Some municipalities spend between 20 and 40 percent of their annual budgets on the energy needed to operate wastewater treatment plants. The city of Thousand Oaks, California, has transformed their biggest energy user into an energy generator. Across the U.S., energy users of all sizes are taking control of their power supply and relieving stress from the grid. That’s the idea behind distributed energy. Atlantic Re:think and Siemens have partnered to explore this burgeoning energy revolution. View a video at Tinyurl.com/TheThousandOaksSolution.

This article appears in the April 2018 issue of Natural Awakenings.