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    1. Energy Efficiency

    Virginia's port city embraces DOE Better Buildings Challenge as it seeks 20% reduction in Emissions

    Feb. 11, 2022
    The city's Climate Action Plan called the for the city to inventory all municipal and school building rooftops to consider the potential of solar photovoltaic panels and add new rooftop solar for 100 residences per year.
    Image credit By PghPhxNfk – Wikimedia Commons
    800px Montage Norfolk Vausa 6206be5b0e319

    The municipal buildings for the city of Norfolk, Virginia, should become much more energy efficiency over the next decade.

    City councilors at the historic, waterfront community have voted to join the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Challenge. This commits the city of Norfolk to reducing municipal building energy use intensity 20 percent from the 2019 baseline of 199,000 British thermal units per square foot (199 kBtu/ft2) by 2032.

    Norfolk’s city leadership has been building to this commitment for about the last five years. In 2017, Mayor Kenny Alexander signed the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate Change and Energy, establishing targets for reducing carbon emissions.

    He then created an advisory committee of citizens and business leaders on how to address the city’s environmental challenges.

    The energy exhaust from commercial buildings contributes to nearly 40 percent of U.S. greenhouse emissions per year, according to reports.

    See EnergyTech's full coverage of Energy Efficiency contributing to the C&I Energy Transition

    Two years ago, the city of Norfolk created a new position and hired Esi Langston as its environmental sustainability manager. She has led the municipal workforce acting on the Climate plan approved by councilors.

    The Climate Action Plan called the for the city to inventory all municipal and school building rooftops to consider the potential of solar photovoltaic panels. The search extends to non-municipal sites which might make sense for open-land solar arrays, according to reports.

    The initiative also seeks to expand residential rooftop solar by 100 households per year through the rest of this decade.

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    (Rod Walton, senior editor for EnergyTech, is a 14-year veteran of covering the energy industry both as a newspaper and trade journalist. He can reached at [email protected]).

    About the Author

    Rod Walton, EnergyTech Managing Editor | Senior Editor

    For EnergyTech editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].

    Rod Walton has spent 15 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. He formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

    Walton earned his Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. His career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World. 

    EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.

    He was named Managing Editor for Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech starting July 1, 2023

    Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.

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