Monaca Community Energy Planning

STRATEGIC ENERGY PLANNING AND ROADMAP

Shell Chemical is currently building a massive, multi-billion dollar petrochemical plant (known as an ethane cracker plant) in Beaver County, about 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh.  The environmental impact of this plant to these communities may not be fully understood for some time, but there are many local communities concerned that this impact will be devastating while not providing any real economic impact.  The plant will bring only an anticipated 600 jobs to the region.   

Leading the voices on a sustainable and equitable transition in Beaver County is the Borough of Monaca.   Monaca is roughly a 2.4 square mile community on the Ohio River with approx.. 6,000 residents.  They have adopted the EcoDistricts Protocol to frame their pathway forward, balancing key imperatives of equity, climate and resilience.    Key to their EcoDistricts ambitions is a vision to rethink their dated, inefficient and carbon-intensive energy systems.  In 2019, Monaca hired a team led by Steven Baumgartner to realize this vision.

Steven led a community-scale energy strategy to transition the Borough of Monaca from fossil-fuels while creating lower-costs and more equitable outcomes for all its residents.   As part of this process, the team created a robust energy and greenhouse-gas baseline, established various pathways to achieve the Borough’s goals and outlined short-, medium- and long-term actions to achieve them.  This project balanced an ambitious future vision with a tactical roadmap for transition.   Through renewable energy partnerships for community solar projects, investments in city-owned building renovation and efficiencies, and key infrastructure shifts to electrification (vs. natural gas), the Borough has a clear pathway for cost-effective energy future.   One bold innovative idea resulting from this plan is to partner to install solar arrays on the Borough’s most visible icons:  their bridges!

Steven led this effort while at SmithGroup.

Location:  Monaca, PA

Client:  RiverWise and Borough of Monaca Date: 2019