½ûÂþÌìÌÃ

Energy: Buildings, Transportation, and Renewables

½ûÂþÌìÌà / Climate Justice and Sustainability / Buildings, Transportation, and Renewables

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½ûÂþÌìÌà Decarbonization public input summaries

Thank you so much to everyone who provided feedback to our team about how ½ûÂþÌìÌà can prioritize competing needs while meeting our Climate Crisis Response Policy goals. There will be additional opportunities for public input as this process continues. 

½ûÂþÌìÌà (½ûÂþÌìÌÃ) is embarking on a path to reach net-zero emissions. Decarbonizing the district will improve community health and comfort, resiliency, and student learning outcomes while lowering operating costs and reducing our carbon footprint. The ½ûÂþÌìÌà Climate Crisis Response, Climate Justice and Sustainable Practices Policy sets district goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2030, using the 2018-2019 school year as a baseline, and reach net zero emissions by 2040.

Working with a diverse team led by PAE Consulting Engineers, Oh Planning and Design, New Buildings Institute, and Ameresco, ½ûÂþÌìÌà is developing a district-wide decarbonization “road map.” This road map will allow ½ûÂþÌìÌà to effectively allocate resources and prioritize projects over the next 20 years by answering the question: 

“How can ½ûÂþÌìÌà most effectively implement GHG emissions reduction measures to give us the best chance of meeting our emissions goals, given financial, industry, and facility constraints, while considering historic inequities in the distribution of resources across ½ûÂþÌìÌÃ?”

Safe Routes to Schools: A growing option

Another way that ½ûÂþÌìÌà is saving energy from our buses is through a growing number of Walk and Roll to School bus programs. These programs, run entirely by dedicated staff, parents, and students give the entire community a chance to get to school in an active and fun way.

Check out the ½ûÂþÌìÌà Safe Routes to School webpage for more information. 

In May, participated in National Walk & Roll to School Month! Biking has all kinds of benefits: it’s good for your health, it gets you outside, and it’s a great way to build community. And of course, it’s ! At ½ûÂþÌìÌÃ, 10% of our carbon emissions come from transportation. In the , that number is 40%! Using bikes to get to school and around town is a fun, easy way to reduce emissions.

We want to celebrate all the amazing students, teachers, and parents who have biked, scooted, skated, or wheeled to school this year! Here are some amazing stories and videos we know of from around ½ûÂþÌìÌÃ. Did we miss any? If your school has a bike bus, let us know at sustainablity@pps.net.

Bus Transportation and Electrification

Transportation is a big part of ½ûÂþÌìÌÃ' total carbon emissions -- it's 10%. (And that number only includes our maintenance cars and our buses. It doesn't include staff or family transportation.) As our third biggest source of emissions, transportation represents a BIG opportunity for us to reduce our greenhouse gases.

All the way back in 1983, ½ûÂþÌìÌà made the progressive and environmentally friendly step to transition our entire bus fleet to propane. For nearly 4 decades, we have been running buses on a fuel that is substantially less carbon intensive than most other districts. We're very proud of that!

But now we need to transition our fleet again -- this time to electric. Over the past three years, ½ûÂþÌìÌà has worked hard to bring in 10 brand new electric buses, along with charging stations. 

The path towards bus and vehicle electrification is, more than anything, expensive. While prices of electric vehicles should drop across the board over the next decade, electric buses today are still 3-4 times more expensive than a regular propane bus. The ½ûÂþÌìÌà transportation team is actively seeking ways to procure electric buses, looking at assistance through partnerships, federal funding, and local grants through PGE, PacificPower, and the state of Oregon. 

Greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory and decarbonization roadmap

The first step towards meeting the Climate Crisis Response Policy goals was to understand the current environmental impact of ½ûÂþÌìÌà operations so that we can measure our progress in the years to come. 

½ûÂþÌìÌà partnered with Good Company to conduct a Greenhouse Gas Inventory to establish ½ûÂþÌìÌÃ’s baseline GHG emissions using 2018-2019 as the baseline year, as called for by the policy. You can  

Key Findings

• Current GHG emissions: 46,055 Metric Tons CO2, equivalent to about 10,000 passenger vehicles driven for 1 year. 

• The policy calls for 50% reduction of ½ûÂþÌìÌà emissions by 2030, so we have 7 years to reduce that number down to 23,027 MT CO2.

• Top emission sources for ½ûÂþÌìÌÃ: Electrical, Natural Gas, and Transportation. 

We believe that energy efficiency and solar will be the quickest and most cost effective ways to achieve our shorter-term goals, and that building electrification will be the most effective way to meet our longterm goals. Success will also depend on Oregon's utilities -- PGE and Pacific Power -- meeting their own targets around providing clean electricity by 2040. However these decisions are complicated and will almost certainly require tradeoffs to be made. It's important that we establish a reliable and transparent system for getting feedback directly from our community about how to make some of those choices. In order to do that, we've commissioned to develop a decarbonization roadmap for the district.

This roadmap will help answer the question: in what order should ½ûÂþÌìÌà implement GHG emissions reductions measures across schools and admin buildings in order to provide the best chance of meeting ½ûÂþÌìÌà emissions goals, given financial, industry, and facility constraints, while considering historic inequities in the distribution of resources across ½ûÂþÌìÌÃ? 

Energy Efficiency

Energy efficiency means using energy more effectively and is frequently a technological change, such as switching to programmable thermostats that monitor temperature based on occupancy or replacing incandescent light bulbs with LEDs. Energy efficiency measures aim to use less energy while providing the same level of comfort, performance, or convenience that students and teachers are used to. 

½ûÂþÌìÌà has been able to tap into the Oregon Department of Energy’s  Energy Program. The program distributes funds to ½ûÂþÌìÌà to improve efficiency through energy reduction and conservation capital projects. ½ûÂþÌìÌà has used this funding to perform comprehensive energy audits on all of our facilities, and continues to implement the projects identified by those audits.

Solar at ½ûÂþÌìÌÃ

Portland Public School roofs provide an ideal space for generating renewable electricity. And over the past decade-plus, we have done our best to install solar panels, but we have a lot more work to do.

Since 2012, ½ûÂþÌìÌà officially puts solar on the roofs of all new school buildings. That means that all the schools that have been (and will be) rebuilt through the bond modernization project will have solar arrays on the rooftop that generate electricity. That includes, so far, Franklin, Grant, Roosevelt, Lincoln, McDaniel, Faubion PK-8, Kellogg Middle School, and the new Multiple Pathways to Graduation Building at Benson and Benson high school.

As of 2023, solar energy projects can be found at 18 ½ûÂþÌìÌà schools through the Solar Roof Project, Solar 4R Schools, and other grant-funded programs. These 18 solar installations help generate 6% of the district's total electricity use. 

A primary recommendation in Good Company's ½ûÂþÌìÌà Greenhouse Gas emissions analysis is to "continue developing onsite solar and consider participation in renewable electricity programs." ½ûÂþÌìÌà is exploring all options for ways to increase the solar productivity of our roofs -- community solar programs that help benefit local communities by reducing their energy use, grants available through federal and state governments, federal solar rebates, and community partnerships.

 You can learn more about the history of ½ûÂþÌìÌà solar (our partnerhsip with Clean Energy Bright Futures and PGE) and here (information about all the solar projects we've installed through our school modenization program).

You can also access an that includes many of our sites' solar production data and makes a great tool for in-class energy research that is local and relevant for ½ûÂþÌìÌà students. 

Solar panels on Roosevelt High School

Solar panels on Kellogg Middle School