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It takes approximately 700,000 megawatt hours of electricity to power more than 400 municipal buildings in Chicago each year. As of January 1, every one of them — including 98 fire stations, two international airports, and two of the largest water treatment plants on the planet — is powered by renewable energy, thanks in large part to the newest and largest farm Solar in Illinois.
The move is expected to reduce the carbon footprint of the country's third-largest city by about 290,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide each year — the equivalent of taking 62,000 cars off the road, according to the city. Local decarbonization efforts, like those in Chicago, are taking on increasing importance as President-elect Donald Trump promises to reduce federal support for climate action. And with the outgoing Biden administration doubling its international pledge to get the United States to net-zero emissions by 2050, cities, states and private sector players across the country will have to make up the shortfall.
Chicago is one of many American cities leveraging its wholesale purchasing power to stimulate the development of new, carbon-free energy.
“It's a plan that pushes the city to take climate action and also leverages our purchasing power to generate new opportunities for Chicagoans and the state,” said Angela Tovar, Chicago's chief sustainability officer. “There are opportunities everywhere.”
Chicago's transition to renewable energy has taken nearly a decade. The goal of providing the city's energy from carbon-free sources was first set by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2017. His successor, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, struck a deal in 2022 with Constellation, an electricity supplier, to buy the city's power from developer Swift Current Energy starting in 2025.
Swift Current has begun construction on a 3,800-acre, 593-megawatt solar farm in central Illinois as part of the same five-year, $422 million agreement. The Double Black Diamond Solar Project, which spans two counties in central Illinois, is the largest solar facility east of the Mississippi River. It can produce enough electricity to power more than 100,000 homes, according to Swift Current Vice President Carolyn Mann.
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Chicago alone has agreed to buy nearly half of the facility's total output, which will cover about 70 percent of the electricity needs of its municipal buildings. City officials plan to cover the remaining 30 percent by purchasing renewable energy credits.
“This is truly a feature, not a bug, of our plan,” said Jared Polisicchio, executive vice president of sustainability. He added that he hopes the city's demand for 100 percent renewable energy will encourage additional clean energy development locally, albeit on a much smaller scale, which will create new sources of energy that the city can then purchase directly, rather than through credits. “Our goal over the next few years is to get to a point where we no longer purchase renewable energy credits.”
More than 700 other U.S. cities and towns have signed similar purchase agreements since 2015, according to a 2022 study by the World Resources Institute. Only one city, Houston, has a larger renewable energy deal than Chicago, according to Matthew Popkin, director of the American Cities and Communities Program at the Institute. Rocky Mountain, a non-profit organization whose research focuses on decarbonization. However, he added that no other contract has added as much new renewable energy to the grid as the Chicago contract.
“Part of Chicago's goal was what's called 'addition': bringing new resources into the market and into the network here,” Popkin said.
Chicago also secured a $400,000 annual commitment from Constellation and Swift Current to train its clean energy workforce, including training through Chicago Women in Trades, a nonprofit that aims to increase the number of women in union construction and manufacturing jobs.
The economic benefits extend far beyond city limits: According to Swift Current, nearly $100 million in new tax revenue is expected to flow into Sangamon County and Morgan County, which is home to the Double Black Diamond Solar site, over the project's operational life .
“Cities and other local governments are undervaluing their ability to not only support their residents but also shape markets,” Popkin said. “Chicago is showing first-hand how cities can lead by example, implementing ambitious goals amid evolving state and federal policy changes, and leveraging their purchasing power to support a more equitable renewable energy future.”
Many cities have set two renewable energy goals: one for municipal operations and a second goal for the community as a whole, said Alex Dane, senior director of clean energy innovation and partnerships at the World Resources Institute's American Energy Program. Although the latter goal is “a little more difficult to achieve, and the timeline is a little further out,” says Dane, community goals start to look less lofty once a city decarbonizes assets it directly controls.
In fact, Chicago's new milestone is the first step in a broader goal of powering all buildings in the city from renewable energy sources by 2035. That would make it the largest city in the country to do so, according to the Sierra Club.
It will be increasingly important for cities, towns and states to advance their own efforts to reduce emissions, build greener economies and meet local climate goals, Dane said. He said moves like Chicago's prove they can, regardless of what looms on the horizon at the federal level.
“It is essential to know that this action at the state, city and county levels is a permanent path, even under the next administration, and it needs to happen,” Dane said. “The juice is definitely still worth the squeeze.”
This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist and WBEZ, a public radio station serving the Chicago metropolitan area.
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