Green Drinks in Wheeling

Mary Ellen Cassidy organized the event. She’s the director of the Appalachian Institute at Wheeling Jesuit University, a center of research and analysis, education and action that tries to address struggles Appalachian people face.

“I did a lot of research,” Cassidy says.

“I looked into community energy programs like this throughout the nation: New York, Vermont, Wisconsin, Kentucky. I got in touch with a lot of those coordinators and tried to collect lessons learned—what worked and what didn’t. Then we held small focus groups and meetings in Wheeling with some of the community leaders and business people and home owners and tried to figure out how we can adapt research we’ve done to fit our community. We came up with this program.”

In addition to the Appalachian Institute, the event was also co-sponsored by the Wheeling Academy of Law and Science—a non-profit organization with a mission of education outreach located in one of the historic buildings in downtown Wheeling dubbed “The First State Capitol.”

Patrick Cassidy explains that the historic building, built in 1858, from which West Virginia’s first governor gave his inaugural address, has recently undergone an energy audit of its own.

“We’ve had an energy audit done. We had a walk-though with a couple energy experts who converted it to about twenty recommendations. It goes everywhere from, finish replacing the windows, to replacing the roof with a white roof instead of the black rubber roof we have now,” Cassidy says.

“A lot of the recommendations are just common sense things that, when you’re busy in your profession practicing law—I don’t have time to think about it. We just pay the utility bills every month and we have been told that if we accomplish this the savings will be tremendous.”

The Cassidys acquire their energy audit through the United States Department of Agriculture’s Rural Energy for America Program. They’re also working with Rita Gale Cruise, a project manager who works with Natural Capitol Investment Fund to help finance energy projects.

“This is one of the buildings we did an energy audit on,” Cruise explains.

“They wanted this to be an example of how you do energy efficiency. The State Capital Building is just absolutely wonderful because you get a chance to see what a historic building can be and how you can save energy as part of that.”

Cruise works with a variety of small businesses and farms throughout West Virginia.

“We’re a non-profit community development lender. We work with banks; we work with the USDA and the SBA. We work with all different entities to get energy efficiency improvements done to save them money and to finance the project in general.”

Cruise was just one of the energy experts available there. Cassidy worked with the Department of Energy and other organizations to come up with a group of experts who could talk to community members.

David Ruhl, for example, is the Weatherization Manager in the northern West Virginia branch of the Change Inc., a community action agency. The agency has been weatherizing homes in West Virginia since 1987.

Ruhl says they’ve served a lot of low-income families, he has a waiting list of about two years right now, and with federal cut-backs, the wait might be longer in coming years. A large part of what his organization does is educating individuals on how they can conserve energy day to day.

“There are so many things people can do to help themselves,” Ruhl says.

“Compact florescent light bulbs are a big one. Thinking back to my childhood, if my mom was baking or cooking the first thing she would do is turn on the oven to get it preheated and then half an hour or forty-five minutes later she’s putting dinner in the oven. The way stoves are designed now, ten, fifteen minutes is all it takes to heat it up.”

Ruhl advises people to dry multiple loads of laundry in succession to take advantage of the already heated drum in the drier. He says plugging TVs and cable boxes into a power strip and switching the power strip off when not in use can save a lot of energy and money, too, even if it’s inconvenient to reset some devices. He says otherwise, these devices use a lot of electricity even when they aren’t on.

Cassidy also invited Edward Outlaw from a company called GoodCents that serves utility companies by working to make their operations more efficient. Outlaw has a message about a rebate program available to Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power customers.

“What we’re doing for the residential customers—we’re providing a free home energy audit to any customer that is Wheeling Power or Appalachian Power in the state of West Virginia,” Outlaw says.

"They’ll actually come through and do a walk-through of your facility and tell you what you can do to save money on your energy costs. They’ll bring a kit of CFLs and low-flow aerators to help you save money and do the instillation on those as well.”

Outlaw says between commercial and residential facilities, his company has over $5 million allocated this year to help customers achieve greater energy efficiency. Outlaw says when power companies invest in these programs it’s a win-win.

“The power companies are able to operate more efficiently,” Outlaw says. “It saves them money in man-hours and in bringing units on and off. It helps consumers relying on the grid which helps them control the power better.”

Cassidy says studies have confirmed that for every dollar utility companies spend educating customers on how to be energy efficient, they get a return investment of $1.26. She says home and business owners and schools may have even more to gain.

And while convincing some community members to seriously consider energy makeovers is the short-term goal of the evening, Cassidy says the larger goal is to inspire action within the community at large and thereby reinvigorate the economy.

“It needs to be a volume community level so that construction people, home repair people, HVAC people start hiring again,” Cassidy says.

“And new companies start up. Wouldn’t it be great if college students in our area started a small company based on energy management and software for these different energy efficiency technologies? There are all kinds of possibilities here but we need that volume. It can’t just be one or two.”