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 Hot in the City by Wood Turner Posted June 28, 2001 Take a diverse urban neighborhood in one of America's largest cities. Combine it with a sweltering summer, a community-based organization with a great idea, a local utility with heart, and a few thousand air conditioners, and what do you get? Maybe a graceful, human solution to an energy crisis. NEW Reader Responses are a goodthing! Follow along by clicking here. Be like Mike Clarke-Smith of West Sussex, England, and contribute your thoughts on "Hot in the City." Dear readers, The Pilsen district is Chicago's largest Mexican-American neighborhood and the heart and soul of a growing artists' community. Rich in history and full of spirited people, radiant murals, and abundant garden patches, its residents are finding themselves at the scalding center of this summer's hotly debated American energy crisis. Literally, the scalding center. Chicago, infamous for the bone-chilling bluster of its winters, also has unbearably hot summers, so much so that energy demand doubles between June and August. Blackouts are commonplace. And it's the older central neighborhoods like Pilsen -- with its creaking utility infrastructure and rattling, obsolete air-conditioners of its lower-income residents -- that bear the brunt. The city's slow-moving approach to blackouts, especially in poorer neighborhoods with less political power, has long left Pilsen residents in the dark. But thanks to an unlikely convergence of interests, Pilsen may be moving away from melt-down and on its way toward cool-down. Three years ago, Commonwealth Edison (or ComEd), under new leadership, promised -- with the support the city's Department of Environment and the mayor, an avid bicyclist and a champion of the roof gardens adorning City Hall -- to provide portable generators to help sustain Pilsen residents' electricity needs during outtages. Admittedly, the generators provided only a short-term solution. The Center for Neighborhood Technology entered the picture, having worked on improving quality of life in Chicago's neighborhoods for two decades. The organization, which has its roots in the city but now with offices nationwide, had a plan that made sense for ComEd and for the neighborhood. If ComEd would support the CNT's Community Energy Cooperative program, CNT said the utility would not only save the hundreds of thousands of dollars it was spending on generators for temporary fixes, but it would also begin the process of reducing long-term demand on the power system. And how would the Co-Op do this? By trading out low-efficiency window-unit air conditioners for state-of-the-art models, everybody would win. Pilsen's low-income residents would save money on their electric bills, ComEd would reduce demand on its energy resources (and scores big in public opinion), and the environment would get a break. Sure enough, the Cooperative received a CoEd grant and launched the program last July. Nearly a year later, the program is a huge success that's spread to three other neighborhoods -- Chicago's northwest side (near O'Hare Airport), Elgin on the far west side, and Park Forest far to the south. Last summer, the Community Energy Cooperative became a major presence at community festivals and fairs to spread awareness of the program, soliciting interested individuals and families to become invested in the program's success by buying into it. The Co-Op has been able to offer its 3,200 members (1,500 of them Pilsen residents) as much as 80% savings on the cost of Amana's top-of-the-line Energy Star air-conditioners. Last summer, the Co-Op actually delivered and installed the units. This year, folks from the neighborhood are doing it themselves. When something good is happening, says Ramiro Borja, the Co-Op's senior community development specialist, "Word of mouth just takes over." From ComEd's perspective, the Center for Neighborhood Technology has shown results, delivering an approximately four megawatt demand savings to the utility system (enough to power 4,000 homes). From Pilsen residents' perspective, there's excitement around an issue where once there wasn't even awareness. This winter, the CNT began another version of the program, offering Co-Op members an opportunity to trade in old refrigerators for newer high-efficiency ones. They're also working with ComEd and BP Solar to begin installing photovoltaic panels on the roofs of Pilsen's public schools and to tie it into the curriculum. As Borja acknowledges: "It's the kids who have gotten their families into recycling. Now, we're trying to do the same thing with lights and energy."
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TALK ABOUT IT Are you doing anything to beat the heat? Did you "roll your own blackout" on the solstice? Know of any innovative programs that are confronting the energy crisis? Share your stories. LEARN ABOUT IT For all the details you need to know about the air-conditioning take-back program in the Pilsen neighborhood, the Community Energy Cooperative, or the Center for Neighborhood Technology, please visit these helpful Web sites: ::Community Energy Cooperative ::Center for Neighborhood Technology ::Airhead.org
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