August 2010
In June 2007, the Burbank City Council adopted BWP's recommendation that 33% of our city’s electricity be procured from renewable resources by 2020. Burbank was the first city in the United States to step up to this ambitious goal and we are very proud of Burbank’s energy and environmental leadership!
What this means is that at least one-third of all the electricity used in the City of Burbank will come from renewable resources. Electricity can be produced from a number of sources, including burning natural gas or coal in a power plant, using wind, water or geothermal steam to turn a turbine, and capturing the sun’s energy with solar electricity panels. Renewable methods of electricity production – wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, and biogas – are environmentally preferred as they don’t produce greenhouse gases.
As the pie charts below show, Burbank’s dependence on coal for electricity production will continue to drop as our renewable energy portfolio grows. Just five years ago, 44% of Burbank’s energy came from coal. By summer 2011, coal dependency will have dropped to 31%. With this drop comes a corresponding reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. For more information on Burbank’s success in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, click here.