Regional cooperation leverages the collective purchasing and decision-making power of municipalities, opens the door to key implementation tools, lowers costs, builds confidence in decision-making, and ultimately can allow municipalities to accomplish projects that may not have been able to accomplish on their own. 

This Regional Pooled Municipal Energy Implementation model builds off of an existing program, the Regional Streetlight Procurement Program (RSLPP) developed by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC).  The DVRPC, a federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization for five counties in PA and 4 counties in New Jersey, will execute two additional rounds of pooled streetlight implementation organized within their region. In addition, this model will be used to develop a best practices, marketing, and outreach plan for other municipalities interested in managing energy costs and become more energy independent, through energy implementation projects such as municipal buildings, water/wastewater treatment facilities, and the installation of solar on municipal facilities. To sustain the program into future years, there will be a user fee of 1-3% of project costs from municipalities. 

DVRPC’s model includes hiring of a program technical consultant (specializing in street lighting technology), a program legal consultant, a financial consultant, and a municipal steering committee (comprised of 4-6 municipal representatives from the program).  DVRPC will develop, issue and then manage an RFP on behalf of the interested municipalities which will serve to identify a design services professional (DSP) or energy services company (ESCO) that will deliver an audit, execute project design, and manage the procurement and installation of the project for each participating municipality and include specification for the equipment and installation work, allowing the program to identify and lock in the best suite of products, services, and pricing for the municipalities.  Each municipality then has its own contract with the design services professional or ESCO identified through the RFP.  

One key item from this program is the development of a best practices report, summarizing key program data, and accompanying outreach and marketing.  This report will be developed to illustrates step-by-step how other regions in PA and across the country can develop and execute their own pooled regional energy implementation programs. A marketing and outreach plan will also be developed by DVRPC to showcase best practices to other regional audiences.  DVRPC will summarize key data on project costs and savings as well.

DVRPC’s first RSLPP achieved the following outcomes: