Allegheny County funneling grant to boost energy efficiency
Share with others:
Allegheny County towns will get help making their municipal buildings more energy efficient from a foundation that focuses on conservation and regional economic development.
The Richard King Mellon Foundation has given the county a $400,000 grant to help dozens of communities pay for energy-saving updates.
The foundation money will be added to federal stimulus funding that supports the county's $8.1 million energy efficiency and conservation program.
The effort will mean better use of energy resources on the municipal level that "will translate into savings for taxpayers and jobs for local workers," county Executive Dan Onorato said in a statement. The conservation programs are part of Mr. Onorato's broader Allegheny Green initiative designed to encourage environmentally friendly practices at all county facilities.
The effort to upgrade municipal buildings represents an attempt to get stimulus dollars and grant money out to as many communities as possible, county economic development director Dennis Davin said. "We wanted to encourage all municipalities to explore this type of energy saving," he said.
The budget for the municipal portion of the program had been $2.9 million. The new grant raises that number to $3.3 million. "We're incredibly thankful to the R.K. Mellon Foundation for this grant," Mr. Davin said.
The conservation program provides grants covering between half and all of the costs of the energy-saving improvements. The size of the grant allocations will be based on the percentage of low- and moderate-income residents in a community.
Places like Braddock, Rankin and Wilmerding will be eligible for 100 percent grant funding. Their populations of low- and moderate-income residents total 47 percent or more of their communities.
More affluent towns like Churchill, Fox Chapel, Moon and Upper St. Clair will qualify for grants equal to 50 percent of project costs. Their percentages of low- and moderate-income residents are no greater than 24 percent of the population.
A total of 104 communities participated in energy audits at their municipal buildings or other local government structures. The work, done by a consulting firm called Applied Energy Management, looked at such resource users as lighting, heating, air-conditioning and computer systems. Seventy-six municipalities will take part in the plan to make energy-saving upgrades.
First Published August 22, 2011 12:00 am
