PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia region is poised to become one of the nation’s leaders in energy-efficient building stock, thanks to a partnership among city leaders, utility companies, private businesses and Penn State — to name just a few of the key players.President Barack Obama's comments in his January State of the Union speech highlighted his administration’s commitment to energy efficiency as an important strategy for the nation. But public and private stakeholders in Philadelphia had already joined together years earlier to provide leadership on the challenging issue of energy consumption.
Philadelphia's emergence as a sustainability leader began with the election of Mayor Michael A. Nutter in 2008, who pledged to make Philadelphia the "Greenest City in America." His administration created the city’s first Office of Sustainability and released "Greenworks Philadelphia," the city’s first sustainability plan. Greenworks contains targets and metrics in 14 major areas, including two very important energy efficiency goals: 1) to reduce the city’s own energy consumption by 30 percent by 2015; and 2) to reduce energy consumption in all buildings within the city by 10 percent by 2015.
With Greenworks laying the strategic groundwork for initiatives throughout the city and region, Philadelphia was ready to compete for newly available stimulus funding from the Department of Energy. The region was successful in securing two critical investments in its energy-efficient future. The first was a $25 million pool of retrofit finance funding. This award enabled the region to accelerate retrofit activity among its commercial and residential building stock. The second major investment was a $200 million smart grid grant awarded to PECO, the region’s electric utility, that financed upgrades for critical system infrastructure as well as the installation of smart meters so consumers can better understand how to manage energy use.
This successful network of partners and supporters already participating and supporting Greenworks and related projects was more than eager to be part of the region’s most ambitious energy efficiency opportunity to date — the creation and successful launch of the Energy Efficient Buildings (EEB) Hub in Philadelphia.