Energy efficiency is one of the easiest ways to eliminate energy waste and lower energy costs. The City of Kent is committed to becoming more energy efficient while reducing harmful emissions.

Renewable Energy

Green Direct

In 2018, the city signed an agreement to purchase power for nearly all of its facilities from dedicated, local, renewable energy resources through Green Direct, Puget Sound Energy’s innovative renewable energy program.

Green Direct is designed to provide PSE corporate and governmental customers the ability to purchase a stable, cost-efficient solution for 100 percent of their energy. The city anticipates saving several hundred thousand dollars over the life of this contract by utilizing renewable energy generated by wind and solar power.

Green Direct opens the door to energy sources that reflect our values, promote the development of new renewable energy, maintain predictability for future energy costs and reduce the city’s carbon footprint. It also integrates with existing, standard PSE billing.

Solar Panels

With the installation of a new roof in 2022, staff explored the feasibility of placing solar panels on the roof of the Kent Senior Activity Center to help offset our energy consumption with clean and renewable energy sources.

Our grant was approved and the Department of Commerce is supporting our efforts to install a larger solar system along with battery backup storage which will qualify the location as a Resilience Hub.

The project is slated to be complete sometime in 2024. The city is also seeking grant funding solar panels at additional city facilities.

Electric Vehicles

City vehicles are evaluated for replacement using multiple data points, including age and mileage (or engine hours). Other data points that are taken into consideration are maintenance/repair costs, overall condition, reliability and area of service.

As of July 2023, the city owns 5 fully electric and 60 hybrid-electric vehicles. Most of the hybrids are smaller half-ton pickups and our police SUV vehicles, our fully electric vehicles are small SUV’s and full-size cargo vans. The vehicle manufacturing industry hasn’t yet produced for sale hybrid or electric larger trucks, but we expect that to happen in the future.

The state Department of Commerce adopted rules so that cities would not be required to purchase electric vehicles if it was not practical to buy them or there were charging issues, or other multiple factors were a challenge.

HVAC Systems

The city uses its Siemens HVAC system to set schedules, temperatures, monitor the status of units and control the economizers which allows the city to run our buildings in the most efficient way possible.

Setting schedules allow the city to heat/cool facilities when it is primarily occupied and set after-hours points to turn off or expand the parameters, so buildings are not heating or cooling when little to no staff is present. 

The city also sets building temperatures to match the outside conditions so we're not overheating or overcooling our facilities. Economizers allow us to use outside air, primarily cooling. For example, if it is 40 degrees outside and the city needs to cool the building, the city will pull in outside air instead of turning on the AC.

LED Lighting

City Buildings & Facilities

The City of Kent has been transitioning lighting to more energy-efficiency sources and will continue to do so. The Parks Operations and Facilities Division has been working towards converting to LED energy efficient lighting where applicable in Kent’s park system and buildings. The light-emitting diode (LED) is today's most energy-efficient and rapidly developing lighting technology.

Quality LED light bulbs last longer, are more durable and offer comparable or better light quality than other types of lighting. LED is a highly energy-efficient lighting technology and has the potential to fundamentally change the future of lighting. Residential LEDs, especially ENERGY STAR rated products, use at least 75% less energy, and last up to 25 times longer, than incandescent lighting.

Over the past five years, our Parks Department has replaced 3,500-4,000 building lights and individual fixtures and has in its workplan goals to change out 300-500 each year in City Facilities, focusing on park LED lighting conversions for athletic complexes and other pathway lighting.

Street Lighting

Street lighting is a large source of electricity consumption.  In 2015 and 2016 the city converted more than 2,500 high pressure sodium light fixtures to much more efficient LED light fixtures in new construction.

This conversion is estimated to have saved more than 2.3 million kilowatt hours per year.  Kent has continued to convert light fixtures to LED and approximately 97% of the streetlights the city owns are now LED.

In the near future, the city is planning to work with Puget Sound Energy on an analysis of having the PSE-owned streetlights on arterial streets converted to LED. Kent’s Design and Construction standards for street lighting require the use of efficient LED fixtures.  This includes both fixtures installed on city streets and fixtures install in residential areas that are owned by the homeowners’ associations.