EPB estimates its smart electric grid saved the utility more than $2.6 million in energy savings last year while cutting about 3,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
EPB officials said they are now eager to use Chattanooga’s advanced power delivery network to also help local businesses improve their energy efficiency and sustainability ratings.
EPB, which recently was recognized by Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI) as one the nation’s first utilities to achieve Gold PEER (Performance Excellence in Electricity Renewal) status, has begun collaborating with Volkswagen of America to help the automaker also boost its environmental ratings. Volkswagen is working with EPB to achieve LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) recognition for VW’s new research and testing facility being built near Volkswagen’s assembly plant in Chattanooga.
“We’re building our Battery Engineering Lab with sustainable development in mind, and we’re proud to team up with GBCI and EPB to facilitate the project,” Wolfgang Maluche, vice president at Volkswagen’s Engineering and Planning Center (EPC) in Chattanooga, said in a statement Wednesday. “This effort is part of Volkswagen’s commitment to establishing more environmentally sustainable facilities in Chattanooga, where we will add comprehensive battery know-how and the localized production of electric vehicles soon, shaping Volkswagen’s electric future in America.”
Contributed photo by Volkswagen / Wolfgang Maluche, vice president at Volkswagen’s Engineering and Planning Center (EPC) in Chattanooga, appears with Volkswagen’s ID.4 outside of VW’s Battery Engineering Lab where the automaker is working with EPB to boost its sustainability ratings.EPB built its $220 million network of fiber-optic lines along its electric wires more than a decade ago, helping the municipal utility to build a smarter power grid to limit outages and improve energy efficiency while also offering broadband connections for high-speed internet service throughout its 600-square-mile service territory. Combined with so-called intellirupters that act like switches on a railroad track to automatically re-route power when they detect an outage, EPB has been able to reduce both outages and energy use with its smart grid.