The project supports efforts yielding financial returns to the County or substantial progress towards established environmental goals, such as energy savings, renewable energy installations, installation of resilient facility microgrids and resilient facility hubs, and greenhouse gas reductions. The County conducts energy assessments and other analyses to identify resource and cost savings opportunities in County facilities that will inform project scheduling. In addition, the County is preparing a comprehensive sustainability plan with specific programs and actions to reduce the environmental footprint of County operations and reduce costs. This project will provide funds to target return on investment energy conservation projects; provide ancillary funds to support the installation of solar photovoltaic systems, installation of resilient facility microgrids and facility resiliency hubs on County facilities; augment other energy conservation projects (e.g., funding incremental costs of higher efficiency equipment); support energy and sustainability master planning for County facilities and operations, including facility benchmarking; leverage Federal, State, and local grant funding; and provide funds to leverage public-private partnerships and third-party resources.

Projects are identified and scheduled based on energy savings potential, reduced maintenance costs, overall cost savings, improved facility resiliency, and quantifiable environmental benefits.

This program is integral to the County's cost-containment efforts. Generally, projects will pay for themselves in one to ten years, with short payback initiatives being targeted to reduce pressure on the operating budget. The program also funds incremental costs in staff, planning, contractor support, analytics and other efforts to increase the impact of the County's overall energy and sustainability projects. The program is necessary to fulfill mandates of the County's Building Energy Design Standards (8-14a), Council Bill 2-14 Energy Performance Benchmarking, Council Bill 5-14 Social Cost of Carbon, Council Bill 6-14 Office of Sustainability, and Council Bill 8-14 Renewable Energy Technology, Council Bill 16-21 Building Energy Performance Standards, and Council Bill 13-22 Comprehensive Building Decarbonization. Reductions in energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and maintenance are expected.

FY24 supplemental in Utility Incentives for the amount of $861,844. FY25 supplemental in Utility Incentives for the amount of $1,384,533.

Expenditures will continue indefinitely. The County Executive asserts that this project conforms to the requirement of relevant local plans, as required by the Maryland Economic Growth, Resource Protection and Planning Act.

Department of General Services, Department of Environmental Projection, Office of Management and Budget, and Department of Finance.