Energy Advisory Committee

MEAC Meeting Minutes 11/19/2013 Attending: Dan Jones, Joey Miller, Anne Watson, Kiel Corey, Hannah Reckhow, Alex Prolman, Jessie Baker, Tim Shea, Robert Dostas (Green Mountain Power), Bill Neuberger, Dan Costin, Allison Hollingsworth, Andrea Colnes, Jamie Irving (Waterbury LEAP) Meeting started 7:02 Minutes were approved at 7:04 Coordination of VECAN event (Dec 7th) in Fairlee Joey: Have had over 300 people in past years, this year’s goal is 400. You can sign up online. Set up carpool? Let Dan know at end of meeting Waterbury LEAP: Jamie Irving shared her experience working to make Waterbury the greenest town in VT. The Solar Challenge: about 3000 homes participated, from 60 homes to 130 homes doubled kilowatts, on track to double again this year. Municipal efforts:  Real estate; Created inventory of public owned parcels and sorted, sometimes technical considerations find obstacles, from 30 sites to 5 (size, location of power lines, out of sight, south facing, not wetland, etc.)  Financials; brought in investors, provided calculations and models, Green Lantern Capital helped  Political will; 3d sketch up to visualize project helped, select board included champions of project Schools: principal championed, important to find the right champions! Having a clear vision helped. Business/nonprofit: not much success despite ‘solar for businesses’ events, none had land and didn’t understand what a good deal it was Residential: about normalizing what solar looks like - photo installation showed their home ‘in the mix’ and how many people have solar, articles in local paper, annual fair Andrea: What kind of outreach? Jamie: Co-hosted home parties! Found ‘poster boys’/familiar faces in community to host/speak Visibility demystifies! Andrea: What kind of organizing capacity did this require? Jamie: Family, no paid staff, intern for a while, pizza party ~100 people attended ended with 15 leads Done in spare time … Joey: Probably not the norm… Jamie also discussed the trend of community solar and importance of knowing policy and financial landscape, and being ambitious. Solar RFP Jessie: RFP is out, site visit 10/31 with about 6 vendors, additional information on website, responses due 12/6, once those are in will need help from committee evaluating responses, interest from all over country Alex: Three biggest issues - info on website is insufficient, confusion on why Montpelier wants to retain RECs, and issue with patch of land that project will be on. Why is REC issue biggest limitation? We obviously want to keep RECs, right thing to do, but it’s also issue of competing for investment dollars. Joey: hopefully this becomes a nonissue - Connecticut has refused VT RECs Dan: Deal killer for the vendors? Alex: Not quite, but makes more difficult Robert: Selling RECs brings significant business and money to VT, maybe we can transition to selling less. Carbon doesn’t know borders so anything we can to do build renewable is good. How do you define success? Joey: But there should be truth in advertizing: ‘renewable’…not if we sell the RECs Jamie: It’s a gray area… Allison: Let’s look at both to see what it means Jessie: haven’t written RFP to get application both ways, can add amendment Andrea: it would provide more info for a better decision on our part The Committee discussed how the surrounding towns may react to the project, and the idea of an ‘energy shed’. Subcommittee for evaluation of proposals: Tim, Allison, Barry, Anne expressed interest Net Zero Dashboard Andy: working on energy dashboard, creating all information for site, we have a shot at funding to build website, should be done by January, build for Montpelier but all VCAN network Robert: Good to get projects out there and visible as a spring board: - Environmental groups doing net metering in visible spots - Heat pump pilot in Rutland (600 to 1000 phone calls after announcement!), maybe to Montpelier before statewide. - Allison: heat pump water heaters - Andrea: on-bill financing? Robert: heat pumps leased, solar could be on-bill financing Next steps? Robert: Talk with city council and get buy-in, display long-term and shorter projects The Committee discussed the big contributors to energy usage – transportation. How to encourage less use of single occupancy vehicles? Fewer commuters through increased housing density? What would be included in plan/report to City Council? An update - where we are, where we’re going, honesty in that we don’t know where we will be… Opportunities: - Dashboard - Home Energy Challenge - District Heat - Transportation building - Solar RFP Allison: Net Zero is a framework for us to address the things we want to… Dan C: But Net Zero Renewable is not as good as Net Zero Carbon Subcommittee to create a plan to present to city council: Allison, Tim, Anne Meeting ended at 8:53