Regional Cooperation Leads to Local Implementation

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

• How to leverage regional planning to pool buying power, build local confidence, facilitate decisions, and enable municipalities to accomplish projects they would unlikely be able to do alone
• Key tools in the implementation toolbox, such as decision-making, municipal budgeting and finance, procurement, energy-performance contracting, and working with consultants
• How to implement LED streetlight projects (even if you don't have a background in energy) and how to use this model to implement other types of projects

MORE SESSION DETAILS

This session presents a case study of an innovative regional planning program that allowed 35 small and medium-sized municipalities to leverage their collective purchasing and decision-making power to implement one of the largest LED streetlight installations in the country. Learn how to use regional planning to allow localities to access key implementation tools, lower costs, ensure decision-makers feel confident, and accomplish projects that medium and small municipalities can’t always do alone. The Regional Streetlight Procurement Program (RSLPP) was developed by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission in partnership with the Foundation for Renewable Energy and Environment and Keystone Lighting Solutions. This session will describe how the RSLPP guided municipalities through a turnkey process with transparency, technical support, pooled procurement and financing, and a common timeline. Through the RSLPP, more than 26,000 LED streetlights were installed across 35 municipalities, which will save 10,000 megawatt hours, 5,400 metric tons of CO2 emissions, and $900,000 annually in energy and operational costs. Learn how to this model can be replicated for other types of energy and non-energy projects and in other regions across the country.