Mayor John A. Harkins attended a ceremony at the state Capitol last week where the Town of Stratford was recognized for its efforts to support renewable energy and increase energy efficiency. In recognition of the commitment, the town was awarded a $15,000 Bright Idea Grant.
“I am pleased with our efforts to make Stratford a more energy efficient town,” said Harkins. “The CEC program is a great initiative that allows communities to focus on real energy saving efforts and to support and invest in renewable energy sources. Thanks to this grant, we will be able to further advance our energy saving efforts and work toward our energy reduction and renewable sources goals for 2018.”
The Town of Stratford was one of 35 communities to receive the recognition from the Clean Energy Communities (CEC) program. The town qualified for the grant by implementing programs to help increase energy efficiency, resulting in a 28,820,260 kWh savings of energy from January 2010 through August 2013 and avoiding emissions of approximately 17,298 tons of carbon dioxide.
To achieve the energy saving and emissions reduction, the town engaged in the state’s Lead by Example Performance Contracting and set benchmarks for all municipal and Board of Education buildings. Further, 191 business and municipal energy-saving projects were completed.
The community was also involved in the energy efficiency efforts, with 1,556 homes participating in residential programs.
Stratford is one of 78 municipalities in Connecticut participating in the CEC program, an initiative of the Energy Efficiency Fund, the Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority, the State of Connecticut and local electric and gas utilities. As part of the program, Stratford signed a pledge to reduce municipal building energy consumption by 20 percent by 2018, and to voluntarily purchase 20 percent of its municipal electric needs from renewable sources by 2018.