The Charlotte City Council’s Strategic Energy Action Plan (SEAP) set forth a community-wide goal and subsequent plan for Charlotte to become a low-carbon city by 2050.
Since the buildings sector accounts for about 50% of carbon emissions in Charlotte, one core strategy to achieve this goal is to reduce energy consumption in existing buildings. Building energy performance benchmarking is an energy efficiency best practice that measures a building’s energy use, tracks its performance over time and compares its performance to similar buildings. This information helps building owners identify opportunities to reduce or eliminate energy use.
To encourage building owners to increase their buildings’ energy efficiency and to highlight successful practices in that space, the City of Charlotte has launched Power Down the Crown. It is a voluntary building energy performance benchmarking program that invites public and private organizations with buildings in Charlotte to share their building energy performance data and asks them to contribute to Power Down the Crown’s goal of reducing the program-wide energy use intensity (energy use per ft2) by 10% by 2030. In return, the city will celebrate partner successes, offer opportunities to share and learn energy efficiency best practices, and provide benchmarking technical assistance.
Numerous public and private organizations have already stepped up to join the program, including:
- Trane Technologies
- UNC Charlotte
- Honeywell
- Central Piedmont Community College
- Kimco Realty
- Novant Health
- Nucor
Power Down the Crown will help organizations take advantage of opportunities to share and learn sustainability best practices, obtain technical support for tracking building energy data and receive recognition from the City of Charlotte for increasing the efficiency of buildings and contributing to a low-carbon future.
Power Down the Crown participants’ energy benchmarking data will become available alongside the city’s benchmarking data on the new Power Down the Crown dashboard.
“We are excited about the program’s potential to help building owners across the City of Charlotte,” Mayor Vi Lyles said. “Power Down the Crown participants will benefit from lower energy use while contributing to our shared goals of reducing carbon emissions and creating a healthy, resilient Charlotte. We encourage participation as we work together to power down the crown.”
The city will be enrolling partners for the initial year of the program through Aug. 31. If you are interested in learning more, reach out to PowerDownTheCrown@charlottenc.gov.
