This week the Missoula City Council and the Missoula County Commissioners adopted a resolution to utilize renewable energy for electricity by the year 2030.

Four of the city council members were absent from the meeting.

Skye Borden, State Director of Environment Montana was at the meeting.

“It was a big day,” said Borden. “There was a joint meeting between the Missoula City Council and the Missoula County Commissioners and they voted unanimously to commit the city and the county to 100 percent renewable electricity by 2030. That means that all of the electricity for the city and the county residences, businesses, municipal buildings will be powered by renewable energy.”

Borden said a report prepared by Climate Smart Missoula was adopted by the committee.

“They adopted what they called the Options report that came out late in 2018,” she said. “It provided a suite of options that the city and county could pursue in order to get us out to that 100 percent goal by 2030. There are eight different options in that report. It codifies the best practices that other municipalities across the nation have used to meet that 100 percent goal.”

Borden said following the agreement, the city and the county must decide what actions to take to fulfill their resolution.

“They’re going to start chipping away at that report,” she said. “They’ll work with Northwestern Energy, the primary energy provider to figure out which one of those eight options is the best for our community, and then they’ll start to implement the plan.”

The city council is scheduled to formally adopt the resolution at its next meeting on April 8.

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