Building the electricity system of the future: fort collins & fortZed

The report details a collaborative effort to accelerate the transition of Fort Collins, Colorado, toward a clean energy future. It assesses the current state of Fort Collins Utilities, proposes an accelerated timeline for meeting carbon and renewable goals, and suggests specific enablers such as a new 'FortZED tariff' and enhanced community engagement strategies to drive technology adoption while maintaining utility viability.

• Fort Collins Utilities currently relies heavily on non-renewable sources, with 69% of its power coming from two coal plants and 26% from regional hydro-power, while only 3% comes from other renewables.
• The city has established aggressive environmental goals, including a community greenhouse gas reduction target of 20% below 2005 levels by 2020 and 80% by 2050, as well as a requirement for municipal utilities to meet 10% of energy demand with renewables by 2020.
• The FortZED initiative aims to transform a two-square-mile area, including downtown Fort Collins and the Colorado State University main campus, into a net zero energy district, representing approximately 10–15% of the utility's distribution system.
• Charrette participants determined that it may be feasible to accelerate the city's clean energy adoption to meet its vision by 2020, provided that plausible adoption rates for efficiency and renewable energy are achieved.
• To align utility and customer interests, the charrette proposed a 'FortZED tariff' designed to ensure distribution cost recovery for zero net energy customers, incentivize grid services, and provide bundled efficiency and solar services via preferred providers.
• The report identifies four primary strategies to accelerate the adoption of clean energy technologies: targeted sales and marketing using utility data, optimizing structured finance to access cheap capital, properly valuing distributed resources, and executing 'low-hanging fruit' such as extending on-bill financing terms.
• A proposed community engagement strategy involves a four-step process: characterizing stakeholders through personas, refining branding and storytelling, developing specific marketing and public relations plans, and execution.

APA

RMI (2013). Building the electricity system of the future: fort collins & fortZed. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_2013-07_FCFZFinalReport.pdf

Chicago

RMI. Building the electricity system of the future: fort collins & fortZed. 2013. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_2013-07_FCFZFinalReport.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=Building the electricity system of the future: fort collins & fortZed |date=May 2013 |url=https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_2013-07_FCFZFinalReport.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2013building, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{Building the electricity system of the future: fort collins \& fortZed}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2013}, month = may, url = {https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_2013-07_FCFZFinalReport.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }