Fayette County, WV Case Study: A Look at the Movement towards Energy and Water Efficiency

The focal area for this study is Fayette County, West Virginia. Using a qualitative semi-structured interview process, information was gathered so as to present a clear overview of what both the private and public sector are doing with regard to energy and/or water efficiency within the county. Given the pervasive nature of the issue of efficiency, interviewees were encouraged to describe their agency or organizational efforts as it relates to what they thought “energy and/or water efficiency” entailed. On the basis of the twenty-one interviews conducted, the progress being undertaken by different entities was noted and divided under five themes (e.g., capability building, infrastructure, events, reduced cost, and education). This idea of theme is then integrally tied to the main idea, message, or objective of a given activity. This framework is useful in order to show the general entity’s (e.g. community, government, not-for-profit, or for-profit) pattern of activity. Similar to entity activities being organized according to a related theme, challenges to the various entities are categorized for ease of dissemination. These categories encourage analysis and understanding of whether there are challenges that are in common between entities as well as what may be a particularly troublesome category for an entity and may need more attention focused on that category so as to lessen the challenges. The case study then summarizes the opportunities and challenges present in Fayette County with regard to their potential applicability to other municipalities in Appalachia.