Fitchburg's 2025 municipal energy report: renewables up, per-capita emissions down

Phil presented the City of Fitchburg's 2025 municipal energy report at the Resource Conservation Committee meeting and walked through headline metrics and the report's upcoming public posting.

"This is a 44-page document...similar to previous energy reports," Phil told the committee, noting he will upload the full file to the city website. He emphasized the report uses a 2018 baseline (set by the city's 2019 clean-energy resolution) and highlighted the city's growth: "our population since 2018 has gone up 27%," he said.

Key takeaways in Phil's presentation: municipal electricity and natural gas use have risen but electricity demand has grown more slowly than population, renewable electricity (including rooftop solar and a purchased share of the O'Brien solar array) now makes up about 42% of the city's municipal electricity profile, and fossil-fuel use has decreased overall since 2018. Phil said per-capita emissions are down roughly 22% against the 2018 baseline and that these changes reflect both increased renewable procurement and grid decarbonization.

Phil cautioned the committee that the city faces rising energy costs and that meeting a 100% municipal renewable target by 2030 would require additional policy levers or investments. He also agreed to clarify the executive summary to state these figures refer to "Fitchburg's municipal energy" rather than the entire city's community-wide energy use, to avoid public confusion.

Next steps: staff will post the full report online and consider follow-up items, such as how the police facility's new loads and geothermal installations will affect future municipal metrics. Committee members expressed interest in tracking a small set of key indicators in an accessible executive summary moving forward.