Millvale is a self reliant urban solar village.
All energy initiatives utilize three strategies focused on increasing Millvale’s energy conservation, generation, and resilience. Millvale is home to thirteen residential and commercial solar energy projects generating 170kW of electricity. The Millvale Community Library first installed solar panels in 2013, and expanded its solar installations to 22kW in 2016 with support from The Heinz Endowments and the Green Mountain Energy Sun Club. This gives the Library the financial capacity to offer more community programming, while also fulfilling its environmental goals. In the following years, four homeowners and the Borough of Millvale Community Center solar installations would continue this momentum.
In 2019, New Sun Rising developed a state of the art DC microgrid and smart building monitoring system at The Millvale Food + Energy Hub. This project was made possible through New Sun Rising and an innovative partnership between the University of Pittsburgh’s GRID Institute, EIS Solar, Steel City Energy Conservation, Triboro Ecodistrict, Sigma Luminous, and the Henry L Hillman Foundation. While an unfortunate basement fire in 2023 led to the removal of this system, the facility remains powered by a 35 kW rooftop and garden patio canopy solar arrays.
The Food + Energy Hub is a resilience center and also home to solar energy education and training. The Solar Workforce + Education program works with the Community College of Allegheny County to offer a 40 hour training and NABCEP solar installer certification to adults. The Teen Solar Fellowship was the first iteration of this initiative and introduced students to technical skills and career experiences.
Millvale’s Energy Plans also focus on working to conserve energy use by implementing energy saving techniques and behaviors. As a participant in ReEnergize Pgh’s Energy Efficiency Challenge, Millvale won a community energy efficiency competition in which participating households demonstrated over 8% energy savings cumulatively compared to the previous year. Residents not only changed their behavior, but also learned about how they can make improvements to their homes to help improve performance.
Additional efforts have included energy audits, insulation and lighting efficiency changes, and working with businesses on energy saving strategies. Currently, a deep energy retrofit commercial construction project is taking place at 216 North Ave where the Millvale Community Development Corporation is leading a business district Zero Energy certified development in partnership with New Sun Rising.