Regional Approach to Climate and Energy Planning

Regional Energy and Climate Collaboration

Date: 10.15.09

Report on how to build a regional infrastructure that supports collaborative planning and implementation of climate action and energy efficiency strategies.

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A new report by Urban Sustainability Associates describes an approach to building capacity for regional collaboration on municipal energy efficiency and climate action. This approach is informed by the pioneering design and implementation work of the Center for Neighborhood Technology (www.cnt.org) and its affiliate CNT-Energy (http://www.cntenergy.org/) in the Chicago and northern Illinois region, and by the national consultancies of CNT-E and its network of partners.

The base platform for regional collaboration is a regional Data Center that integrates multiple sources of energy usage data (e.g. utilities at the address level; transportation data) for easy baseline analysis and forecasting. Connected to this information platform is a set of regional services that bring national-class energy efficiency planning, implementation, and creative financing capacity to municipalities that would otherwise not have the resources to develop or purchase such capacity.