Grinnell Action Plan

The mission of E-Community Grinnell is to build a sustainable, city wide program that will increase energy efficiency measures among all residences and businesses, and increase the use of energy from renewable sources.

The primary goal of the program is to stimulate economic development by reducing the amount of money spent on electricity and natural gas within the community. The secondary goals are to improve quality of life, conserve non-renewable resources, and to reduce pollution.

Download the E-Community Grinnell Action Plan [PDF]

Energy conservation objectives

Grinnell households use an average of 9,285 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity and 918 therms of natural gas per year. The action plan calls for residential energy savings of one percent (93 kWh, nine therms) during 2005, and three percent (278 kWh, 28 therms) by the end of 2006.

Non-residential energy customers in Grinnell use over 85.1 million kWh of electricity and 3.7 million therms of natural gas annually. The goal is to save one percent (851,783 kWh, 37,198 therms) in 2005, and three percent by year-end 2006.

E-Community Grinnell initiatives

The E-Community Grinnell Steering Committee will use several distinct but complementary initiatives to achieve these goals, including:

• Educating the public about energy saving changes that can be accomplished with little or no expense.
• Encouraging the owners and occupants of existing buildings to implement building improvements that will reduce both the amount of energy used and the variability of that use.
• Promoting the use of energy conserving materials and technology in the constructing of new buildings.
• Exploring the new and emerging technologies for renewable energy.

For more details, see Appendix B of the action plan linked above.

Long-term energy savings

This program is designed to be a multiple year, sustained effort to make significant changes in the energy usage of the community.

At the same time, the advisory board intends to make powerful enough changes that there will no longer be a need for a special program of this type.

The best measure of this program’s success will be the speed at which it makes itself unnecessary.

Download the E-Community Grinnell Action Plan [PDF]