Delmont library captures $40,000 grant for solar panels, geothermal system

Delmont Public Library officials were excited when they broke ground on a new building in mid-November.

Now they will have an additional $40,000 to help install solar panels and other “green” features.

The library received a West Penn Power Sustainable Energy Fund grant, which will go toward the purchase of solar photo-voltaic panels along with a geothermal heating and cooling system.

It is one of numerous grants that library officials have applied for over the years as they prepare for a new location behind the borough building.

“We’ve started construction and moved some of the drainage systems on-site,” Dave Weber said. “The solar panels will be one of the last things to go in. Once we get the metal roof on, they can be installed. I’m guessing we’re probably talking April or May.”

The 34-kilowatt solar photo-voltaic system will meet all of the new library’s power needs, and can also serve as a hands-on teaching tool about solar energy.

That lesson is also not lost on other area libraries. Weber was meeting with Greensburg Hempfield Area Library officials on Monday to discuss the possibility of a solar component there.

“I think people are waking up,” Weber said. “No matter how you feel about climate change, I think something like this is the right thing to do.”

In addition to the solar panels and geothermal system, the library will also have a rainwater collection system to reuse rain water for landscape irrigation, with the added bonus of mitigating storm water runoff.

Weber plans to set up a streaming camera in the Delmont Borough office trained on the site, so that residents can monitor construction progress in real time.

For more on the West Penn grant program, see WPPSEF.org.