Energy Advisory Committee

MEAC Minutes 7-15-2014 Location: Memorial Room, City Hall Members present: Tim Shea, Anne Watson, Becky Wigg, Keil Corey, Barry McPhee, Dan Jones, Andrew Stein, Scott Muller, Barbara Conrey, Joey Miller, Andrew Stein Others: Bill Chidsey, Alex Prolman 1. Call to order, approve minutes: Meeting called to order at 7:05 PM. Minutes from 6/17/14 were approved without discussion. 2. Projects update: Solar RFP: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mZdx5Vdo7tgC2564sBklUqpyx2FrNzJHhemEn8i5b_E/edit Anne: RFP is ready to go. Mike Miller has some comments that have yet to be incorporated. Our goals for the RFP are more clear now, as are our criteria for review. For this version, we asked for all the details we thought we would need in order to make a decision, such as estimated time of construction, etc. Scott: I think it was hard for me to deliver comments because this is forty to fifty years of energy infrastructure that we're developing. What about the ability to feed into a smart grid? The energy independence issue is important—can this system continue functioning with nothing else going on? That would be a huge benefit to the capitol to be able to keep producing power if the rest of the grid shuts down. Tim: We had a meeting with the City and GMP about that not too long ago. At this point, it's pretty cost-prohibitive. Bill: Is there any hydro storage around here the way there is in Massachusetts? Scott: There's the potential, but nothing yet. The efficiency gains aren't quite there yet. Motion: To approve the Solar RFP as it currently stands, assuming Mike Miller's comments can be incorporated. Motion unanimously passes without discussion. Joey: I coordinate a statewide grassroots association of energy committees and I'm putting together a community energy guide, and am wondering if we can use your RFP as an example, and trying to “generify” it? Anne: Well, there's a lot of language in here that's project-specific. You can take out our specifics if you need to. Joey: Sure. I just wanted to know if doing something like that would be OK to use as a model for other communities after we've spent so much time figuring this stuff out. It's about sharing. Geoff: Just give it a little attribution. Barbara: Also ask Mike Miller about the City's position on that, since they're the ones issuing it. Document sharing and repository: Keil: We have a Google drive set up, everyone's received an invite but have had some difficulties accessing. Alex and I can help people get it to work directly. Alex will send out a link again with clear instructions for how to access. Keil: Just because I'm going to be leaving soon, another thing I've been working on in the community outreach bucket is trying to do community screenings of the Years of Living Dangerously show. I've been talking with the Savoy and I think we can put on a few events, maybe show a smaller piece of an episode and pair it with something else related to NZM? It's flexible. Renting of Savoy space for evenings is $250—we can charge admission or ask donations, etc. Their preferred evenings are Monday/Tuesday/Sunday, upstairs they hold 150 people, about 50 downstairs. As far as promotion, they have an email list of 2800 which they send out newsletters, email updates for special events, etc. Geoff: I'd go with the downstairs. It's a better place for discussion, people stick around more, you can pack people in a bit more. I know Eric pretty well, we've done events there before and it's a great time. Alex: Reminder—this committee has about $2500 from the Energy Fair last year. Barbara: Is this a one-time event, or repeating? Keil: Well, it's a 9-part series of separate episodes; we don't have to show all of them if we want. It's just an easy, appealing way to draw people in and engage them with these issues. Could potentially be a weekly or bi-weekly event where people know “every Tuesday, this is happening.” Andrew: What if we partnered up with other organizations for each episode to let people know about it? Tim: Suggestion—if someone wants to work with Keil to figure out what this is going to look like, I think it's fair to say this is going to be a fall or winter event, and put together a proposal for this committee at the next meeting. Geoff: I'll do it. Keil, you look into licensing fees for us showing it, and I'll work with the Savoy. City consumption data and benchmarking: Scott: Andrew and I met with Todd Law and Mike Miller and they've all been really helpful, very cooperative. They have the data, it's all over the place, but it's there. We're creating a spreadsheet that's usable by anyone that can continue to be used through the future. Some of the past data is interesting but I don't know where it came from or how to use it, so moving forward it's important to make this translatable and usable in the future. We're looking at two things—municipal energy use, and the full community. Other cities have started with this then created objectives and used it to start changing city behavior. Joey: Are they still using the ICLEI numbers from 2005 or so? Scott: I don't know. VEIC has some numbers on that. Andrew: EAN also has been working on this with VEIC. Alison didn't want to provide the work they've done because EAN is their client. Scott: I've got a few thoughts on this-- I'm pretty excited about this strategic plan. Part of it was the doc they did for NZM for EAN, I'm not sure I agree with everything in there, and I don't think that should just default to MEAC's/City's action plan. It's a start, but not perfect. From my work as an environmental engineer, I don't know if the emission reduction concept is tabboo in this discussion, or if it's because of the biomass plant, but it's something that needs to be discussed. We have these emission reduction targets—80% by 2050, etc. It's a lot of hard work and it's going to be expensive, but the data and targets we're using can be expanded to using GHG emissions, also economic goals, linking GDP to energy, and so on. That's being built into the spreadsheet- Dan J: Referrring to the municipality or the whole city? Scott: For now, just the municipality. There's probably 15 methods the City uses to estimate GHGs, and none of them are perfect, but just need to be clear. I'd suggest that anything EAN and VEIC do, they put the data up on the table for everyone to look at. Becky: Are you calculating a baseline or a benchmark for us to measure ourselves against? Scott: For the benchmark, we need to set a goal as a Committee whether we're going to use 2000 or 1990. At the moment, we've only asked for data on the last 3 years. Bill: For my customers, we just track from the current, going forward. What's in the past is important, but what really matters is whether you got today's information right, currently. Becky: GMP has a system where you can log in and see your data. In theory, you should be able to connect these things together. Scott: You should be able to, but at this point, we're looking for things like “when was the water treatment plant purchased,” etc., but it's just a matter of making sure we collect the usable data. Also reaching out to Thom Wood, will do for Ken Jones. Barbara: There's sort of a roadblock in the VEIC data, where you can use it a little, but only go so far. Joey: My understanding of what they're trying to do is help us create a baseline, I don't think they're trying to be obstacles but they're doing what they can to help us do this. Also as a volunteer committee we need to do what we can, while also raising the message about why this is important. Andrew: Scott, we can set up a meeting with Andi and Alison to talk through some of this stuff. Barry: I'm working with the Public Service Department, in their energy services department, and I don't know what kind of data they have, but I can ask if they have anything useful, if you'd like me to. Scott: This brings up a good point of Andrew's, which is that as a capital there's a lot of assets here that are under state domain, something we'll have to work with down the line. Tim: To pull this together, it sounds like there's still some research to be done, you're going to collect this and put it together in a way that we can analyze and use as benchmark going forward. Geoff: I have a question—you brought up a decision regarding the 2000 vs 1990 baseline, what are the issues around this decision that we can think about while you gather data? Scott: Depends mostly on available data, I think. Most places are using 1990, internationally, but it's sort of up to you, and up to how available (and accurate) our data will be. Some communities have just done a per capita scale-back and projected it backwards. Dan: The decision was made a while ago that this was going to be about renewable energy, not GHGs, which is why things are the way they are right now. Tim: That's a bigger issue I think and this is just about collecting data, so we don't have to get into all this right now. Scott: I'd request that we make a formal presentation at the next committee meeting. Joey: The state has GHG/clean energy goals, and they're wrapping up a study right now, and wanted to put it out there that it could be a potentially useful source of info for us to pull from, re: strategies for reducing GHGEs, etc. The study should be here at the end of August. Since we're in the state capital and the City has these ambitious goals, it'd be nice to align our goals with their goals and it could potentially be a robust set of info for us to tap into. Barbara: There's also the thermal energy task force report that was presented to the legislature that also had a lot of robust, potentially helpful info. Strategic project planning for NZM: Barbara: This was something Barry, Dan & I worked on together. Looking at working backwards from our 15 year goal (2030) to see how we break down the steps. Now, the 5, 10, 15 year goal sections are works in progress but focus a lot on the EAN target study for Montpelier. We felt first that we needed a plan, step by step, for the 3 sectors, and also to that we'd add new development because that's an integral part of that. This is also about measuring results. The EAN document was helpful for outlining broad subjects, but not very clear. We need baseline info, we need to know current use if we're going to work our way backwards. By the end of this year we have enough info to work off of in our different areas. As part of that, we think we need under political organization & planning that we need to break this down into subcommittees—we're kind of engrossing ourselves in the strategic plan, but we can also have other people thinking about this from the marketing perspective, how to sell this to people, and others thinking about the finance for this, and someone staying on public policy, too, so that by 2015 we can have everything we need to get rolling on this. Also we need to consider the power to implement this plan—the City adopted this goal, but who's doing the follow through? Are we responsible for this? Anne: As far as that one goes, the staff time is separate from the conversation about MEAC's role. It seems like we're the ones to carry out this plan, but do you need it to be more serious about that? Tim: We were the ones tasked with carrying this out, and if we don't, no one else will. Scott: Is NZM a set goal of the City? And has that been defined? I thought the role of this committee was just to advise and to propose things to the City? Tim: We can't spend money on behalf of the City, but we are empowered to initiate these kinds of projects, make recommendations about ordinances, etc. Barbara: If we put out information about, say, home energy, does it come from “us”, or from the City? Another concern is how much work gets done in subcommitees, and as a volunteer org how much can realistically get done? Anne: It'll be interesting to see if we need additional staff time. Barbara: What we're looking at are our goals for the end of 2014, where we have these points and can define the baselines and can set potential baselines as our target points. We've started to fill in some of these spots for responsible parties, but there's a lot that's blank. We've tried to break down our goals and objectives for 2015 very specifically, and tried to assign responsibility when we can. It seems like VEIC/EVT is willing to devote some time to us. Also we broke it down to electric, thermal, tranpsportation, and density. So perhaps people want to read through this, especially the 2015 part and give us feedback—do you have questions, and is this what you'd like as part of the strategic plan? Andrew: I'd like to have some time to look at this and talk about it more at our next meeting. Tim: This is really great stuff, beyond foundational, and we can definitely put this on the next meeting's agenda. Barbara: Also, please send comments ahead of time, etc. And by the way the responsible committees are just what we came up with. The numbers, too, have also been pulled out of a hat. Just placeholders for now. Dan J: I'd like us all to consider using this as a baseline for a public document that we can have a community-wide conversation about, because it could shape the entire community here. I'd propose November or so, as a mechanism for community discussion. Joey: My question is about how all this work, through our different commitees, how can we be effective with all this in the future. Barbara: That's where I think we need to be breaking up into subcommittees so we're not all working on all of it. Tim: We're starting to do some of that so far, and that's part of the reorganization process that we're going to talk about. It's important you can all access this via Google Docs, please review and send your comments. 2. Outreach/Community Engagement updates: Calendar of Events: Tim: Alison wasn't able to make it but had said she hadn't been able to do much around a calendar. We've got the things that Keil was talking about, Alison has a few potential events with EVT that she's confirmed their willingness to host. Then we've got fall events, certainly and over the coming few months we'll have more content and oppotunities to become more formal with our message and where we're going. . Community Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JCCCFSH Tim: One thing we wanted to do in getting initial public feedback was to create a survey, send it out over email lists, the Facebook page, Front Porch Forum, etc. Sent it around for comments—anything to tweak? It's pretty straight-forward. Gives people the opportunity to learn a little bit, present the opportunity to get involved. Easy to tweak, we can send it out, we can modify it in the future if we need to. I'll make sure everyone has the link, there's no proprietary nature of who shares this, and you can send it out to whatever avenues you have. Joey: My question is: how do we know it's only going to be answered by Montpelier residents? Anne: You could ask, “Are you a Montpelier resident?” You don't have to be, but we can do that. Useful info to have. I can reach out to Mike/Fred to see if we can put this on the front of the City's website. Andrew: I think we should have this be out for only a month or so, so we can measure our efforts between now, and then eight months from now, we can use the differences to meaure our efforts. Tim: Do we have any promotional ideas other than FPF, Facebook, city website, email listserve, maybe something in the Bridge, if Ken's still doing those monthly articles? Joey: Just to clarify, if we put it out we'll close it in a month? When do we want to do that? Andrew: Let's have it be closed in August 15th. Reorganization of MEAC: Tim: You should have a 3-page document in your packet if you want to take a bit to read it. This is the result of our conversation at the last meeting about expanding this committee to meet our needs. In a nutshell, the thought was to expand membership to partner organizations that can bring resources to bear, some additional knowledge—that'd be the likes of EVT, GMP, State of VT, EAN, those entities having representatives coming to the table as voting members of this committee. Andrew: Something to clarify—for each of the stakeholder organizations, we're talking about 1 representative per organization? Anne: Confused about the bullet there, MEAC members will “nominate and propose all new board members to City Council”--does that mean if someone just moves to town, they have to apply? Do they have to attend meetings? It seems prohibitive—why is that in there? Tim: So your question is on the nominating new members, current members will nominate new members—why we added this was because GMP isn't going to go to City Council asking to have a rep. Andrew: I think it should say 'current committee members can nominate key stakeholders to serve...' Anne: Right, and citizens at large can apply through the regular process. An issue: Is someone from a partner org appointed a space, or is a partner organization appointed the space? E.g. is it “Paul Markowitz” or is it “Someone from EVT”? Is it important that it's the same person every time? Joey: I'm curious where that change came from? It's a pretty significant shift from a city grassroots volunteer energy committee. Despite the fact that I love and respect all the partners we're working with, I have a significant reservation to giving spots to for-profit, mission-driven organizations, like fuel dealers, etc. Why are they a voting member? Can they just be an advisory member or something? I think they're incredibly valuable and I want to work with them, but I think appointing someone to that role is a little weird. Scott: In my experience it's a smart way to go, not just the partners that have been listed but also the economic drivers in town. It's a pretty strategic way to go toward setting goals and objectives later on. And if there are conflicts of interst, that's a place for City Counil to become involved. Joey: Definitely not that I don't want to work with them—I really do, but there's something different about appointing businesses to our committee. Anne: I can't guarantee that the council would be in support of this—I think they'll start thinking about Citizens United, corporations are not people, and it just won't go over well. Scott: You just don't want those powerful people to not be allies. Tim: Right, and they feel they're a little on the outside, and this is just a way to legitimize that. Geoff: But couldn't we, as the next subject we're taking up is our reorganization, each subgroup is going to need to be seeking out this or that organization, if it's the state or GMP etc, and I can't imagine the City Council going for an undefined voting seat for this. Tim: But it's going to be a person that will be assigned to this—Andi, Paul, etc. Geoff: I agree we need to bring these people in, I just don't know about in a voting member way. Joey: I agree—I really want to involve them, and I work with them daily, professionally, but I'm hesitant about bringing them in in this fashion. Why can't they remain involved as an advisory body? Geoff: Like a lobbyist in the legislature, providing professional information, etc. Becky: The mayor came to one of our meetings a while ago and specifically asked for this. I don't know if he was referring to this fashion, but he said he wanted stakeholders at the table. Barbaara: Not necessarily voting, though. Just at the table. Becky: There are only six of these people, and we get to vote on whether or not to recommend them. Andrew: It does raise a legitimate question—who do we involve? Joey: I want as many different partners as possible, I'm not raising objections because I don't want them at the table, but because I think having them be voting members of MEAC represents a significant shift in the work we do. Tim: It's a way of legitimizing the work they do. Barbara: Do you think they wouldn't show up if we just treat them as advisors? Becky: Could we give more specificity to the types of orgs we want represented? Tim: I think there's significant clarity here currently. Joey: Are we just looking to institutionalize the folks that have been partners? Tim: Essentially, yes, and real estate would be big to have here as well, and especially State of VT—BGS specifically. They're huge. Dan: We acutally have kind of a mixed bag of representation of these people that do show up occasionally, but here maybe less than 50% of the time. Is there something here that says they're going to show up a certain percent of the time, etc.? Tim: Well we don't have that for our current members, but that's not a bad thing to institute. Andrew: My concern is never knowing who's going to show up for these roles. If we we're going to do this, nominating an indivudaul from that organization, talking with that person, asking them if they're willing to come to our meetings all the time and going from there. Bill: How do you answer the question of how they become compensated for their time here? Tim: That's up to the employer to decide, and may determine their level of involvement. Amme: I wonder if we just took out the language about key organizational stakeholders and just extend invites to particular individuals like Paul, anyone we know that will wear that hat anyway. Becky: Do you have to be residents of the City of Montpelier? Anne: No, I don't think so. So we can nominate Robert Dostis, etc. Scott: Correct me if I'm wrong—you're not just seeking out yes-people? People that don't necessarily see the future the same way we do—seeking out people from the dark side here. Andrew: I agree, I think we have to open it up to everyone. I think it'd be a real proess—the fuel dealers should be here. Joey: It's a public meeting though, I don't see the problem they're trying to solve. Tim: It's a way to legitimzie their input and bring them into the fold. Barbara: Still, if they're advisors, they can attend and fully participate without potentially negatively influencing this group. Joey: Can we chew on this? Tim: Yes. If people have thoughts, I can post this on Google Docs and we can post comments. Let's table this for now. Dan: Let's follow up with Sandy too, there was formerly a required open process and now perhaps are straying from that. If it's part of the current City rules, I just didn't want us to create any procedure that went against that. Tim: I think in the interests of time, we can call it there. In the future, something we need to talk about is the 2030 vs 2050 discussion. The EAN & State stuff is based on 2050, and we're working with 2030. Geoff: Being new to the committee, I don't really know about this, but is there a potential project around digesting sewage sludge? Anne: I love it, but I know it'll be super duper expensive to work towards. Not a reason not to do this, but it's a tricky issue. The City's quite in debt, and we can talk about this later too. Scott: Vermont has signed an agreement with 7 other states putting lots of EVs on the road by 2025, there will probably be some grants coming down that pike for us to keep on our radar. Andrew: There's also the issue of carshare. I know the visitor's center is interested in the charging stations. Scott: VSECU and Red Hen now have level 3 chargers too. Tim: For now, the Google Docs is the biggest thing on this issue—making sure you can access that and redline your comments. Meeting adjourned at 8:35pm.