City of Orlando – Ben Stacey – 2018

Goals

As a national leader in sustainability, Green Works Orlando was seeking to advance two of the city’s most ambitious initiatives – the Building Energy and Water Efficiency Strategy (BEWES) ordinance, which requires the city’s largest 700 buildings to benchmark in the EPA’s ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager tool and commitment to the Global Covenant of Mayors, which requires the achievement of various annual milestones. EDF Climate Corps fellow Ben Stacey was tasked with creating an effective analytics tool and reporting template to monitor and communicate key performance indicators from the incoming benchmarking data for BEWES ordinance. His other core assignment was to bring the city into full compliance with the Global Covenant of Mayors requirements by developing a more comprehensive greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory with improved methodology, expanding upon the Climate Vulnerability Assessment, as well as a creating an framework for the city’s first-ever Climate Adaptation Plan.

Solutions

Stacey created two important tools for the Green Works team – the Energy Benchmarking Analytics Tool and the eGrid Emissions Factor Tool. The first provides a user-friendly dashboard and easy access to information critical to managing building performance and compliance data for the BEWES ordinance. The second provides an extension of current GHG emissions calculations to more effectively account for changes over time, including emissions reductions due to increased use of renewables. Overall, this tool improved eGrid emission factor estimates by 44%.

In addition to creating those tools, Stacey collaborated across city departments and with external stakeholders to develop a more robust and accurate inventory that is GPC-compliant; provided of a number of enhancements to Orlando’s Climate Vulnerability Assessment based on his expertise regarding energy justice and economics relevant to social equity and energy systems; as well as developing a framework for the forthcoming Climate Adaptation Plan, all in alignment with the city’s commitment with the Global Covenant of Mayors.

Potential Impact

Stacey’s contributions give Green Works Orlando the analytic tools needed to easily monitor and access critical information related to managing the BEWES ordinance. His recommendations will bolster the success of the BEWES ordinance, with total policy impacts estimated to reach 2 million MWh reduction by 2030 and are valued at $208 million; which, on Orlando’s eGrid today, is equivalent to 1.3 million metric tons of CO2 emissions. In addition, the GHG inventory he provided will aid the city in tracking, measuring, and strategizing toward the the goal of a 100% renewable electric grid by 2050, which will remove 6 million metric tons of CO2 emissions per year and complete the commitment to the Global Covenant of Mayors.