When Lisbet Searle-White walked into the Meadville Public Library in June, she wasn’t looking for books. Armed with the necessary equipment, she was hunting energy vampires in the western Pennsylvania library.
What she found — two aging dehumidifiers —were quietly sucking up the electricity in the basement, costing the library hundreds of dollars each month.
“I knew we were spending a lot on electricity,” Dan Slozat, executive director of the library, said. “I did not know where we stood in comparison to comparable buildings and organizations our size.”
It turns out, they were on the high end, which Searle-White found using her voltage meter to track electricity usage.
As the discussion around energy resources heats up, states and municipalities are taking action. From classrooms to city halls, practical solutions are emerging, and for many Americans, the urgency is financial.
The library’s outdated heating and cooling system generates excessive humidity, creating an environment unsuitable for books. While they don’t have the money to finance a new system, they were able to immediately replace the dehumidifier that seemed to be driving up energy consumption.
Within weeks of replacing them, the library’s electric bill dropped nearly $300 a month, paying for the new $200 dehumidifier instantly. Now, the library has the humidifier hooked up to a drain in the basement so it’s self-sufficient.
Slozat is hopeful because the unit doesn’t constantly run the way the old one did, it will also have a longer lifespan and won’t need to be replaced as soon, saving the library more money.
Searle-White, the Green Building Alliance’s Director of Outreach and Technical Assistance, has walked through 17 buildings in the Meadville area in the past year. The Green Building Alliance, a nonprofit based in Pittsburgh, works across sectors and communities to create efficient and high-performing spaces that are healthy for people and the surrounding environment.
GBA strategically chose to work with the city of Meadville due to its surrounding rural area, low-socioeconomic population per the U.S. Census tract, aging infrastructure and important health care and higher education partners.
It received a three-year grant from Pennsylvania electric utility settlements to work with one municipality. In its first year, the alliance partnered with 14 local organizations to improve 98 buildings in Meadville.
The GBA is an example of how communities are finding their own paths forward as federal support shifts. At the end of November, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a reorganization of the agency to prioritize oil and nuclear resources over renewable energy sources.
Low-hanging fruit
The average American is facing higher utility bills, with households paying 9.6% more from 2024 to 2025, according to the Center for American Progress. That rate outpaces wage growth and inflation, reminding people that the cheapest energy is energy not used.
In Meadville, GBA’s simple dehumidifier fix is an example of a simple solution with an immediate impact.
Ashley DiGregorio, GBA’s senior director of energy and communities, said infusing resources into rural areas with historic buildings benefits the local economy and, in turn, its residents.
Sitting in a three-floor building that houses an art gallery, cafe and coworking space, DiGregorio is positioned in front of a hanging lamp that bobbed up and down.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I feel a cold draft on my right leg, and I’m watching — do you see that lamp shade?” GBA’s Searle-White said. “This is a total example of building science.”
In the 1890s structure, cold air leaking through gaps is drawn toward the heater in the corner, creating a current that makes the lamp bob.
Searle-White moved through the building, pointing out the unsealed roof, exposed brick walls and lack of proper ventilation. She suggested simple fixes: Add a filter slot cover to the furnace, or install weather stripping, door sweeps and proper insulation.
“Insulation is a really important thing,” she said. “Things you can do as a homeowner would be weather strips and sweeps on your doors, making sure your windows are shut all the way and locked in the wintertime, because they all become little chimneys.”
Those are the low-hanging fruit solutions, so to speak, along with replacing incandescent light bulbs with LED ones, insulating an attic hatch and replacing aging appliances with EnergyStar ones, Searle-White said.
“You’ve got to think about the common places — the air leaks, the attic floor, the attic hatch, the ventilation, the roof — then you can think about having triple-pane windows,” Searle-White said, emphasizing that there are simple solutions before moving to expensive ones.
Although EnergyStar appliances cost more upfront, Searle-White said they’re worth it. “A new fridge uses like $5 a month instead of $20 or $25, so over the life of the unit, it really makes a big difference.”
For those who have already installed the basics, passive house construction offers a roadmap for ultra-low-energy, high-comfort buildings, using extreme insulation, air tightness and high-performance windows. In Meadville, two contractors from local construction company Sturdy Boots received passive house training and certification in Pittsburgh thanks to GBA, bringing expertise back to a community where many buildings predate modern energy codes.
Passive house uses a fabric-first approach, especially important during the construction of new houses. They are built with energy efficiency in mind. It is becoming increasingly relevant as people in the West use insulation not only to keep heat and cool air inside but to keep wildfire smoke outside.
Education as infrastructure
In Ada, Oklahoma, educator Doug Weirick is harnessing a different sort of energy — one that could move green initiatives forward for generations to come. Along with two other retired science teachers and one current teacher, the group is known as the Oklahoma Renewable Energy Education Program.
OREEP hosts workshops for K-12 public teachers up to four times a year thanks to its partnership with the Oklahoma chapter of the Sierra Club, an environmental nonprofit.
“We give them kits — a solar kit and a wind energy kit — that have solar panels and a wind turbine, so we do experiments with the teachers during the workshops so they’re comfortable doing the same concept experiments with their students,” Weirick said.
Oklahoma has abundant wind and solar resources, making it ideal for renewable energy education. Weirick hopes students will think positively about technical fields and take knowledge home to their families. As someone who installed 18 solar panels on his own roof using tax incentives, he understands that economics matter — but education creates a ripple effect beyond individual households.
In Daleville, Indiana, the Daleville Community Schools are taking a different approach to educating students. In 2024, Daleville Elementary started up its new solar field.
The solar field, three rows of solar panels located next to a nearby church, covers about 50% of the school’s electricity usage. Dr. Greg Roach, who was superintendent before retiring this year, was instrumental in installing the solar field.
“Two reasons prompted us to pursue a solar field for our school corporation,” he said. “The first was to allow us to reduce our electric bill, which in turn would reduce expenditures. Second, there was a rebate that provided about one-third of the costs back to us.”
The school district used its Rainy Day Fund to cover the $364,000 project. The district’s monthly electric bill before the solar field was $9,912. The monthly average now is about $6,713 — nearly a 33% reduction — which means the unit field should pay for itself within a decade.
While individual schools and educators plant seeds for the future, some communities have taken a more comprehensive approach, dedicating staff and multimillion-dollar budgets to transforming their municipalities now.
Municipalities in action
While federal support has shifted — with tax credits for electric vehicles ending Sept. 30 and residential clean energy credits set to expire Dec. 31 — some states are taking matters into their own hands.
Top states leading in clean energy mandates and adoption include California, New York, Washington, Oregon, Illinois, Colorado and Massachusetts.
The city of Salem, Massachusetts, created a Sustainability and Resiliency Department in 2021 to meet the state’s carbon neutrality goal by 2050.
Neal Duffy, director of the department, said in addition to administering programs and policies to help them reach that goal, the city has set its own goals. The city uses taxpayer dollars to update technologies in city-owned schools, buildings and its vehicle fleet.
The department’s four-person team includes an energy manager, a project manager focused on coastal flooding adaptation and an outreach coordinator.
“That person is very focused on the residents and helping them get connected to programs and policies that are available to them, whether it’s through the utility companies or the state, and just does a lot of handholding and assisting people navigate that world, which can be confusing and often changing,” Duffy said of the outreach coordinator.
He said a majority of its funding comes from the state and utility companies. The city explores federal options, but said those resources have lessened with the change of administration.
With consistent leadership in the state, though, community buy-in and support have not been an issue. Climate goals have been a top priority for the city, leading to improved weatherization for buildings, conversion to LED lightbulbs and installation of electric vehicle charging stations.
From 2022 through the end of 2026, it’s estimated that Salem’s Sustainability and Resiliency Department will have been awarded about $2.8 million in grants and nearly $1 million in utility incentives. The municipality is expected to have 10 electric vehicles in its fleet by the end of 2026, with 25 charging stations for those vehicles and 99 charging station permits granted in the community.
Two fast-charge stations were installed at the police headquarters last year for the new electric vehicles, enabling them to charge up to 80% in 15 minutes so they can continue operating on a 24/7 schedule.
To measure the energy efficiency savings, Duffy pointed to Salem Power Choice, a program that grants participating residents access to sustainable alternative energy sources off the national grid. Since its inception in 2016, Salem Power Choice participants have saved more than $22 million in electricity costs. Its energy savings are the equivalent of removing 43,379 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles from the road for one year.
But state support isn’t everything. Sometimes it comes down to individual commitment.
Home investments that pay off
For some people, the green energy argument is personal. Mankato, Minnesota, residents Kathy Brynaert and Tony Filipovitch exemplify what happens when personal commitment meets practical payback.
“We’re aging former hippies,” Filiipovich said. “Energy conservation, growing our own food, those things have been part of our lives going back 40 or 50 years.”
The “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” campaign of the 1970s became their motto in life.
Previously, Filipovitch taught urban studies at Minnesota State University; Brynaert served in the Minnesota House of Representatives.
While other people save up for grand vacations and nice cars, they were saving up for a geothermal system.
“We see energy use as part of reducing the use of nature as much as you can,” Brynaert explained.
They live in a Victorian-era farmhouse built in the 1880s with various additions. They explored solar panels, but were told they’d have to cut down trees on the property, which they were not willing to do.
At the beginning of this century, they began to save for geothermal energy. Geothermal energy works by harnessing the Earth’s underground temperature and transforming it into usable energy within the home.
After a decade of saving, the system was installed in 2009. They faced some obstacles on the way, as there were multiple additions with varying foundations, and sat on top of a slab of limestone.
Crews drilled five wells across the couple’s property and ran ducts up between the studs of the house.
Prior to the installation of the whole-home heating and cooling system, the couple had one window unit in the living room and would sleep on the floor under it during hot summer days.
With the whole-home geothermal system, they spent about the same amount on heating and cooling the whole house as they did when they were just running the one window unit.
At the time, heat exchangers weren’t ideal for Minnesota winters, requiring a backup source. The technology has since improved, making it viable in cold climates.
“There was a lot of learning for us and the company that installed the unit,” Brynaert said.
They learned to seal air leaks first — insulation is cheaper than buying a larger system to compensate for heat loss.
Brynaert believes lower-income residents need help spreading costs over time. Filipovitch suggests ‘district geothermal,’ where neighbors share laterally dug systems. Since streets require replacement every 50 years, upgrades could be phased in.
The couple also subscribes to a solar farm, which allows them to pay a monthly fee and have access to an off-site solar farm for energy without having to install solar panels of their own.
The couple was able to use incentives to install their geothermal system, which Brynaert said are not as readily available.
“At the point we did our geothermal (unit), there were federal credits and state credits for various forms of alternative energy, including geothermal, so that was part of the incentive that actually moved us to make that decision,” she said. “I do think we have lost focus. I mean, when you say policy changes, return some awareness of the value of insulating people’s homes, helping people at all levels.”
The couple continually upgrades their system and advocates for environmental stewardship through renewable energy. In energy consumption audits, they’re typically on the very low end of energy usage. Last year, they were in the top 10% in energy efficiency in the state.
Whether it’s a teacher with a solar kit, a superintendent watching utility bills drop, or a city department coordinating green energy efforts, solutions exist at every level. The question isn’t whether to act, but where to start. Education, accessible financing, and efficiency basics are all part of the equation, but maintaining focus is key to ensuring green energy makes a difference.
As Brynaert noted, “Alternative energy isn’t a partisan issue. It’s really an issue for humanity’s survival in the long run.”