Energy Advisory Committee

MEAC Minutes May 16 2017 City Hall, Memorial Room Members Present: Brent Ehrlich, Jared Duval, Dan Costin, Karl Johnson, Wavell Cowan, Kate Stephenson, Amy Gamble, Dan Jones, Ken Jones, Barbara Conrey, Paul Markowitz Minutes: Dan Jones moved to approve. Ken Jones 2nd. Approved by voice vote. Agenda: Karl moved to approve agenda. Ken Jones 2nd. Approved without objection. Public Comment: No public comment. Working Groups: Planning: Barbara has been working with each of the MEAC working groups to put together the draft sections for the City Plan. The municipal team reviewed the latest draft and decided to set the 2030 goals at 100% renewable for all municipal buildings (vs. 95% in the previous draft). Barbara has also been coordinating with the regional planning commission’s energy planning group. They just released numbers for the region and a map of preferred renewable energy sites. The regional map has some issues: No biomass. No hydro. Some solar preferred sites that need to be vetted. We should provide our own. Statehouse lawn and Vermont College green were identified as preferred sites in the regional plan. The residential working group has been discussing whether to recommend a policy goal of having all new construction required to be net zero by 2030. Jared observed that we have to be careful to prevent encouraging sprawl by adding requirements for development. We definitely want to attract commuters who work in Montpelier by adding housing units. Jared says we should indicate that we don’t like the sprinkler ordinance in our plan. Transportation: Work on Complete Streets Design Guidelines continues. Work on crosswalk enhancements continues. Trying to get 4 flashing light crosswalks installed using ATF funds. Work on way finding continues. Dan C. is planning on attending the VEIC Electric School Bus Meeting July 13 9:00 to 2:00 in White River Junction The Montpelier parking plan will be voted on at some future meeting of City Council, date is unknown as they keep putting it off. Volkswagen settlement money: ANR is handling money. No news yet. Might be some money to convert diesel municipal vehicles. Jared suggests that we consider utilizing biodiesel from Black Bear Biodiesel in Plainfield (Jim Malloy), possibly for municipal fleet. Jared will ask Jim to attend a future MEAC meeting to answer any questions we might have. Other potential diesel fleet users include GMTA, school buses, and state utility vehicles. Municipal: Karl: Working group drafted city plan municipal portion. Police station is being retro- commissioned. Ben Fowler from CX associates is doing commissioning and thinks there is a control issue. No new information on options for the boilers in the basement of City Hall. ESG is doing feasibility study of cogen at wastewater facility. Kate is working in an RFP for energy audits of six major municipal buildings, to go out in next month or so. Residential: Wavell has been working on articulating a business plan for consumer outreach around the Net Zero goals. He suggested we help residents put together a master plan for their property to understand all changes that need to be made to reach a Net Zero and keep it on hand for when components fail, so improvements can be phased in over time if it is too expensive to do it all at once. Wavell says we need to persuade people to sign up for new things, and test our persuasion techniques to see what works. We have to make it easy for people to make changes and see the whole system that they are changing to. Ken has been talking to Zero Energy Now and Green Mountain Power to learn about their programs and how we can learn from them. Both are only doing heat pump retrofits (all electric). No pellet stoves or biomass options. The group discussed Wavell’s proposal and how MEAC could develop this concept and start to pilot it. Brent encouraged looking at case studies from other cities like Cambridge MA and Boulder CO. Karl says we need to show the economics, and EnSave has been successful with farmers by showing savings from day 1. Dan J says we need to pitch personal adaption to climate change. Paul asks if this is a peer-to-peer system or a program using contractors to advise residents. We think it has to be done with contractors due to the scope of the work involved. Kate liked the idea of getting people to sign some kind of Net Zero pledge or compact and then support them to get their plans done with a contractor. California is funding the Cool California calculator to help motivate people to make NetZero changes: http://www.coolcalifornia.org/calculator-households-individuals Meeting Adjourned 8:40