Environmental Sustainability Council

ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY COUNCIL ENERGY TRANSITION SUBCOMMITTEE Thursday, October 5, 2017 Dogwood Room, City Hall MINUTES CALL TO ORDER, 7:38 p.m.: Members Tim Stevens (Chair), Jon Ward, Nisha Thirumuthy, Aziz Shaik, Chris McCloud (8:09 p.m.,) City Staff: Kate Walker (Staff Liaison and Environmental Programs Coordinator); City Council Liaison: Dan Sze; Public: Mike Casey (candidate for state delegate in District 53). Public Comments: No public comments were received. Approval of Minutes (September 7, 2017): Minutes submitted by Tim Stevens were approved. Staff Report (Kate) – A draft Proclamation in support of National Energy Action month (October) was placed on the City Council’s agenda for Tuesday 10-OCT. It reiterates the City’s actions and commitments supporting energy conservation and use of renewables. Tim and Kate will present the proclamation (ETS members welcome to participate). The item is expected to be considered early in the Council’s agenda. Kate made “Energy” the topic of October’s “Operation EarthWatch” sheet. The 16-OCT City Council Work Session will be a walking tour of the Washington & Broad Streets intersection where new development is planned. It will start at 6 p.m. Ongoing Business Greenhouse Gas Inventory – Kate displayed the draft spreadsheet for the City’s 2012/2015 Greenhouse Gas Inventory provided by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG). There is no data yet on municipal fleets, and Nisha is continuing to investigate and quantify. It is believed that non-fleet municipal energy usage is likely included in the “Commercial” category. Nisha is quantifying the City’s GHG emissions so that we may separately identify them. Action Item 1: Nisha will reach out to Fairfax City regarding grant-funding options they have pursued for studying and/or developing renewables and energy efficiency. PACE – The Arlington County Board plans a first reading of their ordinance establishing a C-PACE program (Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy) for 21-OCT or 24-OCT. A vote on the C-PACE ordinance in expected in November, and is expected to be the first jurisdiction in Virginia to pass an ordinance. Scott Dicke, employed by SRS (firm selected by Arlington County to be their C-PACE Program Administrator), will discuss the benefits of PACE when he presents to Falls Church’s Economic Development Authority on 7-NOV at 7 p.m. and to the City Council’s Economic Development committee on 2-NOV at 9 a.m. Tim expressed interest in having stakeholders in the City review plans for C-PACE to determine if there is sufficient interest in requesting City Council to pass a C-PACE ordinance. Residential Building Codes – Unlike many states, Virginia does not adopt all of the International Energy Conservation Code energy efficiency provisions for residential construction. In the latest update of the residential building code, the BHCD has accepted only the duct-blaster test (limited applicability) and the voluntary Energy Rating Index, and left out a number of other provisions relating to higher insulation values, blower-door test, etc. Tim plans to discuss with Doug Frazer, the City’s building inspector. State Legislation and the Rubin Group – The next Rubin Group meeting will be 17-OCT. An announcement is expected then on what legislation the Group supports. Development Projects in the City – City Hall – Action Item 2: Tim will send a letter or email to James Mak (city staff member lead on the project) reiterating the ETS’ desire for EV charging station(s) in the project, and the need to remind HITT Contracting of the need for EV-suitable electrical conduit. On a related note, the State DEQ is tasked with distributing Virginia’s $93M share of the VW emissions settlement, but their process for doing so is not yet clear. Development Projects in the City – Schools Campus Site – The Perkins-Eastman cost estimate for a hybrid ground-source heat pump system ($1.7M greater than conventional HVAC) was included in the budget estimate underlying the $120M value of the bond referendum. The Oak Ridge estimate for unitary GSHP at the campus was $0.6M above conventional HVAC, and several jurisdictions have used unitary GSHPs rather than hybrid. These include York County, VA and Wakefield H.S. locally. Wakefield uses multiple residential units in parallel to take advantage of high-volume (low unit costs) and modularity for replacement. Arlington County architect and energy engineer are among the invitees to the 19-OCT ESC meeting. Action Item 3: The ETS will start cataloguing info from various GSHP facilities to provide to the School Board and others in choosing the green features of the new high school and campus. Jon will lead this activity. Dan Sze noted that WGL Energy has expertise and interest in re-examining options for district energy (integrated power, heating, and cooling among facilities) at the site. Development Projects in the City – Cottage Housing – Action Item 4: With the Railroad Avenue cottage-housing project approved and sales beginning, Jon will reach out to a local architect (Jack Wilburn) and developer Bob Young to determine whether new owners would be willing to share energy-usage data for the new high-efficiency residences, to inform future residential developers and City policy. Information Items We watched a short video of a Fairfax County high school senior advocating that the Fairfax School Board support installing PV on schools. Next meeting: Thursday, November 2, 2017.