On February 3rd, Mayor Javier Gonzales delivered his first State of the City address at the Santa Fe Convention Center to an audience of more than 700 community members.
In his remarks, Mayor Gonzales highlighted the energy conservation efforts of Santa Fe Prep senior, Eliza Harrison. Eliza’s climate mitigation initiative, “Changing Households, Changing Communities,” has involved thirty Santa Fe households in a four-month electricity monitoring program — providing pilot study participants with the capacity to monitor their energy use in real time.
By making their energy use visible, Eliza has been evaluating the potential for behavior changes among the pilot participants. To date, the project has resulted in average electricity savings of 10 percent among the participating households.
To boost the initiative’s impact, Mayor Gonzales has appointed Eliza to Santa Fe’s Climate Change Task Force, and proposed to expand the monitoring program to serve 100-200 homes. By raising the community’s awareness of their electricity use, Mayor Gonzales hopes to reduce the communities’ electrical demand as well as its carbon footprint.