Community Energy Cooperative Analyzes Energy Future of Kane County
CNT’s Community Energy Cooperative held a roundtable meeting in Kane County, Illinois last week to discuss the County’s future energy needs. Kane County is one of the fastest growing counties in the state; its population is projected to increase 71 percent over the next twenty years. The Cooperative, as part of its Kane County Energy Solutions project, has been working over the last several months to analyze what the potential future energy demand associated with this population growth would look like, and to offer some demand reduction strategies. It presented its findings and possible conservation strategies—including better building practices and growth planning combined with smarter energy practices on the part of households—on Friday to residents and leaders in the County.
Read more about the project in Suburban Chicago News or below in the Daily Herald.
Kane County talks energy conservation during Earth Day
By Garrett Ordower
Daily Herald Staff Writer
It’s the little things.
Like using a more energy efficient light bulb, or doing your laundry at night.
But it’s also the big things, like building homes with tight ductwork, high-performance windows and solid insulation. Or having a factory run its most power-intensive processes at off-peak hours.
Some combination of those efforts could help Kane County’s total energy use come in 5 percent under its projected future figures, and help reduce peak demand by 10 percent.
That could help stave off the need for up to 20 small substations, 5 or 6 larger substations or one large peaker plant. And, lower countywide emissions per year by an amount equivalent to driving a Honda Accord 1 billion miles.
It could also save roughly $300,000 a month in electricity costs.
Members of the Community Energy Cooperative delivered that message to about 50 residents and public officials Friday morning.
The Earth Day presentation marked a continuation of the project started by the nonprofit group to study energy trends in Kane County and find ways to affect them.
The cooperative’s director of geography research and information, Peter Haas, explained how it used figures provided by ComEd to create the colorful maps placed throughout the room, illustrating where the areas of highest use were, and those areas where the system would be most strained.
A smaller, urban home uses 751 kilowatt hours per month, a larger, newer home like those being built currently uses more than twice as much power, or 1,792 kilowatt hours per month, Haas said.
Using those figures, similar ones for other buildings and growth patterns, a picture of the future emerged.
“This is what energy usage is going to look like in 25 years,” Haas said.
That is, if the group and Kane County don’t do anything about it.
The cooperative brought a list of suggestions to those assembled in the room of relatively simple ways that consumption can be reduced.
They range from using better methods in new construction, which will account for 40 percent of Kane County structures by 2030, to doing energy-intensive household tasks and manufacturing processes at off-peak times.
Those measures could either be mandated, voluntary or coaxed through the use of incentives.
Those in the audience were asked to fill out a survey with their thoughts on the various suggestions, and to put colored dots on the various maps to indicate which trends most concerned them.
During the next six to seven months, those responses will be taken into account, and an advisory board will help craft the mixture of measures that will lead to the energy savings.
The meeting itself didn’t contain any specifics of what would be done, but did provide some scope of the effort and the challenge.
“Setting the stage and educating folks is a good first step,” said Harry Eng, who runs the watchdog group People United for Responsible Energy, which spearheaded the fight against the Randall Road power towers. Eng will be a member of the advisory board.
Others were not so sure.
“It’s insignificant,” St. Charles Electric Superintendent Glynn Amburgey said of the projected energy savings.
While Amburgey said the conservation of energy pinpointed does benefit the environment, given the scope of energy usage in the county, state and elsewhere, he doubted it would provide real relief on the infrastructure needed to deliver power.
