The City Council took a big step last night toward advancing the City’s 20-40-15 initiative by approving a plan prepared by the City’s energy management consultant, McKinstry & Associates, that will increase the energy efficiency of the City’s public buildings.
The plan, which we call Phase 1.1, improvements to the lighting and electrical controls at the City Center, Community Center, Streets & Parks Maintenance Center and three other city buildings. The cost of the projects is estimated to be $860,000. The City will secure the cost of the project through a Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) contract with McKinstry. The blended simple payback period for the projects is 12 years.
One of the more interesting aspects of the plan is how it’s financed. The projects are financed with debt that is repaid by the money saved by the City through lower energy costs attributable to the projects themselves. Our agreement with McKinstry guarantees sufficient energy cost savings to pay the project costs – or they will make up the difference, so they have a stake in making sure that what they recommended will actually work. That seems like a good idea to me.
We call the project Phase 1.1 because there are additional projects for other public buildings under development that we will present to the Council for approval in the near future. We’re also working on a plan to show the Council how the 20-40-15 initiative is playing out in our vehicle fleet as well.
The Phase 1.1 projects approved by the Council last night will reduce the amount of carbon dioxide produced by the city government operations of the City of Eden Prairie by 625 metric tons per year. That’s pretty good, but we can do better – and we will.
