Energy Advisory Committee

MEAC minutes December 16, 2014 Police Station Conf. Room 7 PM Attending: Dan Jones, Dan Costin, Barbara Conrey, Tim Shea, Barry McPhee, Geoff Fitzgerald, Johanna Miller, Andrew Stein, Anne Watson, Keil Corey, Ken Jones, Robert Dostis Also Attending: Bill Chisdey, Cara Robachuk Meeting began at 7:00 Motion to approve November minutes (Tim) Seconded (Barb) Approved unanimously Project updates 1. Solar RFP: Geoff noted concerns with draft agreement w/ groSolar and the need to have someone familiar with the negotiations and discussions with groSolar involved with City review of proposed agreement. Both Geoff and Ann noted that there were a number of items that were just wrong (eg RECs/financing contingency). Geoff had forwarded comments to Mike Miller and Mike indicated that he would forward to whoever was reviewing for the City. Geoff to follow up. Robert asked how big the array would be…Anne explained that groSolar had hoped to fit 1 MW but site did not allow…proposed array 500kw. 2. Municipal consumption/baseline Scott gone…out of country. Andrew has no time to devote right now and heartily endorses help from VTC students. Andrew to meet tomorrow with City Acct. City assessor data online. Barb and Andrew to coordinate getting students involved in this project. 3. Outreach/Community Engagement Bill reported on tabling efforts at Farmer’s Mkt. ….general observation: people either have the money to spend or they seek to avoid the table/subject. Anne: What are we doing with the surveys collected? Tim…give them to Barb….Barb…students will compile data and organize and bring to next meeting. Bill: Homeowners who have “done the work” might be a good story resource/effective advocates. Dan Costin wondered how those with Net Zero Homes fared through the recent storm. Bill is taking a break…willing to volunteer “next year.” Dan Costin to contact Carolyn Grodinski about tabling at future farmer’s mkts. Workshop update Tim: Second workshop not that well attended…between 12-20. Dan Costin: Bad weather and Dec. is always hard. People who attended were enthusiastic. Next workshop is 1/8/15. Will probably do add in the Bridge Partnering with GMP Tim introduced Robert noting that he and Dan and Allision and Andy had met with Robert and talked about bringing Rutland type demo projects to Montpelier Robert describe the demo program components as outside air and water heater air source heat pump programs with incentives as well as E-Home (which he called the energy home of the future or extreme home make over). GMP is shooting to make over 100 homes in Rutland. They have done approx. 11 to date. The makeover consists of comprehensive weatherization/transportation/heat pump installation. Goal is have financial savings achieved to pay for improvements…improvements financed by 3rd party (Neighborworks eg)….GMP very much wants to get this E-home program going in Montpelier and is working with the above referenced members of the committee to identify 10 homes to start with… The recent storm put a crimp in this project. Tim: we want to use profiles compiled by Efficiency VT to identify people who had the comprehensive audit but then undertook little or no work. Allison is apparently now pulling this information together. Jo..what about those ½ actors? People who did some of the work? Robert and Tim both agreed very important to hand pick the 10…very intrusive work and raises considerable privacy issues. In Rutland, they have worked on all single family homes from existing housing stock. Anne asked about multi family. Bill noted that he had observed folks who broke single family home into four and then installed four boilers and obtained four fuel assistance vouchers. Thought this was something of a scam. Robert thought GMP was learning from its Rutland experience and it is going to come back to MEAC with a proposal. Barb asked where we could go to look at the E-home concept online…google ehome in rutland. Strategic Plan update Baseline work….Barb noted that the interns are in place and are scheduled to start work in January on this project. Jo wanted to see the data compiled or sought in a manner that was consistent with the EAN dashboard tool Barb thought that the next step was to meet with Jesse in order to engage the public. Thinks that the initial outreach/mailing has to come from the city. Reminded everyone that baseline data crucial for GUEP. Projects subcommittee report Dan Jones noted that in light of GUEP and Climate Action Champion designation we have step up our game and focus our efforts….Thought that Barb was moving ahead appropriately spearheading the baseline work we need to do; thought we needed to work on a strategic definition of “community engagement”; and we needed to really work on stakeholder integration, eg the E-home work with GMP. Agreed outreach might require City support. Andrew thought outreach plan “pretty straight forward.” Barb thought that we needed protocols for outreach. Barry handed out a 2-pg (1 pg. 2 sided!) document wherein he laid out step by step protocol that should be followed for all projects undertaken by MEAC. This 6 step process will better help us communicate with others, including stakeholders, and it will make it possible for folks to hand off projects for follow up by others….note: Barry thought all projects had to go through steps 1 and 2 and possibly 3 but that some might not need steps 4-6…depends on the project, obviously. MEAC has oversight of all projects and the “project team” must report to the full committee and the notify the committee of conflicts/problems/modifications of project purpose etc. Dan Costin: Wanted to see “project time and cost” added to step 2 Ken indicated that he was going to use this model for a “project pitch” that he intended to make to the school board in the near future Barry thought every project ought to have its own excel spreadsheet and every project ought to have its own file folder in Google docs. In terms of the Strategic Planning, he thought MEAC needed to talk about sequencing and prioritization while being sensitive to project interdependence. Andrew: shared that he would like to see us sharing the documents like the document that Barry just handed out pre meeting so that we could review in advance…general consensus that this is a good idea Next Steps for NZM/an approach Tim thought there were a couple of different ways to move our committee forward. One would be for us to brain storm in a retreat type setting for 6-8 hours together to come up with specific projects to undertake work on in 2015…the other would be for all of us just to submit our ideas and then “brain storm” from there. Tim thought that there were really 3 buckets to NZM…1) Conservation/Efficiency/Heat Conversion; 2)Transportation and 3) Renewables. In each of these 3 buckets he saw project evolving out of either public engagement or partnerships. Asked for feedback as to whether the 3 buckets resonated with folks. Barb thought “action initiation” piece was missing. Ken say Renewables as a separate bucket so long as we all viewed it as being equated with electric generation. Dan Jones pointed out the difference between goals and tasks…tasks being undertaken to achieve goals. Someone pointed out that we shouldn’t get too caught up or limited by the buckets…organization aid. Ken thought we needed to add “technology” as a third category to public engagement and partnerships. Jo thought we had done this before and that we didn’t need another rubric…we needed to identify a project and do it. Tim: We need a focused effort to “move the needle”. Everyone needs to come up with a list of projects, one for each bucket, that MEAC should undertake to accomplish in the coming year. See list to Tim…he will compile and upload to Google docs before the next meeting. Barry: we have already done this? This is the strategic plan. The strategic plan is our road map. Wondered whether we were throwing out that work. Tim: No. We are not throwing out the strategic plan. The strategic plan is our road map but it doesn’t give us the specifics…tactically, what are we going to do right now? Barb wanted folks to give consideration to “visual appeal” when compiling the list…projects with “visual appeal’ very important early on. Jo cautioned folks not to just go for the “low hanging fruit.” Dan C. wondered what our metric was going to be for success or progress for the 2015 projects we undertake…how do we measure “needle movement.”…straight KWH reduction? Barry: we are going to need more people to “move the needle.” Dan J.: Is this bucket matrix taking the place of a larger discussion as to what the committee should be doing. Tim: No…it is providing a vehicle for that discussion. MSMS Ken talked about how the School board had charged a committee at the middle school to come up with 3 projects…1k, 10k, and 100k in cost to “reduce the carbon footprint” of the school. Highlighted a number of areas being looked at…lighting, building envelop/infiltration, renewables and he asked who might help this student committee indentify state resources to help them with this effort. Anne noted that the high school had its own net zero goal that her students were working on…connect to dist. Heat? Heat pumps? Biomass boiler? Efficiency/lighting issue? Building envelope issues? Solar/RFP Cara noted that UES had its own efforts going and cited to the Whole School Energy Challenge and Melissa Pierce’s efforts to date Ken wanted to technology based projects…not just behavior change….Anne (I think?) offered to bring some of her students to the middle school in January to talk about NZ and project based solutions to the problem. Update on GUEP Achieved semi final status Allison heading up this effort Climate Action Champion Tim noted that this was a DOE administered program and that Jessie Baker was shepherding the effort right now…Tim was going to be the conduit between the City and MEAC re the opportunities as they present themselves. VECAN conf. Tim passed around the award MEAC rec’d at the conf. Indicated that VTRANS offered a $500 grant that should be a “slam dunk” Dan C. volunteered to look into the “go Vermont” website and pursue this grant money Committee vacancies Tim indicated that there would be at least 2 and probably 3 vacancies to fill…positions would be posted with the City. Enlist committed people to fill these vacancies. Dan C. moved to adjourn Tim 2nd All voted in favor Meeting adjourned at 8:33