Online Energy Tool Helps Communities Tally Potential Savings

Community leaders interested in implementing energy-efficiency programs now have a new tool to help calculate possible benefits. The “Community Energy Opportunity Finder” provides a framework for communities to both gather information about current energy use and help determine which efficiency programs might be most suitable for their particular climate and development goals, all via a Web-based interface.

Once users enter basic information about their community, they can then create various “what-if” scenarios, based on varying economic assumptions. Developers say the tool is not intended to replace economic development consultants. However, they add, it could help provide the kind of preliminary analysis such consultants generally offer.

The tool’s development was sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Institute, along with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Land Information

Access Association. It’s available at https://finder.rmi.org .

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