2040 Comprehensive Plan: Envision Shakopee

ISSUES&OPPORTUNITIES In a changing environment, with increasingly frequent and severe weather events, the City of Shakopee has an opportunity to address community resilience directly through policies and actions to mitigate the severity and negative impacts of hazards, disasters and climate change. Additionally, Shakopee has an opportunity to harness new energy-related technologies to create a more livable, healthy, thriving place; and to become a community that is increasingly self-sufficient in food production and water management. In the field of solar energy, production, storage, and distribution are changing rapidly. In many ways, we are still in the early days of solar adoption and the potential for significant advances in the field, from solar cell efficiency to financial structures for system installation and solar-to-traditional-grid distribution, mean that it is more important than ever to preserve space for solar generation. For Shakopee, this preservation of solar resources includes the placement of landscape vegetation; the protection of south-facing rooftops, walls and lots; and the ability to use part of existing lots for use by detached collector systems. Furthermore, in Minnesota, solar access can be challenging because of it lower winter solar altitude, where the atmosphere itself can absorb considerable sunlight and limit solar collection.

CHALLENGES » » Increasing energy prices and environmental costs » » Rapid change in the field of renewable energy » » Low winter solar altitude for solar energy production OPPORTUNITIES » » Preservation of solar resources including vegetation, building site design, and collector systems » » Technological advances in renewable energy production and storage » » Advances in energy efficiency for buildings, vehicles, and other everyday technologies. » » Growing awareness of the value of sustainable design principles and local food systems

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