Environmental Sustainability Council

Environmental Sustainability Council/Energy Transition Subcommittee Meeting Agenda June 20, 2024 ❖ 7:30pm 300 Park Ave, Council Chambers, Falls Church, Virginia 22046 ● Call to Order ● Roll Call - Conducted by Joseph Schiarizzi. All members and student representatives introduced themselves. o Joseph Schiarizzi, Chair, ESC o Matthew Cunningham, ESC o Michael Trauberman, Vice-Chair, ESC o Kurt Lawrence, Environmental Planner and Staff Liaison to the ESC o David Stile, ESC Member o Jennifer Tabola, ESC Member o Debbie Hiscott, ESC Liaison from City Council ● Introduction of Student Members - Welcomed new youth representatives. Noted the expectation of more student reps joining later in the summer and as the school year picks up. o Allie Campbell, Youth Rep o Lilly Anderson, Youth Rep o Wendy Appstone, Youth Rep ● Approval of May Meeting Minutes o Minutes were approved unanimously. ● Public Comment Period o No public comments were received either online or in person. ● Action Item: ESC Memo for One Time Funding – Joseph Schiarizzi (10 minutes) o Joseph discussed the draft memo to the City Council regarding the allocation of FY 2024 budget surplus for environmental initiatives. Obligation of funding to occur in September timeframe.  o Key suggestions included setting aside funding for solar panels on government buildings, protected bike lane development, and additional electric school bus purchases. o Decided to revisit this topic at the end of the meeting time permitting after getting progress updates from Andy and Kurt on GOEAP and CEAP. ESC Members to send additional ideas for the memo to the City Council asynchronously. ● Commercial Parking Relief Work Session – Jack Trainor (25 minutes) o Presentation by Jack Trainer postponed to July meeting. o Brief discussion on the importance of the topic and its upcoming review by the Planning Commission. Public hearing to take place the day before the next ESC meeting in July. City Council requests comments from the Planning Commission hearing and ESC by August 2. ● GOEAP Progress Report and Discussion – Andy Young (25 minutes) Report covered the progress made on the strategies outlined in the plan since its adoption in July 2023. Below is a detailed summary of the key points discussed: 1. Collaborations, Partnerships, and Plan Management o Accomplishments: ○ The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) submitted two applications to the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant (CPRG) Program , with support letters from the city. Updates about these to come in the Fall. These are highly competitive grants. ○ Andy Young is now serving as the chair of the Built Environment and Energy Advisory Committee (BEEAC) for MWCOG. o FY 25 Plans: ○ Establish an interdepartmental working group between the general government and schools. ○ Implement quarterly updates to the city manager's office and schools. 2. Employee Education and Training  o Accomplishments: ○ Fleet supervisor completed electric vehicle (EV) training. Responsible for electric school bus fleet. o FY 25 Plans: ○ Develop a training plan for the rest of the facility maintenance staff, focusing on EVs. 3. Metrics, Tracking, and Reporting o Accomplishments: ○ Acquired new fleet and fuel management software (ECOS) for better tracking of fuel usage and vehicle inventory. ○ Procured and set up a new energy management software platform (EnergyCAP) to track utility data and energy usage across city buildings. Andy delivered a live demo of EnergyCAP software and emphasized the importance of a platform capability like this for gathering data, interpreting data, and decision making. It is a foundational tool for the future. Has potential to show things like solar energy generation versus usage and pulling in data like water usage. Features: ■ Mapping: Visual representation of buildings with energy and cost intensity metrics. ■ Data Tracking: Monthly data tracking for buildings, parks, and streetlights. ■ Utility Integration: Automatic data import in Bill Capture system from Dominion for most utility bills. Benefits: ■ Facilitates tracking of energy use and cost across various city facilities. ■ Helps in identifying high energy-consuming buildings and areas for improvement. ■ Provides a platform for tracking the impact of energy efficiency projects, such as the installation of geothermal wells. o FY 25 Plans:  ○ Continue reporting and provide annual updates to the Environmental Sustainability Council (ESC). 4. Clean Electricity Supply o Accomplishments: ○ Purchased Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) for 100% of general government operations via ERCOT. ○ Initiated discussions on rooftop solar installations and received reports from Dominion and Tiger Solar. Goal is solar installations on all buildings where feasible by 2030. ■ Solar not recommended for slate roofs. City Hall and Mary Styles library deemed poor candidates and low priority. Joseph pushed back on overlooking slate roofs as part of assessment. Matt Cunningham agreed with the assessment that solarizing a slate roof presents significant challenges and substantial expense and should be deprioritized. ■ Mary Ellen Hendersen will be a good candidate for solar when future roof replacement takes place. Andy mentioned any desire to add solar could bump up priority in the schools Capital Improvement Plan. Estimated electricity offset is 25%. ■ PPAs are one option for solar on buildings. Terms are usually 25 years. Joseph asked what happens after 25 years. Andy responded that the conversations are not yet far enough along for those answers. PPAs must be 50kW systems or higher otherwise they need to be purchased up front by the city. Community Center, for example, would need to be a purchased city and is not a candidate for a PPA. ■ Community Center Solar proposal discussed. Projected to have a 15-year payback period. Shading and solar orientation for some city buildings is not optimum. 15-year payback is considered on the longer end of the spectrum. The group discussed the bigger picture needs of carbon reduction, the social cost of carbon, as well as there still being an ROI even if it takes 15-17 years. Mike highlighted that the proposals build selling SRECs into ROI which may not be something the city should do. o FY 25 Plans:  ○ Continue discussions with schools about purchasing RECs to cover their operations. Their power use is 6-8x that of the general government. ○ Continue exploring rooftop solar installation opportunities. 5. Energy Efficiency in Buildings o Accomplishments: ○ Progress on the HVAC system at the community center. Geothermal was not modeled in the original GOEAP plan. ○ LED street light project is underway, with all work orders submitted to Dominion. Targeting completion by end of calendar year. o FY 25 Plans: ○ Complete the HVAC project and LED street light installations. 6. Strategic Electrification of Buildings o Accomplishments: ○ Ongoing projects to replace gas equipment, such as at the Aurora House. o FY 25 Plans: ○ Conduct an inventory of gas equipment in buildings and plan for electrification. Joseph asked about contractors that use gas powered equipment for landscaping. Asked if RFQs should include request for electrification. Andy said this is not something they are focused on and that in-house equipment is used minimally. 7. Fleet Optimization and Sustainable Fleet Procurement o Accomplishments: ○ Implemented a motor pool system with five shared vehicles. ○ Centralized fleet maintenance management. ○ Consolidated fleet purchasing plan for FY 24-25. ■ Reviewed fleet vehicles. Mike emphasized the need to perform thorough justification write-up including full lifecycle analysis any time an ICE vehicle needs to be procured that deviates from the  GOEAP plan agreed upon by city council. Joseph agreed and believes the city council needs to be aware of any deviations from the plan. ● 14-passenger vehicle to be purchased and shared with schools. Used for senior center. Will also be used for sports trips from school. ● Mission critical vehicles - Vehicles must have a certain platform to support law enforcement equipment. Patrol vehicle target is 6-year replacement term. ○ Chevy Blazer electric option was pushed out 1 year. ○ Ford turned over their Explorer. Hybrids are still not available until next year. ○ Chevy Tahoes have been shrunk to Ford Explorers ● Seven vehicles used by DPW will be replaced with EVs and Hybrids using the green fleet grant ■ Received approval for the Green Fleet Grant from HUD in May. Vehicle purchases must meet federal requirements. ■ Discussion occurred about recent school diesel bus purchase. Coordination between city government and schools was deemed unsatisfactory by a couple members of the ESC. ■ Topic of overcrowding on school buses was discussed. Part of this is an issue with staffing. Part of it is maintenance issues with old fleet of buses. o FY 25 Plans: ○ Repeat the fleet prioritization process. ○ Purchase additional EVs and hybrids using the Green Fleet Grant. ● CEAP Progress Report – Kurt Lawrence (25 minutes) o Reviewed progress on six strategies, including enhancing access to car-free alternatives, accelerating the shift to EVs, improving building efficiency, and clean energy o Discussed the challenges in collecting data on local actions taken (heat pump installs, heat pump hot water heaters, etc) and the need for continued community engagement.  o Reviewed short, medium, and long term actions in CEAP progress report. ○ Joseph was complimentary of new bump-outs and crosswalks being built by the rapid response team across the city. ○ Jennifer asked about usage rates from Capital Bikeshare with increase of fleet capabilities. Kurt to follow up. ○ Golf carts were discussed. It was mentioned that they are already legal in the commonwealth but do require things like seat belts. The Commissioner of Revenue still needs to determine things like taxation and registration for the city. ○ David requested the city perform more experimentation on the traffic calming front that uses techniques like nature-based stormwater solutions for bump-outs. This was discussed as an item for funding to add to the memo to the city council. Jennifer raised a challenge that arises with who will maintain the space. A template is needed to keep them low maintenance and avoid the tragedy of the commons. ○ Commercial Energy Audit - RFQ only received a single response that was out of price range. Seeking to capture smaller businesses and complete 10, 20, 30 audits with a single energy audit vendor. Kurt is reaching out to neighboring counties to determine if there are other strategies to employ. Kurt seeking ideas for vendors in the region who may be interested. o Debbie talked about a GetGreen app being developed that could be helpful in capturing data on decisions for appliance changes within the city. ● Green Building White Paper – Kurt Lawrence (25 minutes) o Overview of green building concepts not explicitly featured in city code, including solar orientation, tree canopy, biophilic design, bird-friendly design, and electric appliances. Report is intended to explore green building design concepts to codify. o Discussed potential next steps, such as updating special exception criteria and creating a checklist for green building practices to be reviewed during the special exception process. o Emphasized the importance of learning from neighboring jurisdictions and incorporating best practices. o Jennifer recommended indicating some level prioritization for some of the implementation strategies. Delineate what is already required and what can be  done above and beyond. Indicate which strategies are higher impact and showing what is already required. o Matt suggested covering other standards like Passive House and Zero Energy Ready Homes (DOE program) in addition to LEED. o Kurt acknowledges this document is most relevant to special exemption buildings and less so by-right development. It was discussed how a checklist from this document can be used as secondary criteria (not law but things that must be considered). Matthew requested EnergyStar be added to the checklist. ● Adjourn o Meeting adjourned by Joseph Schiarizzi. ● Next Meeting o July 2024, exact date to be confirmed. Topics to include the postponed commercial parking relief work session and ADU discussions.