Arlington County is in the process of revising its community energy plan CEP that was adopted over five years ago, but never implemented largely because its two central policies were not done. The goal was a 75% lower carbon footprint by 2050. The vast majority of carbon output in Arlington occurs in buildings and to a far lesser extent in transportation. Electricity use is growing rapidly in Arlington. Progress in new county and school buildings and some new commercial high rise buildings has occurred, but this covers only a small fraction of fossil use in Arlington.

The CEP was not realized for two reasons. First the state building code covering all new buildings was never updated to achieve an expected 30% reduction in energy use. Secondly, the goal to have co-generation power plants in Arlington commercial areas never got going either because of the opposition of Dominion Power (which would lose sales of course), but also the large developers who are linked to fossil fuels.

Arlington Greens about two years ago advocated statewide and with county officials to get the state of Virginia to update the building code so that new residential buildings save 30% of their energy use, but the building industry blocked this change.

“County staff are currently leading a five-year review and update to the Community Energy Plan. The E2C2 Energy Committee is also providing a technical review of the plan and providing feedback.
The County will conduct a follow-up CEP Forum in 2019 to solicit feedback on the updated CEP. Stay tuned to the county webpage for additional details.” https://environment.arlingtonva.us/energy/community-energy-plan-cep/

Consider emailing your ideas to the Arlington County energy division for the new CEP to energy@arlingtonva.us