Advanced And Renewable Energy

Cleveland Solar Guide
In 2017, the City of Cleveland developed a guidebook that lays out the process for installing solar panels on your home or business. It emphasizes the City’s permitting, inspection, and interconnection requirements for installers, while also providing additional guidance for consumers looking to go solar. >>

Advanced Energy Portfolio Standard
In June 2008, the City of Cleveland adopted a citywide Advanced Energy Portfolio Standard (AEPS). The standard ensures that 15% of Cleveland Public Power’s energy comes from advanced or renewable sources by 2015, 20% by 2020, and 25% by 2025. The City also actively lobbied for the statewide AEPS that was passed in 2008.

Wind Energy Regulations
In 2009, The City updated the zoning code regulations to ensure that wind energy facilities are developed and maintained to maximize utilization of Cleveland’s wind energy resources while protecting public health, safety and welfare.

Advanced and Renewable Energy: City of Cleveland Municipal Aggregation Program

Through the City of Cleveland’s Municipal Electricity Aggregation Program, CEI residential and small commercial customers of the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company (CEI) gain group buying power for the purchase of competitively priced electricity.

The City of Cleveland entered into an agreement with the Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council (NOPEC) to provide such CEI customers an opportunity for cost savings and rate stability. The City negotiated a competitive fixed price of $0.05425 / kWh after researching several electricity pricing options. Pricing will be effective on or around the June 2018 meter reads and continue until the June 2020 meter reads.  

There is no cost for enrollment, and residents and businesses are not charged a switching fee by NOPEC.  There are no changes to the electricity service aside from the price and the supplier.  CEI will continue to send monthly bills, respond to outages, and deliver electricity. City of Cleveland Aggregation Program representatives will not contact residents and ask to switch suppliers.

Aggregation customers also get access to other valuable NOPEC products. 

The program provides 100 percent clean energy, meaning the customer’s electricity usage will be backed with renewable energy credits (RECs). RECs reflect the environmental attributes from renewable energy resources, such as wind and solar energy.

CEI customers who do not wish to participate in the fixed price program may “opt in” to a variable rate that is always 6 percent below the utility’s Price to Compare (PTC) for residents and 4 percent below the PTC for commercial customers. This variable rate includes RECs for 50 percent of the customer’s electricity usage. Enrollment in this option is subject to availability.

Additional information is available at 855.667.3201 and on the NOPEC website.

Offshore Wind Energy
LEEDCo was founded in 2009 as a result of the work of the Great Lakes Energy Development Task Force, and is leading the community's efforts to build and install an initial offshore wind pilot project near Cleveland in Lake Erie. This pilot is a first step toward the eventual installation of 1,000 MW of wind capacity in the Ohio waters of Lake Erie by 2020. This project would be the first freshwater offshore wind farm in North America. The City has partnered with Green Energy Ohio and Case Western Reserve University, among others, to conduct feasibility studies for offshore wind potential. Cleveland Public Power has committed to purchase 5 MW of energy from this project.

Onshore Wind Monitoring and Energy Assessment
The City of Cleveland’s  Department of Public Utilities contracted juwi Wind LLCto conduct a roughly year-long onsite wind resource monitoring and assessment of wind energy generation potential at two sites near the Lake Erie shoreline - Garret Morgan Water Treatment Plant and a private company called Jergens. Studies were completed in 2011 using 60 meter high meteorological towers (met towers). The analysis and final report submitted in 2012 indicates good energy generation potential at these sites. However, a more detailed analysis is required to assess the economic feasibility of onshore wind turbine projects at these sites.

Collinwood Solar Thermal
The Solar Thermal system at the Collinwood Recreation Center, which opened in 2011, provides domestic hot water needs for the facility’s sinks and showers. The system consists of 16 solar collectors that are roof mounted on the natatorium and connected to four 115-gallon solar water tanks.

Rockefeller Greenhouse Solar Demonstration
Opened in 2011, the StarGenTM Solar Photovoltaic concentrator demonstration project at Cleveland’s Rockefeller Greenhouse is a collaboration between Cleveland Public Power, American Municipal Power (AMP) and GreenField Solar.

The StarGen^TM solar concentrator is a green technology, which provides an efficient source of energy while decreasing the use of non-renewable fossil fuels. The system is an alternative energy approach, which utilizes one of the greatest natural resources, the sun, to produce both electricity and thermal energy for residential, commercial and industrial use. The specialized PhotoVoltTM solar cells used at the Rockefeller Park Greenhouse project were invented by a former NASA scientist at Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.

Collinwood BioEnergy  The Collinwood BioEnergy facility is an anaerobic digestion facility located on Cleveland’s east side. This facility applies proven, advanced anaerobic digestion technology to produce electricity from organic waste (biomass). Cleveland Public Power is currently purchasing power from this facility, which is capable of producing 1.3MW of electricity. Collinwood BioEnergy is of special significance to Cleveland as it was constructed on the grounds of the former Collinwood GM Fisher Body Plant. The Collinwood facility is helping bring jobs and investment to a community still struggling from the loss of the GM factory decades ago. Collinwood BioEnergy represents a partnership between Quasar Energy and Forest City, and was made possible through funds from the City of Cleveland’s Department of Economic Development, the State of Ohio, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.