It may be suprising to hear that in almost any sized municipality the City Manager is the most junior employee in control of energy usage and spending.  This has important implications for lowering energy costs at municipal facilities and the effectiveness of your energy strategy.  In short, it means that if the City Manager isn't embracing this responsibility then there's a good chance that non-one is properly in control of energy usage and costs.  And the costs are significant - usually between $10 and $50 per resident per year.  That's a lot of money, even for a small community

This observation applies for all types of local government organizations so you can substitute City Manager with County manager, Town Manager, Mayor, Administrator, General Manager or other title as necessary.  It's true for both a narrow definition of 'energy' as electric and gas usage in municipal operations and a broader scope including fleet  fuel.  It's also true for water consumption.  The most senior manager in the municipality needs to be responsibe for energy, not just in the general sense of "The buck stops here" but in a practical sense - "What did we spend on energy last quarter?"

Some will dispute this observation, contending that either Public Works, General Services, Finance, the Energy or Sustainability Manager, or even the City's energy contracting firm, are the ones in control.  This is very rarely the case, even when those players are taking clear leadership on energy issues.

Public Works is a big contender for controlling energy costs.  But even if Public Works is responsible for buildings, grounds, street lighting, fleet vehicles and water utility infrastructure for all departments, they're not occupying the buildings and using the energy.  Another factor is that Public Works employees are often focused on engineering, which means you may have the latest building management system in your City Hall but the meter is not on the cheapest rate with your electric or gas utility.  The Public Works departments with the most effective energy management are those that involvie Finance, the City Manager and other departments by making building occupants aware of their energy usage and generating organization-wide energy reports with break-downs by department, cost center and other financially meaningful categories.

General Services (or Central Services) often manage city buildings.  City buildings almost always account for less than half of city energy use, even if fleet is excluded.  Local government is unique in having high energy use from water and wastewater infrastructure, parks and recreation facilities, and street lighting.  Buildings may be the focus of your EECBG projects or your energy performance contracts but your ongoing energy strategy needs to be more inclusive.

I've seen a few rare examples of Finance staff leading the charge on energy savings.  It's a sight to behold!  Finance staff know how to create accountability, and ongoing accountability is at the heart of any good energy management strategy.  Generally though, Finance departments process the utility bills, get the large bills approved by various departmental staff and then pay the bills.  Neither Accounts Payable or departmental approvers have the expertise or inclination to really look at what's going on with the bills.  Are the charges correct?  Has usage gone up by an unreasonable amount?  Are we getting the expected usage reductions from our energy retrofit?

An increasing number of cities have employed and Energy and Sustainability Manager, which is a great move.  Despite their superhuman abilities, Energy Managers can't single-handedly control energy costs across all local government operations.  Their knowledge and advice will only be truly effective if they have access to, and some influence over, department heads.  The best way to do that is to have the City Manager's office simply but intimately involved in the week-to-week details of the energy strategy.

Finally, some cities claim that their energy performance contracting (EPC) firm are in control of energy costs so they don't need to worry about energy mangement any longer.  That's a scary and incorrect proposition.  I'll write more on that another time.

What you can take away from this is that an effective municipal energy management strategy should involve the City Manager, Finance and every energy-consuming department in energy budgeting, benchmarking and anomaly management on at least a quarterly basis.  At the bare minimum it's good to regularly get some information in their hands so they can see clearly what they consumed and spent.  It's amazing how the simple act of 'making the invisible visible', as one of our client's astutely puts it, can save energy and money. 

It's going to take a little time and money to get this to happen, and the organization-wide nature of energy management means you'll likely need the City Manager's approval.  Once the City Manager has an idea of just how much the city spends on energy a year - in total, not just the few major buidings that come to mind - the approval will be easier to get than you think.

Energy management in the local government sector is unique because providing local government services requires equipment, facilities, people and funding that you don't find in other sectors.  I hope this article has got you thinking about how best to manage energy across your municipality.

[Planet Footprint will be at the International City/County Managers Association (ICMA) conference in San Jose from Oct 17th to 19th 2010.  Feel free to send your City Manager or Assistant City Manager to see us at booth 615 for a quick brief on their energy management responsibilities.  Oh, they'll also get a chance to win an iPod or Digital Camera just by visiting our booth.]