind San Francisco, Vancouver, New York City and Seattle, and ahead of Boston and Los Angeles.

What made the difference for Denver?

No one factor won the day, but the index highlights Greenprint Denver, a city office that coordinates environmental programs across various agencies, engages community members to further its mission, and tracks and publishes results. The program supports Denver’s ambitious policies that promote green energy and energy efficiency in homes or businesses through subsidies or tax breaks, as well as projects to increase locally produced energy. Greenprint Denver is identified in the index as a best-practice model of environmental governance.

Energy

As Congress debates ways to undercut federal lighting standards, Denver is giving energy efficiency the green light – literally. In 2010 alone, the city installed 2,000 LED bulbs in 200 traffic signals.

Electricity consumption in Denver is nearly half the index average, at 184 gigajoules per $1 million of GDP. Greenprint Denver’s proactive program supports several energy saving initiatives:

- Evaluation of 300 municipal buildings for solar powered installations

- Assistance to low-income households to improve the energy efficiency of their homes, including attic insulation assessments

- Strict energy regulation for new buildings

Colorado’s Energy Efficiency Resource Standard also sets electricity savings goals of at least 5% of 2006 peak demand and electricity sales by 2018 for Colorado’s two investor-owned utilities. The Colorado Public Utilities Commission extended the electricity sales reduction goals through 2020.

Other initiatives on Denver’s energy to-do list include:

- Install solar PV cells with a combined capacity of four megawatts on city buildings and public schools

- Retrofit the Central Library to improve energy efficiency and reduce bills, saving an estimated $150,000 a year

Environment

Denver was one of only three cities (the other two were New York and Washington DC) to score full marks in the environmental governance category.

The key to this success could be Denver’s “Green Teams” – groups of green-minded friends, families and neighbors who are interested in learning about energy efficiency and other green initiatives, and who seek to expand community participation in the city’s programs. Working closely with Greenprint’s residential program managers, outreach includes offering energy efficient measures like free income-qualified weatherization, subsidized home-energy audits and free CFL porch bulbs.

Buildings

Denver has several policies aimed at improving the energy efficiency of its buildings—including strict energy regulation for new ones—giving it a strong rank in this category as well. According to the index, for every 100,000 people in Denver, there are 10.2 LEED-certified buildings. Denver makes plenty of great offers to improve energy efficiency, such as incentives for building retrofits, but does not require energy audits that could uncover further inefficiencies.

The index scored 27 cities, among the most populous in the US and Canada, across nine categories – carbon dioxide, energy, land use, buildings, transport, water, waste, air quality and environmental governance – and is composed of 31 indicators, both qualitative and quantitative. Click here to read the full US and Canada Green City Index, a research project conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, sponsored by Siemens.

Cara Miale is a freelance writer in Denver, Colorado and a frequent contributor to Energy Efficiency Markets.

What's Denver doing on the EV-Ready list?

Guest Blog by Cara Miale
April 20, 2011

Looking at the list of the most EV-ready cities justreleased by Ford, it’s no surprise many of them are coastal. On the east and west coasts energy is pricey, so the pressure is on to achieve innovation that will control costs and reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

But what’s up with Denver out there in the middle of the map, all by its lonesome?

Government leaders in Colorado, and Denver specifically, have long been committed to sustainability and energy efficiency. Denver has worked hard over the years not only to position itself as a national leader in sustainability, but also to lead by example.

Denver was home to the first “Green Fleet” of city-use vehicles in the early 1990’s, which now includes 138 hybrid electric vehicles. The city hosted the greenest Democratic National Convention to date, and shows continued focus through clean-energy legislation. Its concentration of clean-energy workers and companies is on the rise, and Colorado continues to attract more venture capital financing for clean-tech start-ups than nearly any other state.

And, we’re not so alone after all. Denver is also participating in a U.S.-China “Eco Partnership” sponsored by U.S. Department of the Treasury, which is focused on the implementation of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

On the forefront of the EV-push is the Colorado Plug-In Working Group, which engages communities (like Denver and Boulder), government and private businesses to facilitate EV market growth. Current members are no strangers to the scene: Xcel Energy, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Rocky Mountain Institute, Denver Metro Clean Cities Coalition and the Governor’s Energy Office.

In putting together its list of EV-ready cities, Ford looked at several criteria including complementary state and regional activities. Of these, Denver has no shortage:

• Intellectual resources abound. Colorado’s universities are actively researching how to increase efficiency of electricity generation and transmission and testing smart grids, and collaborating with Colorado-based national labs.
• Greenprint Denver was established by then-Mayor Hickenlooper to position Denver as a national leader in sustainability and integrate environmental impact considerations into the city’s programs and policies.
• The Utilities & Transmission Program at the Governor’s Energy Office (GEO) has its sights set on working with utilities to increase the proportion of demand-side management within their resource portfolios.
• Denver P2 Partners, a pollution prevention program, works with small businesses to increase participation and adoption of sustainable practices that go beyond compliance. It’s developed industry-specific criteria to target environmental issues and concerns specific to auto repair shops. Reducing transportation pollution is one of five criteria that auto repair shop must address to maintain certification through the program. While “educational training on hybrid and alternative fuel vehicle maintenance” is listed as an elective criterion, a partnership with Denver P2 Partners could be easily expanded and used to enlist auto repair shops to support EV implementation.
• Voluntary Ozone Reduction program. The City & County of Denver’s Environmental Transportation Coordinators hit the streets during critical summer months to educate employees about ozone pollution and ways to reduce ozone levels.
• Recharge Colorado Rebate Program has pumped more than $90 million into the Colorado economy since late April 2010.
• A year ago, Colorado company UQM Technologies received a $45 million grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to expand operations of its electric motor factory, accelerating electric vehicle projects across Colorado.

Tax incentives are also in place. The Colorado Department of Revenue offers an income tax credit for titled, registered Colorado vehicles that use or are converted to alternative fuels, are hybrid electric vehicles or have an alternative power source.

The question remains: Why Denver? Its blue skies, spectacular mountains and love of all things outdoors certainly create good motivation to adopt protective technologies; or it may simply be a persistent, Wild-West spirit of independence that drives (no pun) Colorado’s hunger for that next frontier: energy independence. Whatever the reason, the verdict is in: Colorado’s ready to plug in.

Cara Miale is a freelance writer in Denver.