The city of Milpitas in Silicon Valley has begun construction on a smart city energy and water savings programme with Engie North America.

Approved by Milpitas’ City Council, the city will upgrade infrastructure and install energy and water conservation measures that are expected to reduce utility consumption by more than 4.2 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year which is expected to save more than $1.5m in energy and water costs per year, for a net lifetime savings of over $30m.

The programme includes over 200kW of solar; an energy storage and microgrid for backup power at the Milpitas Senior Center and Milpitas Community Center; 15,600 advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) water meters with leak detection; 2185 LED streetlight retrofits; 4453 streetlight controls upgrades with outage detection; city-wide LED lighting upgrades in parks, sports fields, city buildings and community facilities; water, wastewater and stormwater management automation; touchless efficient water fixtures; and electric vehicle charging stations.

“The goal of the city’s energy and water savings programme is to upgrade critical infrastructure with an eye on three major pillars: economic benefits, environmental benefits and human benefits,” said Rich Tran, mayor of Milpitas. “Through this programme, we will leverage guaranteed energy and water savings to pay for the programme and save the city money, while reducing our energy and water usage, improving community safety, and enhancing building comfort and usability. The city of Milpitas is proud of our continued commitment to fiscal and environmental stewardship and this comprehensive smart cities programme will showcase Milpitas as a responsible and innovative community.”

The programme is designed to bolster community outreach around sustainability issues and climate action and provides the city with a dedicated AmeriCorps CivicSpark fellow for one year. To fund the project, the city will use state incentives for battery energy storage, resiliency funds from Silicon Valley Clean Energy, AMI funding from Valley Water, water bonds and low-interest lease revenue bonds. The energy and water savings should allow the programme to more than pay for itself.

“Engie is delivering a comprehensive, customised smart city solution and helping the city of Milpitas to define its future as a sustainable and resilient place to live,” said Courtney Jenkins, vice president at Engie North America. “Engie will deliver a sophisticated bundling of energy and water conservation measures expected to reduce utility consumption and advance the city’s climate ambitions.”

Located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay, Milpitas is a progressive community that is an integral part of Silicon Valley. A full-service city with water utility, sewer utility, police and fire services, Milpitas has a diverse population of nearly 80,000.

Engie North America offers capabilities in the USA and Canada to help its customers achieve sustainability goals. Services include helping run facilities more efficiently and optimise energy and other resource use and costs; clean power generation; energy storage; and retail energy supply that includes renewable, demand response and on-bill financing options. It has 170,000 employees.