The city of Chicago kicked off 2025 with a bang by delivering on a promise that took years to achieve: As of Jan. 1, all city-owned buildings are 100% powered by renewable energy.
“Chicago is committed to taking bold steps as the world faces climate crises,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a statement. “With this transition to renewable energy, we are achieving a goal that the city has been working toward for years and fulfilling a promise to Chicagoans via the creation of clean jobs and meaningful progress toward a sustainable future.”
Due to the switch, more than 400 buildings — including O’Hare International Airport, Harold Washington Library, 98 fire stations, and two of the world’s largest water treatment plants — are now purely using clean energy, making Chicago one of the largest U.S. cities operating its municipal buildings with this type of power.
With city structures using about 800,000 megawatt hours of energy annually, the transition is projected to slash Chicago’s carbon emissions by 290,000 metric tons every year. Per a press release, this will create the same effect as eliminating 62,000 cars from the road.
“Chicago is demonstrating directly how cities can lead by example, implement ambitious goals amid evolving state and federal policy changes, and leverage their purchasing power to support a more equitable renewable energy future,” Matthew Popkin, the cities and communities U.S. program manager at nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute, told Grist.
While this accomplishment was officially achieved on Jan. 1, plans have been in the works for years, propelled by the city launching the 2022 Chicago Climate Action Plan (an update from the initial 2008 version). Sparked by the August 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which invested $369 billion to support the transition to greener energy sources nationwide, the action plan set a goal of reducing Chicago’s carbon emissions 62% by 2040.
As to where the city is sourcing the majority of the renewable energy from? Seventy percent is being provided by Double Black Diamond Solar, a 593-megawatt solar generation project located 30 miles west of Springfield, Illinois. Purchased renewable credits will make up the remaining 30% — a move that was made on purpose, with the hope that new sources will develop locally. “That’s really a feature and not a bug of our plan,” Chicago’s Deputy Chief Sustainability Officer Jared Policicchio told Grist. “Our goal over the next several years is that we reach a point where we’re not buying renewable energy credits.”
Chicago still has some work to do to meet the goals outlined in its climate action plan, but the city is hailing its recent milestone as “the first step toward ensuring all electricity consumed in Chicago is sourced from clean, renewable sources by 2035.” So although we’re less than two weeks into 2025, this year already appears to be a promising one for the Windy City’s sustainable aspirations.
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