Energy Efficiency - City of Peoria

Through the Fall of 2008, at the direction of the City Manager, Fire Chief Kent Tomblin chaired a cross-disciplinary team of employees to look into the City’s use of natural resources and to deliver a series of recommendation that would result in savings. Chief Tomblin and his team did a remarkable job in investigating a number of options, calculating potential savings, and creating a timetable for implementation.

The result is an impressive report that outlines 20 separate recommendations: 10 involve steps to reduce electrical use, 8 involve fuel reduction and 2 are more general in nature. In addition to being split between electricity and fuel, each section is further broken down into three types of recommendations:

· Personal Behaviors: Those steps that require employees to adopt changes in their own work environment, personal approach to their jobs, and individual methodologies.

· Procedural Changes: Within the purview of management, some adjustments to operations can be made that will impact energy use.

· Policy Decisions: Through the leadership of the City Council, new policies can be adopted that will help the City conserve energy.

A full implementation schedule is included in the report’s appendices. Many of these recommendations are already being put into play by the administrative team. I can already report one early success: In late December, Public Works Director David Barber eliminated 14 of the 21 employee take-home vehicles in his department. I will update you on our progress with this and other recommendations. Those recommendations that involve policy changes, and hence your leadership, will be brought before you at Council meetings in the near future.

Wherever possible, the team attempted to assign cost savings to recommendations. The recent concerns about shortfalls in tax revenues make these tangible savings all the more important. While the success of many of the recommendations will be contingent on a combination of adopting new behaviors and general stability in prices, we are confident that we can realize significant success.

Click on the link below to read the full report.


http://cityofpeoria.googlegroups.com/web/Energy_Efficiency_Final_Report.pdf?gsc=veVv5xYAAADrHpAb1GrxwgBqqwrhbipwg-kXU5InE09W2o0GCSVgCQ