Metropolitan Energy Center, Inc.

Our goal is conscientious energy consumption. We plan to increase by 16% annually the regional use of clean alternative fuels in transportation and to reduce by 4% over 2 years the amount of energy used in KC metro's built environment. Both activities will result in substantial greenhouse gas reductions.

Metropolitan Energy Center improves energy efficiency in the built environment and encourages the use of alternative fuels in the transportation sector. Through administration of grant funding, we provide education, resource matchmaking, and the deployment of technology and conservation strategies. Through community partnerships, we conduct outreach and technology demonstrations to target audiences and to the general public, raising the knowledge level on these topics. In doing so, we also increase the urgency and political will to act decisively to reverse trends contributing to climate change.

Metropolitan Energy Center has a long history of successful grant administration and collaboration with a variety of stakeholders from public and private sectors and across regional boundaries. In the past twenty years, through the Kansas City Regional Clean Cities Coalition, MEC has worked with numerous public and private fleets on a variety of projects to improve the environmental performance and efficiency of our regional vehicle fleet. Since 2009, under Principal Investigator Kelly Gilbert's leadership, MEC has secured and successfully managed more than $40 million in federal and local funds for clean vehicle, fuel station, and advanced fuel projects in partnership with fleets across four states. These have included the deployment of hundreds of alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles, installation of dozens of alternative fuel and electric charging stations, and provision of Green Fleet management planning services designed to help organizations craft long-term policies and best practices for managing high performing vehicle fleets.


MEC is led by Executive Director Kelly Gilbert, who is also the KC Regional Clean Cities Coordinator. With years of successful federal funding management, MEC has the legal, contractual, financial, and administrative systems in place to facilitate work with multiple partners and project elements. Federal funding awards administered by MEC since 2009:
Safe Alternative Fuels Deployment in Mid-America (US DOE, $250,000); Mid-America Clean Highways DERA Program (US EPA, $749,935); Mid-America Collaborative for Alternative Fuels (US DOE, $815,000); Midwest Regional Alternative Fuels Project (US DOE, $14,999,995); Community Readiness for EV and EVSE in KS and MO/Electrify Heartland (US DOE, $441,000); EnergyWorks KC subrecipient (US DOE, $2,000,000); and KC Environmental Workforce Development Partnership (US EPA, $300,000).

In addition to these Federal awards, MEC has also administered outreach and training awards from several local and national sources to support workforce development, biofuels education, gaseous fuel technician training and other topics. Our seasoned programmatic staff, technical, and administrative capabilities, along with strong relationships with industries, fleets, technical contacts, and government will enable us to achieve successful outcomes through the administration of these transportation emission mitigation projects.

Kansas City is now home to one of the largest EVSE deployments in America. Announced in January 2015, Kansas City Power & Light's Clean Charge Network surpassed 1,000 EV charging stations in 2016. Although a few are located as far as 85 miles from Kansas City, the majority of Level 2 and DC fast charging stations are within the metropolitan area. The network is nearing completion, and the region has become the leading city in America for EV driver growth, with EV ownership numbers, charging sessions and electrical use for vehicle charging up more than 400%.

Low blends of ethanol are readily available throughout the Coalition service area, even some E15 sites. Ethanol as a fuel additive is much cleaner than other additives that help the fuel burn cleaner in the engine and heavily contributes to state economies in KS and MO. There are now 9 public CNG stations in Missouri and 12 in Kansas, which accommodate Class 8 freight fleets, AT&T service vehicles, traveling CNG traffic, and new development within private fleets. In 2016 alone, two new public stations opened in Kansas City, Missouri. Many of the existing stations now offer high pressure flow dispensers to accommodate Class 7 and 8 truck traffic. Compressed natural gas is increasingly being supplied from renewable sources, such as biogas and landfill gas, which simultaneously provides a financial opportunity from a waste product and also prevents the sources from emitting methane directly into the atmosphere. CNG burns cleaner than diesel engines, especially in low speed, heavy duty applications, such as neighborhood trash and recycling pickup.

In the two and a half years of its existence, the City Energy Project mobilized the major stakeholders involved with commercial buildings to focus on building efficiency, increased information and awareness of commercial building performance tools, promoted benchmarking as a primary strategy, and supported the development of effective energy efficiency policies and procedures in Kansas City, MO and the surrounding region. By 2030, the projected annual benefits of the policies and procedures thus established will be:
 3,276,133 MMBtu in site energy savings (5.3% citywide)
 7,167,836 MMBtu in source energy savings (5.4% citywide)
 597,230 tons of GHG emissions in CO2 equivalents (6.3% citywide)
 $55,314,872 in cost savings (5.0% citywide)

At the end of the initial grant period, Kansas City's Office of Environmental Quality invited Metropolitan Energy Center to continue the work of the City Energy Project through the creation of the Energy Solutions Hub, not only to support the City's existing efforts, but to expand efforts to improve the efficiency of commercial buildings metro-wide.

Our next focus areas include assisting states/fleets with VW's air emissions cheating settlement; operating current grants; and generating new partnerships and opportunities for the Energy Solutions Hub.