Hillsboro, Oregon

Background

Located in the beautiful Tualatin Valley, Hillsboro is the 5th largest city in Oregon with a population of nearly 93,000. The City has taken aggressive action on energy efficiency and distributed renewable energy generation. Their comprehensive sustainability program includes long term goals for City operations, and numerous community partnerships have been developed around sustainability.

The City is a signatory to the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement and has established a comprehensive inventory of greenhouse gas emissions. In 2005, the City built the 2nd LEED Gold certified municipal building in the country and has completed two additional LEED-certified new buildings since. The City’s first Sustainability Plan, approved by the City Council in 2010, calls for a 60% reduction in City facility energy intensity by the year 2030. Energy efficiency projects completed to date include: facility lighting retrofits, installation of high efficiency LED traffic signal bulbs, boiler process optimization, HVAC replacement, and lighting controls. In addition, the City has installed nearly 200kW of solar generation on their facilities, with more planned.

As part of the Better Buildings Challenge, the City of Hillsboro is committed to reducing its building energy intensity portfolio-wide by 20% by 2020. The City has identified a showcase Challenge project, which has been initiated – a complete renovation of one of the City’s two libraries. The City has also promoted the Better Buildings Challenge to several local businesses as well as the Hillsboro School District and intends to continue promoting the Challenge to all City businesses and nonprofits.