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In effort to fight climate change, cities across the country are working to go green - think solar panels, trees, electric buses. Well, the country's third-largest city just took a major step. At the start of the year, Chicago began sourcing all of the electricity in its municipal buildings from 100% renewable energy. Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco, of member station WBEZ and the environmental newsroom Grist, has this story.
JUANPABLO RAMIREZ-FRANCO, BYLINE: It's a cold, windy morning in downtown Chicago, and Angela Tovar crosses a busy LaSalle Street.
ANGELA TOVAR: We have police stations. We have fire stations. We have libraries. We have buildings that provide city services.
RAMIREZ-FRANCO: She's the head of the city's department of environment, and she's listing off buildings that are or will soon be powered by renewable energy.
TOVAR: There's all types of buildings, in terms of size and in terms of function, scattered throughout the city.
RAMIREZ-FRANCO: And this one's City Hall.
TOVAR: This one's City Hall.
RAMIREZ-FRANCO: Stepping inside Chicago's massive City Hall, it's bustling. All around us, a flurry of busy people are rushing in and out of elevators. Now, those elevators, the lights, the Wi-Fi, the computers, everything in City Hall traces its electricity back to primarily solar energy. The same goes for over 400 municipal buildings across town.
TOVAR: This year, the city is transitioning to 100% renewable energy.
RAMIREZ-FRANCO: City officials say the move will cut Chicago's carbon footprint by approximately 290,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide each year. Using the Environmental Protection Agency's emission calculator, Tovar estimates that's the equivalent of taking 62,000 cars off the road.
Of course, the city is still connected to the regional grid, which in northern Illinois, relies heavily on nuclear power. Still, Chicago will effectively be paying for the renewable energy equivalent to what it uses every day. The city struck an agreement in 2022 to curb the city's carbon emissions, not just by purchasing renewable energy, but by leveraging the city's buying power to help finance new renewable energy projects.
MATTHEW POPKIN: It's the largest municipal deal that's truly bringing on new renewable energy onto the grid versus contracting for existing renewable energy.
RAMIREZ-FRANCO: That's Matthew Popkin with RMI, a think tank focused on decarbonization. He provided the technical assistance to help the city finalize the agreement. Here's how it works. Electric customers in Illinois get to choose exactly who they buy their electricity from. And when the customer is as big as Chicago, they have room to negotiate.
The city decided it didn't want to just rely on existing solar power and wanted to help create more. So they signed a deal that helped finance what is now the largest solar farm east of the Mississippi River. It's called the Double Black Diamond Solar project, and it spans two counties in central Illinois. It has a capacity of 593 megawatts, enough to power about 100,000 homes. And the deal dedicates about half of that power for Chicago's use over the next five years.
TOVAR: It's a plan that gets the city to take a significant action on climate and also leverages our buying power to generate new opportunities, both for Chicagoans and across the state.
RAMIREZ-FRANCO: The company building the solar farm, Swift Current Energy, says the two downstate counties hosting the installation will see about $100 million in additional tax revenue during the operational life of the project. And back in Chicago, Swift Current and Constellation, the company that will deliver the electricity to the city, has agreed to fund local workforce programs for clean energy jobs.
While most of the city's energy will be sourced from the downstate solar farm, the rest, about 30%, will be purchased through renewable energy certificates. These are credits the city can use to track their power back to renewable sources. But the hope is that eventually, that 30% will spur other smaller-scale clean energy projects locally. Here's Matthew Popkin from RMI again.
POPKIN: Chicago is demonstrating directly how cities can lead by example, implement ambitious goals amidst evolving state and federal policy changes and leverage their purchasing power to support a more equitable, renewable energy future.
RAMIREZ-FRANCO: He says he hopes more cities will follow Chicago's lead, particularly as the industry races for coming cuts in federal support for clean energy.
For NPR News, I'm Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco, in Chicago.
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