| id | title | date | author | layout | guid | permalink | image | categories | tags | |||||
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41645 |
Saving Energy, One Block at a Time |
2014-04-25 17:43:02 -0500 |
alexisneisser |
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/index.php/saving-energy-one-block-at-a-time/ |
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In honor of Earth Day celebrations, the Retrofit Chicago initiative released the Chicago Energy Data Map to help residents better understand their energy usage. The Energy Data Map is an online tool that allows Chicagoans to visualize their neighborhood and block’s energy use in comparison to other communities across the city.
The initial website page shows a 3-D map of Chicago’s neighborhoods, displaying the most natural-gas-efficient neighborhoods as lighter in color ( in range from white to black) and more electric-energy-efficient neighborhoods as higher in height on the birds-eye-view visualization of energy consumption in the city.
By going to cityofchicago.org/energymap, Chicagoans can type in their address and see their block’s natural gas and electric energy use in 2010 and then compare energy consumption to neighbors and Chicagoans on a block-by-block and neighborhood basis.
By providing residents with a side-by-side contrast of energy use in the context of what other community members are using consuming, the hope is that Chicagoans will feel more empowered to make energy efficient, sustainable decisions.
The website also offers sustainable tips on what residents can do to improve home energy efficiency. By pledging to implement one of the tips, users can see how much they can save annually. In addition, Chicagoans can track the map’s leaderboard to see which communities are saving the most money through energy efficienc
