City of Northfield takes steps to advance local clean energy

In addition to exploring community-wide solar potential, the Southeast CERT seed grant helped the City of Northfield support energy efficiency investments through outreach to multi-family building owners and managers. The outreach raised awareness about an Xcel Energy program that provides no-cost energy assessments and project recommendations to these properties.

“We worked through the City’s current Partners in Energy program with Xcel Energy to use their toolkit on outreach to these properties,” Kallestad said. Flyers were distributed and city staff followed up with phone calls, explaining the program. Eleven properties in the community, all that provided affordable housing, were prioritized in the initial round of outreach.

“If [the building owners] chose to have analysis done, technicians would… evaluate the building and provide recommendations on energy-saving projects, rebates and support to carry out the projects,” Kallestad said.

Photo caption: Veronica Gamino helps distribute LED bulbs to Northfield residents in partnership with the Community Action Center of Northfield.

While the project team intended to have more direct contact with building managers and residents during this portion of the project, they had to adjust their plans due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Sometimes things don’t work out as intended, so you adapt and respond as best you can,” Kallestad said.

Moving forward, the city plans to circle back with property owners and managers to evaluate the initial round of outreach and any clean energy investments that were made as a result. This work has also helped the City of Northfield think about other next steps that can help improve residents’ access to clean energy.

“This project has helped spur thinking with regard to how the City can support solar and renewable energy options for residents who can’t do their own solar or don’t qualify for standard community solar gardens,” Kallestad said.

As it moves forward, the City of Northfield will be organizing a community bulk solar purchase among residents and plans to continue connecting with property owners to support energy efficiency investments in the months and years ahead.

“This project allowed us to kick off implementation of our newly adopted Climate Action Plan and better understand what on-site solar in our community will look like,” Kallestad added.