Arlington County Government, VA Here/Now, 25 Nov 2014

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From YouTube: upclose: Rethinking Arlington's Energy Future

Description

Over 50 years ago community leaders had a vision to redevelop Arlington, VA. At the time they didn't know that they were starting a trend that would later be known as 'Smart Growth' - where mixed-use development around public transit hubs, creates an environment where people want to live and work.

Sustainability is inherently part of a Smart Growth plan, and today's leaders want to make Arlington even more energy efficient. This is the story of how today's Arlington visionaries want to create a community energy plan that'll reach into the next 50 years.

A

Over fifty years ago, community leaders had a vision to redevelop Arlington the type of development they chose, became a national trend and is now called Smart. Growth sustainability is inherently a part of Smart Growth in today's community leaders have a vision to make Arlington County even more energy efficient, a plan that also makes economic sense reaching into the next 50 years. A community energy plan well.

B

The way I define the community plan, it's the next chapter of Arlington's sustainability story, and it did start long ago. I think I would at least point to the smart growth you know visionaries decades ago. Smart growth is the fundamental backbone of sustainability in any community, and that is the underlying principle that you most efficiently use your energy, your resources, your transportation network.

B

If you cluster the people in a mixed-use way around the transportation options and as it evolved, it became clear that the environmental aspects more directly and energy had to be a part of that sustainability story. If we were going to be complete, the county.

C

Had a history of trying to make their buildings as energy efficient as possible, I took that on to another level, thinking well, in addition to being better for the environment, we're saving the county money in the long run when.

B

When Paul became chair in 2007- and he put this new fresh air program front and center to me, that was when that second chapter, that next chapter and.

C

We have made once again a commitment to reduce overall emissions by 10 percent by the year 2012. We weren't sure that we could make it to that 10 percent goal, certainly with the economic growth in the county, with the buildings that were being approved with the population increase that put us in the wrong directions. The.

D

County's been adding new fire stations, new community centers, new streetlights in some neighborhoods, and so that's additional services which use energy that we have to more than compensate through improved efficiency or cleaner fuels. In other areas, we.

E

Looked at the energy use in our buildings, we looked at the energy use in our fleet and found sort of the low-hanging fruit, the easy things that we could do to improve energy efficiency, particularly in our buildings. The.

C

Idea was to try to set something attainable, not just for Arlington but to show other localities. This is something you can do without economic.

D

Pain, we're sitting here in Central, Library we've reduced electricity use here by about 25 percent, just from 2007. We did this just by use of more efficient technology, more efficient lighting. We continue to upgrade the building controls so that we're not using energy when we don't need to the target was a 10% reduction. We were over 11 percent below 2000 levels, so.

B

Setting that target for ourselves reaching it was I think an important step and validation towards then trying to address the other 96% of the emissions which generate from other places.

A

To address the other, 96% jafer set suggested, adding an energy component to the county's existing comprehensive plan. The comprehensive plan guides everything that happens in Arlington.

B

Transportation land use plan, stormwater management, historic preservation, you we have plans for everything, but not energy explicitly, and that was the new thing that we approached in the last several years with the community energy plan.

B

Community energy plan is a forty year plan to reduce our energy consumption from all sources. The first challenge was how you you reach into the private sector, the source of the 96% of emissions and energies, that.

F

Includes new buildings, existing buildings, residential non-residential buildings, we're looking at potential financial incentive programs for commercial building owners to try to get them to do more energy efficiency and renewable energy projects on down the road. My goal was to gather community input and letting them know how their comments were incorporated or not incorporated into the plan. We.

B

Met regularly over 15 months before we came to a formal consensus recommendation to the county board, all.

D

Those in favor of the motion please indicate, as in aye aye,.

B

Opposed, do you never confident until it all happens, that.

A

Motion carries unanimously felt.

B

Great I know all the staff that worked on it must have felt the same way and I think it made. People feel good about our community that we still have that ability to think big to think long term to have a vision with.

E

The community energy plan as part of the comprehensive plan now everything that we do in the county every program we develop every district that we make a sector plan for now has to take energy into consideration. There's.

F

The envision Courthouse Square study currently ongoing, we're now layering onto it energy planning and making it. So it's a seamless discussion about not only land use and transportation, but also energy and I, understand that some of the comments that we received was why doesn't the county embrace renewable energy more? By getting these comments, it allowed us to spread the message that the first thing you do is not very exciting.

F

It's insulation, its caulking, its weather, stripping its making it so your home or your business, is much more energy efficient and at that point in time, once you tackle that it makes the renewable energy projects that much more profitable down the road. The.

A

Plan consists of six main goal: areas: buildings, renewable energy, transportation, government activities, education and district energy district.

F

Energy is essentially connecting multiple buildings in a community with pipes that run underground and those pipes carry hot water and cold water, that hot water and cold water is used in each of those buildings to heat and cool those buildings. What that means is we're able to take the energy being supplied to us, be it natural gas or whatever it might be, and we're using it to its utmost and we're being less wasteful. We.

E

Would really like people to rethink energy in the same way we have rethought and, and frankly, transformed the way we communicate with one another. It's a mindset change we're really trying to convey to the community. We need to rethink how we generate use and don't use energy. That's the that is the goal we can.

C

Hopefully, have others follow our model, see some of them actually adopting these green building plans. You see them adopting transit, oriented development, not just because it's good for the environment, but because they realize it's good for their economy and it provides a better quality of life to the people that they're representing the.

B

Return on investment is important not just for next month, but for next year and ten years, and then, when your kids are in school, the next generation you.

B