City’s green goals can be met, says official

Electric buses, building retrofits and solar upgrades give Edmonton the technical capacity to meet its climate change commitments by 2030.

City council can even save money doing it. But it will take substantial upfront investment, said project manager Mike Mellross, speaking about a recently released report on tackling greenhouse gas emissions in city operations.

“It’s a sound financial investment,” he said in an interview, describing a plan that would cost $340 million in capital, plus $8.25 million a year in operating expenses.

By 2030, it’s expected to more than make that money back. Edmonton would end up saving $76 million.

This is Take 2 for Edmonton on the climate change file. It set targets 10 years ago but failed to meet them, partly because officials were still developing a plan. This time, they believe they have a solid business case for each element and enough experience with the technology to know it will pay off.

The plan goes to council’s urban planning committee May 22.

International agreements commit Canada to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions enough to hold the global temperature average increase to between 1.5 C and 2 C. For Edmonton, that means reducing emissions from city operations by 50 per cent by 2030, said Mellross. That would put the city on track to be carbon neutral 20 years later.

That’s the target Mayor Don Iveson has been promoting in the Edmonton Declaration, an agreement of mayors coming out of the recent climate change conference in Edmonton.

City officials have outlined a range of targets for council to adopt, but are recommending the 50 per cent reduction. Under this plan, the city would: do energy retrofits on 100 buildings,

■ buy 440 electric buses to replace

■ diesel buses, step up work to change 46,000

■ street lights to LED install solar power on those city

■ buildings with the best space on the roof (20 megawatts or six per cent of total city electrical use) and buy 100 per cent of the rest

■ of the city ’s electricity from renewable sources.

The first four options pay back the investment over time, said Mellross. The LED lights are paid off in nine years, for example. On energy retrofits, on average they’ll pay for themselves in 11 years, he said, but that varies depending on the building and work required.

When buying green energy, the city could use its large contract to encourage new companies to start generating renewable electricity from wind, biomass or solar elsewhere, he said. Calgary already buys 100 per cent of its electricity from renewables.

David Dodge, chairman of Edmonton’s Energy Transition Advisory

Committee, said the big change here is that Edmonton now has the data and experience to prove its plan can work.

“That’s a big change,” he said. “We can actually see a path.”

He’s hoping Edmonton can find a funding mechanism to help cover the cost, since this debt is not the same as borrowing to build a bridge. On this debt, the savings pay back the investment over time.

“Cities face the same dilemma as households,” he said.

They lack the cash up front. Right now, council might look at an expense for new street lights and think what else they can build with the money. But a green bond or other tool could put these expenses into a different category in the capital budget.