Budderfly, Schneider Electric Expanding $500M Municipal Electrification Campaign Nationwide
Key Highlights
- - The program provides $500 million in project development capital to U.S. municipalities, enabling energy infrastructure upgrades without upfront costs.
- - Schneider Electric supplies energy management and automation technologies to integrate and optimize municipal energy systems.
- - Budderfly finances, deploys, operates, and maintains microgrid and energy projects, with municipalities repaying through energy savings.
A project partnership which is paying the upfront costs for building a microgrid for a Michigan city government now is spreading that offer across the nation to U.S. municipalities.
Microgrid integrator Schneider Electric and energy-as-a-service developer Budderfly are teaming up to modernize energy infrastructure and resiliency for municipal projects. Budderfly announced it will make $500 million in project development capital available to medium-size municipalities.
The Modernizing American Cities program will allow those municipalities which applied and are selected to upgrade on-site energy infrastructure without taking on debt or paying upfront capital costs. Budderfly will finance, deploy, operate and maintain the newly-built or upgraded energy infrastructure, while the municipal customers will pay back in installments through its energy savings.
“Cities are being asked to modernize aging facilities while electricity costs rise and budgets remain tight,” said Budderfly CEO Al Subbloie in a statement. “The question is how to get that work underway. With this $500 million commitment, we aim to help cities and communities modernize their energy infrastructure without requiring them to take on upfront capital costs.”
Schneider Electric will deliver energy management and automation technologies to integrate the energy systems at the municipal sites.
“When a city upgrades a facility, saving energy is only part of the job. A wastewater plant or city hall also has to serve residents when conditions get tough,” said Michele Hix, vice president of strategic customers for North America at Schneider Electric. “Budderfly’s model helps cities move forward without drawing on limited capital budgets.”
Schneider Electric and Budderfly joined forces for a similar project in the city of Cadillac, Michigan, recently. The work includes distributed energy resources installed across seven municipal sites, including city hall and the wastewater treatment plant.
The Cadillac municipal project also is capitalized by Budderfly’s energy-as-a-service model. The power generation portion of the $4.4 million contract consists of installing solar panels, battery energy storage and integrated microgrid capabilities that will allow the municipal facilities to function even during grid outages. The contract also focuses on energy efficiency through HVAC heating, cooling and lighting system upgrades, as well as installing electric vehicle infrastructure.
“This project is about taking a smarter, more resilient approach to serving our community,” Cadillac City Manager Marcus Peccia said at the time. “We’re able to modernize critical infrastructure, strengthen the reliability of essential services that residents rely on every day and bring greater predictability to our energy costs, all without requiring upfront taxpayer investment.”
Budderfly is a participant in Schneider Electric’s Accelerating Resilient Infrastructure Initiative announced in September 2025. Other companies participating in creating a pathway toward electrification deployment for commercial, industrial and mission-critical public sectors include Microsoft, Viridi, AlphaStruxure, Zurich insurance and Sprocket Energy, among others.
Rising commercial electric rates and aging grid infrastructure are pinching municipalities from both sides. A National League of Cities report earlier this year calculated that infrastructure spending increased at more than 60% of responding municipalities.
Another report from the New York University Furman Center’s Housing Solutions Lab indicates that small to mid-size cities were facing greater operational and fiscal strain relative to larger cities.
About the Author
Rod Walton, Microgrid Knowledge Managing EditorRod Walton, Microgrid Knowledge Managing Editor
Managing Editor
For Microgrid Knowledge editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].
I’ve spent the last 18 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. I was an energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World before moving to business-to-business media at PennWell Publishing, which later became Clarion Events, where I covered the electric power industry. I joined Endeavor Business Media in November 2021 to help launch EnergyTech, one of the company’s newest media brands. I joined Microgrid Knowledge in July 2023.
I earned my Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. My career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World, all in Oklahoma . I have been married to Laura for the past 36-plus years and we have four children and one adorable granddaughter. We want the energy transition to make their lives better in the future.
Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech are focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.
Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.