City of Cambridge Operations To Go Green

Thanks to an innovative partnership among multiple local institutions and a new wind power project in North Dakota, all of the electricity used by Cambridge city buildings, schools and operations will be 100% carbon neutral starting in 2026.

In 2020, Harvard University, MIT, Mass General Brigham, and PowerOptions came together to form the Consortium for Climate Solutions. PowerOptions is a non-profit that brings together 500 municipalities and nonprofits-including Cambridge--to collectively negotiate for competitive energy prices. 3Degrees, a leading global climate solutions provider, facilitated the aggregation on behalf of the Consortium.

Together, the Consortium reached a long-term virtual power purchase agreement with a new wind facility being built in Bowman, North Dakota. "It's not that the same electricity that is generated in North Dakota will be transported to Cambridge," said Julie Wormser, Cambridge's Chief Climate Officer. "That's the 'virtual' part of this project. We are investing in new sources of clean electricity to reduce fossil fuel reliance on a national scale and in return getting credit for decreasing carbon emissions."

Several factors made this complex agreement work. First, Consortium partners were able to pull together enough end users to finance a new large-scale renewable energy project. Second, they were able to come to mutually agreeable terms with the wind project developers on how many carbon offsets - measured via "renewable energy certificates" -- their investment would represent. Each Consortium member will receive carbon offsets in proportion to how much they contribute to the Bowman Wind project, expected to come online in 2026.

"We are on a global carbon diet. It doesn't matter where the carbon emissions come from," explained City Manager Yi-An Huang. "We're making a bigger impact by supporting cleaner energy in a carbon-intensive region, helping to make the City of Cambridge's electricity use 100% carbon neutral while providing Bowman County residents with cleaner air and local economic investments. I greatly appreciate all of the staff and resources that made these agreements possible."

Once the Bowman Wind project comes online, Cambridge's city government will have decreased its carbon emissions by roughly 70 percent over 2008 levels. Additional investments include four new net-zero buildings - King Open/Cambridge Street Upper Schools and Community Complex, Tobin School, Fire Department headquarters, and Department of Public Works Simard building.

"This project is a huge step forward for our Net Zero Action Plan and couldn't have succeeded without tenacious leadership by staff in our Public Works, Community Development, Finance, and Law Departments," continued Wormser. "The Consortium has created a highly innovative, cost-effective way to lower our collective carbon emissions, and made it far easier for other communities to follow suit. We look forward to many more fruitful collaborations to come."

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