Best Practice Action Detail

Best Practice Action 29.8

GreenStep City Best Practices: Resilient Economic and Community Development
Climate Adaptation and Community Resilience No. 29

Plan and prepare for extreme weather, adapt to changing climatic conditions, and foster stronger community connectedness and social and economic vitality.

Best Practice Action 8

Improve local energy resilience by minimizing fuel poverty, installing distributed renewable energy systems, and developing microgrids that can improve energy system resiliency.

Energy Systems:

  • The Federal Energy Management Program’s Technical Resilience Navigator (TRN) helps organizations manage the risk to critical missions from disruptions in energy and water services. It provides a systematic approach to identifying energy and water resiliency gaps and developing and prioritizing solutions that reduce risk.The TRN enables organizations to be proactive in identifying and addressing vulnerabilities to their critical energy and water systems to reduce outage impacts, and support continuous mission operations.
  • See the renewable energy action 26.4 for community-based solar resources, resources for low-income projects, microgrids, and the integration with pollinator habitat. 
  • See also model and sample energy codes.
  • Adapting to Serve Low-Income Residents profiles how an existing residential energy program in Duluth evolved to bring more efficient, economical and healthier homes to low-income residents in the wake of the 500-year flood of June 2012. [Applicable to 1 Star implementation.]
  • Solar Energy: Building a Brighter Future for Region 5 - Equitable Economic Ecosystems (Region 5 Development Commission, 2021) details how locally produced solar energy has the power to stabilize energy costs in uncertain times. 
  • The Smart Energy Provider Program through the American Public Power Association provides best practices designation for utilities that show commitment to and proficiency in energy efficiency, distributed generation, renewable energy, and environmental initiatives, while providing affordable electric service.

Storage: 

1 star Ensure innovative and equitable delivery of energy saving and renewable energy programs to low-income residents (including mobile-home owners, among others), through coordination with non-profit organizations, the local utility, and the State Energy Office.
2 star Assess opportunities to utilize city rights-of-way for innovative technology and systems, including distributed energy resource systems, to improve energy resiliency, in coordination with local utility companies.
3 star Install clean energy systems for city-owned buildings and facilities, including islanding capability (with storage) for a redundant source of back-up power that can sustain function during extreme weather events.

Who's doing it

Duluth - 1 star
Date action report first entered:
Date of last report update:
Year action initially completed: 2012
Implementation details:
The Duluth Flood Recovery Program, a partnership between Ecolibrium3, the City of Duluth, and local utilities, invested over $1,000,000 into assisting 168 low-income households recover from the June flood by making energy-efficient repairs to homes damaged.
Outcome measures/metrics/money saved:
Descriptive File: view file
Descriptive links:
For more information contact:
Partners:
View All Duluth Actions
Grand Marais - 1 star
Date action report first entered:
Date of last report update:
Year action initially completed: 2019
Implementation details:
The Grand Marais PUC, Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency, Clean Energy Resource Teams, and the Cook County Local Energy Project teamed up to create an LED light bulb installation program which provides low income residents with up to 8 new LED bulbs for their homes. This program, which is ongoing, aims provides low income residents with practical energy savings by installing new LED bulbs into high-use sockets in their homes. The bulbs are ENERGY STAR rated.
Outcome measures/metrics/money saved:
Descriptive File:
Descriptive links:
For more information contact:
Shane Steele (Contractor) | sustainability@grandmarais.city | 507-884-5790
Partners:
View All Grand Marais Actions
Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe - 1 star
Date action report first entered:
Date of last report update:
Year action initially completed: 2016
Implementation details:
Leech Lake implemented 40kW of solar energy to benefit low-income Tribal Members on the Energy Assistance Program (EAP). This project is in partnership with RREAL. We plan on constructing 4 additional 40kW solar PV arrays with all energy generation benefits passed onto EAP.
Outcome measures/metrics/money saved:
We expect this project to benefit up to 100 households in paying energy bills. This will decrease Leech Lake's dependence on fossil fuels.
Descriptive File:
Descriptive links:
For more information contact:
Brandy Toft (City staff) | air@lldrm.org | 218-335-7429
Partners: RREAL
View All Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Actions

Greenstep Advisor

Laura Millberg Caucasian with brown/gray shoulder-length hair and bangs to eyebrows. Brown eyes and dark rimmed glasses.

Laura Millberg, Climate Change Resilience Coordinator, MN Pollution Control Agency: 651/757-2568, laura.millberg@state.mn.us, https://www.pca.state.mn.us/air/adapting-changing-climate