Free Web-Based Tool To Make Mass. Greener

The City of Cambridge will upgrade its current energy use tracking tool to MassEnergyInsight—a new web-based tool launched this week to make Massachusetts greener free of charge, according to the state’s Department of Energy Resources.

To record energy use, Cambridge had been using an earlier version of MassEnergyInsight since 2006, and the new program will now be used to analyze energy use, costs, and emissions across 351 cities and towns.

The new tool boasts a more usable interface and will provide the state with customized data on electricity, natural gas, and oil usage as well as help local officials identify which departments and buildings are wasting energy. The program will also help communities reduce energy use by 20 percent in five years—fulfilling one requirement for receiving the Green Communities Grants Mass. Governor Deval L. Patrick ’78 announced last week to finance energy efficiency and renewable power projects.

Paul W. Gromer, president of the Peregrine Energy Group of Boston, which created the tool, stressed the importance of aggregating a city’s energy information in one place to streamline costs.

“We gather that information, find a meaning it,” Gromer said. “We take pennies and turn them into ten dollar bills.”

Cambridge has approximately 500 utility accounts, including street lights, traffic lights, and gas and oil heating, according to Ellen F. Katz, fiscal director of the city’s public works department.

City Councillor Henrietta J. Davis said that the complexity and number of the city’s bills impeded energy efficiency efforts before 2006, when Cambridge first adopted the system.

“We’re used to getting one bill at home,” Davis said, “But when you’re talking about something like the city of Cambridge, you’re talking about hundreds of thousands of bills. If you don’t know how you’re using your energy, it’s difficult to increase your efficiency.”

The city later implemented Cambridge GreenSense in October 2008, a program that encourages employee awareness to make simple efforts to save energy. According to Katz, buildings involved in the program saw a 5 percent decrease in energy use over the past year.

—Staff writer Michelle B. Timmerman can be reached at mtimmerman@college.harvard.edu.