The third largest city in the United States, Chicago will adopt a new initiative to considerably reduce its carbon footprint. The city hall announced, in August, an agreement with a renewable energy utility to have 100% of clean generation by 2025 across all facilities it owns and operates.
This means that all municipally owned infrastructure, from buildings to streetlights, will run from a clean energy source, such as solar or wind — starting with the largest energy consumers, such as airports, the municipal library and the water treatment plant.
This is the first step in an even more ambitious goal: to supply the entire city with renewable energy sources by 2035, informs the Utility Dive website. The initiative is in line with Chicago's efforts to reduce its carbon footprint. The most recent municipal climate action plan aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 62% by 2040 and increase access to and use of renewable energy. One of the actions to achieve this goal is to increase access to and use of renewable energy.
The new solar power generation facilities are expected to be the largest in the state of Illinois to date, increasing the current generation capacity of 1,465 MW by 1700%. Work on this project should begin in 2022 and is expected to last between 12 and 18 months. Statewide, the plan states that 25% of energy must come from renewable sources by 2025.
More cities are betting on renewable energy
Like Chicago, other cities in the United States are advancing the transition to renewable energy. In 2014, Burlington (Vermont) became the first municipality in the country to reach 100% of renewable energy generation — in 2016, it was Las Vegas' turn. In August 2022, the state of Michigan also entered into partnerships to power nearly 1,300 government buildings exclusively with renewable energy.
As part of its 2050 Carbon Neutral Agenda, New York City has also made a similar plan to purchase 100% of clean energy for city government operations by 2025, completes the ArchDaily website.
