City of Cleveland – Ronak Shah – 2019

Goals 

In 2018, the City of Cleveland re-affirmed its commitment to tackling climate change by releasing its updated Climate Action Plan (CAP) with greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction goals of 80% by 2050 compared to 2010 baseline. The City made commitments in 2013 to reduce energy consumption by 20% and 45% GHG emission reduction from its internal operations by 2030 compared to 2010 baseline as part of its Sustainable Cleveland Municipal Action Plan (SC-MAP). The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) Climate Corp fellow, Ronak Shah, was enlisted to update the city-wide GHG inventory and forecast GHG reduction potential from energy efficiency projects to help the City meet the SC-MAP goals.

Solutions

Shah helped the City of Cleveland by acquiring newer datasets to update a city-wide 2017 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventory, validating previous years’ GHG inventory, and making updates to emission calculation methodologies based on the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and Global Covenant of Mayors (GCOM) reporting commitments.

Turning his attention to updating the 2017 and 2018 GHG emissions inventory to support the City’s annual energy management reporting and internal operations, Shah analyzed energy consumption trends and evaluated performance indicators for energy efficiency measures in City facilities. With this insight, Shah evaluated and recommended updates for energy-saving actions that the City had identified in SC-MAP in order to meet its building energy reduction goals.

Potential Impact

Shah’s work on the GHG inventory provided an updated 2017 GHG inventory, which helps the City report GHG emissions reductions and Climate Action Plan via CDP and GCOM. The updates provided insights on key contributors to reduce the City’s GHG emissions and led to the identification of alternative transportation and industrial emissions as areas in need of more attention.

Shah’s analysis of 2018 data for internal operations (SC-MAP) uncovered an estimated 47,000 MMBTU in energy savings for a total of $3.1 million in avoided energy costs and an estimated 87,000 metric tons of CO2e emissions. His work helped identify and quantify which energy efficiency and conservation actions had been successful. The City of Cleveland can continue to meet its building and facility energy savings goals through actions such as retro-commissioning, building automation systems, and energy efficiency measures to achieve 20% energy savings by 2022.