PHILADELPHIA – The City’s Office of Sustainability today released a draft of Powering Our Future: A Clean Energy Vision for Philadelphia. This document is a long-term vision for a Philadelphia that achieves Mayor Kenney’s goal of reducing carbon emissions 80 percent from 2006 levels by 2050 while emphasizing equity and health for all Philadelphians.
“Powering Our Future outlines opportunities for residents, communities, and institutions to make Philadelphia’s clean energy vision a reality,” said Christine Knapp, Director of Sustainability. “This draft report is the next step in an important on-going conversation about how we can work together to make sure all Philadelphians can efficiently use clean, affordable energy.”
Powering Our Future will highlight current and expected trends in our energy system and identify opportunities for the city, other government agencies, and residents and businesses to each lead on achieving our climate and energy goals.
To transform Philadelphia’s energy system to meet our city’s long-term goals, OOS has identified five core values for future energy work:
Meeting Philadelphia’s energy and carbon reduction goals will require work across all levels of government and throughout our community. OOS has grouped this work into five categories, which will form the basis of the CEV framework:
- Clean Electricity Supply
- Citywide Solar
- Energy-Efficient Homes and Businesses
- Low-Carbon Thermal Energy
- Low-Carbon Economy
Powering Our Future covers three major parts of Philadelphia’s energy system: our city’s 600,000 buildings, industry, and the regional energy system that powers them. Taken together, these sectors account for nearly 80 percent of carbon emissions in Philadelphia, and transforming them will be critical to achieving a clean and just energy future.
Powering Our Future: A Clean Energy Vision for Philadelphia can be downloaded here.
Powering Our Future will be open for comment through January 31st, after which a final version will be issued. Members of the public are invited to take this brief survey, and/or send us an email at sustainability@phila.gov.