Chester seeks energy grant
By JEN MATSICK, For The Weirton Daily TimesCHESTER - A recent development in energy grant funding may keep the Chester City Building on top of heating bills next winter.
Chester City Council has been on the lookout for energy grants that could defray the cost of updating the city building's heating system and enable the installation of air conditioning.
Council's vigilance was rewarded Nov. 16 when Mayor Ken Morris announced that council may apply for an energy grant which was recently announced by U.S. Representative Nick Rahall, D-Beckley.
Rahall announced Nov. 3 that the Department of Energy has awarded more than $10 million in funding to West Virginia under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
The funding part of the DOE's Energy Efficiency and Block Grant program, which is meant to provide local governments and communities with the resources and education needed to improve building energy efficiency.
"This funding will support investments in state-wide and local level energy solutions to help strengthen West Virginia's economy and create jobs at the local level," Rahall said then.
Of the money awarded to the state, Morris said, $289,000 is available between Brooke and Hancock counties, and a piece of that could be Chester's if the city applies for it.
Morris returned from an energy conference in Flatwoods, W.Va. on Nov. 5 with more information on the grant.
"I had a look at the application while I was there," Morris said. "It's pretty detailed and time-consuming."
If awarded the funding, council would use the money toward installing air conditioning and updating the city building's heating system.
Council confirmed that a lot of unnecessary money is spent on heating bills in the winter, because the heat cannot be sectionalized.
For example, if a group renting out the multi-purpose room needs to turn the heat on, the heat will go on in the entire building. Another room that causes headache with heating bills is council chambers, which is a large room and is not used on a daily basis, but takes up a lot of heat because of its large windows.
"It's just the size of the building and the cost of gas (to heat it)," Municipal Building Manager Mike Dotson said, adding that the building gets natural gas bills in the $7,000 range in the winter.
Dotson implied that the ideal heating system for the building would be one in which each room has its own individual heating control that can be switched on or off.
(Matsick can be contacted at jmatsick@reviewonline.com)
