The city has been selected to advance to the quarterfinalist round of the Georgetown University Energy Prize, a $5 million incentive competition to reduce the nation's energy consumption.
Anacortes is among a very select group of only 52 small- and medium-sized cities and counties from across the country that have advanced to Quarterfinalist round of the competition.
Mayor Gere said, “Anacortes is honored to be selected to continue in this competition. I would like to recognize the efforts of Russ Pittis, Facility Manager for the City, and community volunteers, Cory Ertel, Eric Shen, Laura Curley, Hope Dean, Erica Pickett, Ryan Walters, Mark Wenzel, and Jensen Lovelett who have worked on this project since January. Moving forward to the next phase is a reflection of the importance of energy conservation and sustainability to our community. No matter the outcome, our community wins because we will have a long-term energy plan in place!”
The City has put together a task force made up of community members for the Georgetown University Energy Prize to develop short and long term goals to reduce energy consumption in Anacortes. We are working closely with Puget Sound Energy and Cascade Natural Gas and local energy efficiency experts to develop an energy-saving plan for Anacortes to facilitate in our community and submit to the Georgetown University Energy Prize committee to qualify as a semifinalist and compete against other communities nationwide in the two-year competition.
In total, over the two years of the GUEP competition, we and our fellow participants have the potential to save more than $1 billion in total energy costs and cut millions of tons of CO2 emissions.
Dr. Slakey, Executive Director of the Georgetown University Energy Prize remarked that, “the communities we selected are leaders in energy efficiency who will develop innovative approaches that will inspire and enable others to follow in their footsteps.”