Email Action to Mayor and City Manager
Mayor Jeni Arndt claims to support the goal of maximizing solar potential in Fort Collins. The City has a done a great job of promoting residential solar, yet they have done very little to maximize their own solar potential. For comparison, CSU has 11 MW of solar while the City only has 1.4 MW. How much solar should the City have? What are solar best practices for the City to adopt?
The first step towards maximizing solar is to discover what the City’s solar potential is. This can be achieved through an audit which the City has not done. Mayor Jeni Arndt doesn’t think an audit is necessary despite advise from utility staff that an audit could lead to lower costs and more complete projects. The City’s piecemeal approach to solar creates under-developed projects: The Edora Pool and Ice Center solar project is about 1/3 the size it could be. The City just used a state grant to add batteries to the Aztlan Center project, which is nice, but that project could be 50% bigger. CSU, on the other hand, has a solar master plan and their rooftop solar projects are sized to maximize available space.
CSU Recreation Center. CSU maximizes available space for solar
Fort Collins EPIC. Solar not maximized to available space
Maximizing solar on City facilities would reduce pollution, save tax payers money, and support a Fort Collins Virtual Power Plant.
Our best estimate is that the City could host 20-30 MW of solar if they get serious about it. That’s 20 times what they have now. In response to our campaign, Fort Collins Utilities released a spreadsheet of existing, and potential, City solar projects. They claim to have achieved 40% of their potential. The spreadsheet is comically inaccurate. For example, it counts solar on fire stations in LaPorte and Timnath as Fort Collins projects, but makes no mention of fires stations in Fort Collins. They didn’t respond to questions about that. When asked what the plan is to achieve the other 60%, they said they don’t have a plan.
How are we supposed to trust the Mayor when she says she supports maximizing solar throughout Fort Collins, when she doesn’t even have a plan to maximize solar on City buildings?
Please write a short email to the Mayor and City Manager. It’s best to use your own wording and add some of your thoughts, but you can copy and paste from below.
To: jarndt@fcgov.com, kdimartino@fcgov.com
cc: cforse.fred@gmail.com
Subject: Solar on City Property
Body:
Dear City Manager Kelly DiMartino, and Mayor Jeni Arndt,
Thank you for making sustainability a priority in City planning and for empowering home owners to go solar. Why is the City so far behind CSU when it comes to solar?
Sincerely,