By Mitch Skinner
Murphy News Service
Minneapolis has saved $6 million in energy costs since 2009, according to the first of annual benchmarking reports.
But that doesn’t mean utility costs are going down. Brian Millberg, the city’s energy manager, said costs have actually gone up because Xcel Energy has raised its prices over the past four years. Energy cost is based on production and consumption and is more of a reflection on a building’s environmental impact.
“Usage of all utilities is going down,” Millberg said. “As a result, our carbon footprint is going down.”
The City Council set a goal of reducing the city’s carbon footprint by 1.5 percent annually. So far, they have succeeded. The Minneapolis Central Library stands out as a model of energy improvement. It reduced its costs by 40 percent since 2008.
Benchmarking is the step before an energy audit. Workers compare a building’s energy use to building of similar size. After that a building can get an energy audit. Then the city might install a new heating system, for example, to improve energy efficiency.
“Lighting is usually a first, least-cost thing, that buildings can do,” said Brendon Slotterback, the city’s Sustainability Program Coordinator. “There’s a whole suite of potential things, and it kind of depends on how a building is operated and performing already.”
However, retrofitting old buildings is a slow process. Brian Millberg said the city typically dedicates $2-4 million each year to maintain its buildings and that it would take roughly $100 million to get every one up to date.
The city benchmarks buildings using Energy Star, a program started by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1992 which scores building based on a scaled of 1-100. The median score for Energy Star Score eligible buildings was 46 in 2012, just below the national average of 50. Minneapolis-St. Paul ranked 14th in the nation in Energy Star certified buildings with 133 in 2012.
Right now, the benchmarking program is just being used for government buildings, but that will extend to commercial buildings that meet a certain size threshold in 2014.
Mitch Skinner is studying journalism at the University of Minnesota.