Energy serves as a connector throughout a community, a commonality which influences – whether realized or not – every facet of activity which occurs in our city. A community energy plan is an innovative local economic development instrument focused on a municipality’s energy costs, energy services, energy generation, consumption and service delivery.

Community energy plans support municipalities’ efforts to better understand and manage their local energy needs, identify opportunities for energy efficiency and clean energy integration, and develop robust plans to meet realistic goals. A CEP takes an integrated approach to energy planning by aligning energy, infrastructure and land use planning, setting a sustainable direction for a municipality’s future development.

The benefits of a CEP are clearly complementary to the City's ambitions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the strategy of which follows the Partners for Climate Protection’s Five Milestone Framework to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The City has successfully completed Milestone 1, "Create a Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory and Forecast"; Milestone 2, "Set an Emissions Reduction Target"; and Milestone 3, "Develop a Local Action Plan." The City of Windsor is currently at Milestone 4, "Implement the Local Action Plan or a Set of Activities"; and Milestone 5, "Monitor Progress and Reporting Results." The CEP is a central tenet of the City’s Climate Action Plan.