Traverse City Light & Power Climate Action Plan
Wednesday, June 28, 2023
Contact: Hannah Duell, Communications Specialist, 231-932-4544, hduell@tclp.org
TRAVERSE CITY, MI. – This week, the Traverse City Light and Power (TCLP) Board received an update on TCLP’s Climate Action Plan development. TCLP’s Climate Action Plan is tasked with identifying innovative utility solutions designed to reduce the utility’s carbon impact while protecting grid resiliency. Solutions to assist in the journey include distributed energy resources, energy storage, energy efficiency (aka energy waste reduction), demand response, and renewable generation, with a key focus being decarbonization. Last month the Climate Action Plan update focused on current practices and opportunities for moving forward. The focus this past week was on the most technical and critical portion, the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) segment of the Climate Action Plan development. This segment is focused on meeting TCLP’s 100% renewable goals while sustaining reliable and resilient energy for its customers.
“This Climate Action Plan is an impressive piece of work by 5 Lakes Energy, who have presented us with a substantive, comprehensive document by which we can steer this utility and our community towards decarbonization, less expensive energy, and better climate health for our planet,” said Chairperson Ross Hammersley. “On behalf of my kids, my family, and this community, I would like to praise the efforts of Executive Director Brandie Ekren, the TCLP staff, and my fellow Board members for getting us to this point; I am incredibly excited about this and look forward to what’s to come.”
“We are proud of what we have achieved in the creation of our Climate Action Plan with our partners at 5 Lakes Energy and their collaboration with Michigan Energy Options, Next Energy & Elevate,” said Executive Director Brandie Ekren. “TCLP and the Traverse City community have a role to play in this journey of positively impacting climate health. The final Climate Action Plan document includes recommendations that provide strategy and momentum towards our commitment to achieving that.”
The next steps include TCLP staff further evaluating, prioritizing, and preparing for updates to TCLP’s corporate strategic plan. The updated corporate strategic plan will be formally considered by the TCLP Board and presented for approval by the end of 2023.
The final Climate Action Plan document can be found here.
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Traverse City Light & Power (www.tclp.org) is a community-owned, community-focused municipal utility that offers reliable energy at low rates in the region to over 12,700 customers in Traverse City, and parts of East Bay, Elmwood, Garfield, and Peninsula townships. Now offering TCLPfiber, an all-fiber, gigabit internet service.