WHEREAS, city governments recognize the growing importance of reliable energy for economic development and also know that the local deployment of distributed resources helps mitigate three drivers of higher power costs: transmission and distribution upgrades, fuel costs, and air emissions compliance; and

WHEREAS, grid systems built to power industrial factories and mechanical processes do not provide the reliability needed to retain and attract modern, electronic enterprises and increasingly, city businesses face unacceptable risks of periodic, acute power disruption (i.e., blackouts and brownouts) as well as constant, chronic power quality fluctuations (i.e., surges and harmonics); and

WHEREAS, uninsured losses due to equipment damage, product loss, and business interruption mount and income and employment from financial transactions, health care, education, lodging and entertainment lag as a result; and

WHEREAS, technological advances now make it possible for city businesses to access power not only from the traditional grid system of central power plants and transmission wires, but also from distributed resources: small-scale modular power technologies as well as nongenerating measures, such as energy efficiency, demand response and load substitution; and

WHEREAS, deploying distributed resources at or near their point of use provides unique benefits to power companies and customers, reducing loads on transmission and distribution (T&D) systems can postpone or eliminate infrastructure costs; and

WHEREAS, modular micro generators can produce more reliable power at lower costs and can be interconnected with intelligent controllers in micro grids which are more efficient in terms of fuel use and air emissions; and

WHEREAS, a decentralized system of many dispersed generating units becomes more resilient, able to recover more readily from natural disasters or malicious attacks than a centralized system with a single point of failure; and

WHEREAS, businesses combining resources can achieve extraordinary efficiencies in the local use of combined heat and power services;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the United States Conference of Mayors recognizes distributed generation as a viable means of providing reliable energy.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the United States Conference of Mayors supports the use of distributed generation in supplying the citizens of our cities with more resilient, reliable and affordable energy and urges cities to evaluate existing infrastructure and power supply chains to identify areas in need of improvement and prioritize the system’s most pressing concerns.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the United States Conference of Mayors recognizes that energy generation and distribution must change with the evolving power needs of the increasingly technology-based nature of the country’s economic development.