Green Technology Assessment for Rural Communities

Rural communities must invest a range of infrastructure to support public services. Decision-making regarding municipal investments is often made by part-time, volunteer community leaders who lack access to up-to-date information regarding alternative technologies and approaches. Federal programs promoting alternative technologies are often focused on urban areas, with limited resources to address rural differences in scale, capacity, and financial resources. The fragmentation of federal (and state) programs makes it difficult for rural communities to get a systemic overview of their infrastructure choices. The objective of this project is to create an assessment system that compares the performance, cost, and capacity of existing and proposal rural community municipal infrastructure with the performance, cost, and capacity of alternative technologies and approaches in a systems framework. YWA will use its experience with rural communities and economic development to engange a round table of technology experts in assessing existing and alternative infrastructure in the Town of Richmond, Vermont. The results of this applied research will enable us to document potential cost savings, cost avoidance, and employment creation implications as a basis for Phase II commercializations.