Federal grant to help grow ‘Green Forest City’

Jobs, energy will be saved as Rockford tests 11 eco-friendly projects.

By Thomas V. Bona

BusinessRockford.com

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ROCKFORD — Rockford will use wind turbines to power its water pumps, solar power for parking lot lights and an old dam to generate electricity.

It will examine the possibilities, at any rate, thanks to a $1.6 million federal stimulus grant.

Over the next three years, Rockford will fund 11 projects and programs to see which are the best fits for increasing energy efficiency and sustainability. If successful, they could save the city money, reduce emissions and draw green-industry companies and workers.

“We’re going from the Forest City to the Green Forest City,” said Reid Montgomery, the city’s director of community and economic development. “We hope we can leverage what we learn over these 11 projects and see from that point how we can take some of that to the next level.”

The grant is from the U.S. Department of Energy and is awarded to cities based on their population.

Rockford had only eight weeks from the time the grant was announced to the application deadline, so officials chose projects that already were considered but didn’t have funding in place.

The projects could save up to 27 existing jobs and create at least 10, city officials estimate. But one project has the potential to create as many as 200 jobs, as the city scouts out a good location for a wind turbine blade factory. A local company that’s interested in getting into that field told city officials it could expand by 200 employees if it can find the right facility and drum up business.

The city is also looking at other ways to use wind energy. One plan is to set up a small wind farm — just six to eight turbines — on the far northwest side of the city to power a Water Department pumping station. If that works, Montgomery said, the city could later look at other sites.

The city also will replace 12 lights in downtown parking lots with ones that are more energy-efficient and can run off the power from individual mini-wind turbines and solar cells, another test project that could later be expanded.

The city also will replace 344 lights in downtown parking garages with more energy-efficient bulbs. The lighting projects could save the city thousands in electricity costs a year.

“We can’t afford to continue ... lighting in the same way we’ve always lit them,” said Brian Eber, the city’s green team leader. “It’s inefficient, it’s not doing the job that citizens deserve. Let’s put up a smarter, brighter, whiter light and at the same time reduce the energy we use.”

Other components of the new energy program are studying ways to increase energy efficiency at the MetroCentre, City Hall, the Coronado Performing Arts Center and the Rockford Public Library downtown branch; recommissioning Fordam Dam for electricity generation; slashing power consumption in the city’s data center; and doing an inventory of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The biggest amount of the grant will go toward implementing the 2009 International Energy Conservation Code, which the state will require for new commercial and likely new residential construction projects.

Three or four city employees, who might otherwise have been threatened with layoffs, will educate builders and developers on energy-efficiency requirements and techniques. They’ll also proactively work on those issues in the planning stage and handle inspections and documentation.

The grant money allows the city to help builders and developers with the updated codes to get the best results, said Todd Cagnoni, the city’s deputy director of community and economic development.

“Through proper implementation, it could be a 15 percent savings in energy costs. If we’re going to be successful in it ... everybody needs to be aware of it, they need to be able to plan with it.”

Contact staff writer Thomas V. Bona at 815-987-1343 or tbona@rrstar.com.

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