The early results are in: A Sierra Club survey of 26 Orange County cities shows that 80 percent or more are auditing their energy use and have installed motion detectors in city buildings to switch off unneeded lights.

Three quarters have appointed committees or staff members to handle energy efficiency, and almost all are watching their fuel use and at least looking into the possibility of buying hybrid or alternative-fuel vehicles.

But members of the Sierra Club’s Orange County Global Warming Committee, which is conducting the survey, say less than 25 percent of most city fleets are composed of “green” vehicles. Only 40 percent of the cities surveyed have made “green” purchasing a policy and 31 percent offer telecommuting to employees.

“I’d say all the cities are doing something, but they may be rather modest,” said Chuck Buck, of Fullerton, the committee’s co-chairman.

The committee, which says it won’t release city-by-city results until spring, praised Orange County cities overall for taking steps now to cut energy use and emissions instead of waiting for government mandates.

But the committee members also say the cities so far have harvested just the “low-hanging fruit” to cut costs and save energy. For example, nearly all, they said, are using LED and CFL lights for streets, traffic and city-buildings,  and running at least modest public-service campaigns to encourage green building and carbon-footprint reduction.

Eighty percent are conducting or planning energy audits, while 83 percent have installed motion detectors, the surveys show.

The committee so far has received responses to their survey from 26 cities and the county government, responsible for unincorporated areas, Buck said.

Thirty to 40 volunteers, he said, have been visiting O.C. cities to encourage them to take part in the effort, called “Juicing Orange County.”

Buck said the Global Warming Committee hopes a detailed inventory of “green” measures taken by cities will encourage stepped-up efforts in Orange County among cities that might be lagging.

“We thought it would be a motivator for cities, because there’s some sense of peer pressure,” he said.

They also hope to receive completed surveys from all 34 cities before releasing city-by-city results, he said.

“We’d like to get them all in before we do that,” he said. “We don’t want to start pointing fingers or trying to draw attention to individual cities right now.”

Read survey questions.

(Register photo of Americorps volunteers installing solar panels on low-income homes in Anaheim by Paul Rodriguez. Anaheim Public Utilities took part in the project. )

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