Toolkits and Guidebooks

Municipal Clean Energy Toolkit
ICLEI's toolkit delivers guidance on how municipalities can finance, purchase, install, and promote clean energy -- from solar and wind to geothermal, biomass, fuel cells, and more.

Revolving Energy Fund Guide
Learn how to set up a self-sustaining revolving loan fund to help your community expand energy efficiency and clean energy projects.

Guide to Green Jobs Development (pdf)
Our 2009 guidebook offers practical steps and resources to help local governments create green jobs in their communities.

Webinar Presentations

Reducing Barriers to Solar for Local Governments (2012)
free, monthly webinars with the goal of helping local governments overcome barriers to deploying solar energy and making local investment in solar more attractive.

Clean Energy and Sustainability as a Local Economic Development Strategy
Connect the dots between sustainability and prosperity. Learn from the leading experts ICLEI brought together in 2010 for this popular two-part webinar series. 

Using Power Purchase Agreements to Finance Solar
Learn how cities and towns are installing solar through power purchase agreements (PPAs). This 2010 webinar features municipal staff from Massachusetts communities.

Innovative Energy Financing Series
Watch this recorded 2009 webinar series on how local governments are utilizing PACE financing approaches to scale clean energy projects in their communities, featuring Babylon, NY, Boulder County, CO, Berkeley, CA, and Cambridge, MA.

Case Studies

Pittsburgh Solar Initiative (pdf)
Lessons learned from City of Pittsburgh's efforts to promote and utilize solar power.

Gainesville, FL, Solar Feed-In Tariff (pdf)
How the city established a successful solar feed-in tariff through its municipal utility, Gainesville Regional Utilities

SolarBees (pdf)
Lake circulators like the SolarBee, used by City of Houston, can save big money on water treatment costs and reduce your emissions.

Medford's 100kW Wind Turbine (pdf)
Highlighting Medford, Massachusetts installation of a 100kW wind turbine at a local school. 

Brockton, Massachusett's 465 kW Solar Array (pdf)
Details the development of 465 kW solar array in Brighton, Massachusetts on a former Brownfield site.

Shutesbury, MA's Innovative Approach to Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Projects (pdf)
Details Shutesbury, MA's efforts to promote and install renewable, clean energy systems and to undertake energy efficiency efforts.

Blog Posts

Leaping the Barriers to Local Solar Implementation
This ICLEI blog post from 2010 features guidance and examples pulled from DOE's solar guide for local governments.

Seven Challenges for Clean Energy Municipal Financing
As more local governments seek to establish a clean energy municipal financing program, what can they learn from the California jurisdictions that have led the way—Berkeley, Palm Desert, and Sonoma County? Find out in this 2009 blog post series that explores how to overcome seven key challenges.