In 2020, local governments across the U.S. made more than 140 renewable energy deals totaling over 3,600 megawatts – a 23% increase in the total amount of clean energy purchased by cities the previous year. These are the findings in new data from the Renewables Accelerator’s Local Government Renewables Action Tracker, a tool that catalogues renewable energy transactions completed by U.S. cities and counties since 2015.

Many of the cities and counties that secured these deals used new and innovative strategies to do so, ranging from aggregating their energy load with corporations, universities and other cities to sign large deals to promoting local jobs and training opportunities to encourage the development of new projects.

During this webinar, World Resources Institute and RMI experts will highlight notable city clean energy trends from the past year based on new data from the Renewables Action Tracker. A panel of speakers from U.S. local governments will then discuss their own procurement stories from 2020, as well as the ways the COVID-19 pandemic affected their efforts, how the shift in federal administration might influence their future plans, and the role that they see cities playing in the clean energy transition moving forward.

Speakers

  • Lara Cottingham, Chief Sustainability Officer, City of Houston
  • Jonathan Rogers, Renewable Energy Specialist, City and County of Denver
  • Stacie Reece, Sustainability Program Coordinator, City of Madison
  • Tatsatom Gonçalves, Research Analyst, Energy Program, World Resources Institute
  • Yuning Liu, Senior Associate, Urban Transformation, Rocky Mountain Institute
  • Lacey Shaver, Renewable Energy Manager, World Resources Institute