Local Energy Program for Municipal Leaders

The Local Energy Initiative is designed to provide local governments with:

• The expertise to develop local, reliable renewable energy sources
• Increased energy security and a much smaller ecological footprint
• Increased local employment

The coming energy crisis

As the world goes into energy decline and the impacts of climate change accelerate, local governments will feel the largest direct impacts.
Municipal leaders are responsible for providing critical services to meet their citizens’ daily
needs, including home heating, electricity generation and public transportation. In order to
provide these services and many others, local governments must have access to reliable
sources of energy.

However, the combustion of fossil fuels for energy has serious environmental impacts. In
addition, relying on foreign energy imports increases a community’s vulnerability to supply
interruptions caused by global political unrest, economic instability, or an overall decline in
the world’s oil and gas reserves.

Municipalities must also not rely on uncertain future technological developments to solve the world’s
energy problems. Instead, they must safeguard their cities and exercise due diligence by
using currently available technologies to plan for the future.

The need for municipal action

Municipalities have greater resources than individuals and can act on a larger scale to
produce, store and distribute local energy. Private enterprises cannot be relied upon to fulfill
this need, as the market for small-scale renewable energy is not yet profitable.
Infrastructural changes designed to reduce municipal energy consumption will take years to
complete, but severe shocks to the energy system may come with little or no notice. Civic
leaders cannot wait for a serious energy crisis to take action. Long-term planning for a
renewable energy future must begin today.

Post Carbon Institute partners with municipalities who wish to take concrete steps to increase
their energy security and reduce their environmental impact by developing local sources of
renewable, reliable energy. By participating in the Local Energy Farms program, municipalities act as innovative role models for other cities and communities around the world.

The role of Post Carbon Institute

Civic leaders planning for a renewable energy future face many challenges. Many renewable
energy sources are not available consistently enough to be useful, or are difficult to
concentrate and store. For example, a city powering its hospitals exclusively with solar
energy can only reliably serve patients during summer daylight hours. In addition, renewable
energies are useless for transportation unless they can be harnessed in a powerful battery or
transformed into electricity.

Post Carbon Institute works with municipalities to develop:

• An assessment of local energy generating capacity
• As assessment of local energy use needs
• An integrated strategy to deliver reliable and renewable local energy

We support our municipal partners by providing them with consulting from some of the
world’s leading renewable energy experts. We also connect them with a network of
municipalities and community groups working to achieve the same goals.
As a non-profit organization, we actively seek funding from diverse sources to help
municipalities implement their local energy strategies.

Municipal partners are expected to engage in the assessment process by gathering
information about its current energy production and consumption and by actively working
with Post Carbon Institute to develop an integrated local renewable energy strategy. In addition,
municipalities are asked to publish the outcomes of their project to facilitate shared learning.