Energy Advisory Committee

Montpelier Energy Advisory Committee - Minutes March 20, 2018 Attendees: Dan Jones, Barry McPhee, Barbara Conrey, Paul Markowitz, Jared Duval, Ken Jones, Geoffrey Fitzgerald, Dan Costin, Amy Gamble, Kate Stephenson, Karl Johnson, Christopher Damiani 7:02 - Kate Stephenson called meeting to order Agenda review --- Dan J moved to approve, Barry seconded. Approved. Minutes --- Geoffrey moved to approve, Amy seconded. Approved. Public comment -- Interest in district heat promotion from downtown business owner. Brief discussion of city council presence on MEAC, do we need to recruit another Council member if Mayor Anne Watson is no longer serving… or in addition to Mayor Watson serving. Further exploration with Mayor Watson and engagement with City Council a next step. Special projects -- Update from Dan Jones on visit to Washington DC as a Georgetown University Energy Prize finalist. Montpelier smallest city that participated by far. In total, 11 million tons of CO2 saved through efforts of national competition. GUEP: A model for other cities around the country. Winning city: Fargo. The city established eFargo to manage the competition. A partnership with the university, social media and game and play based work to intro sustainability and energy savings were keys to success. Inter-school competition also successful element. Had a city sustainability plan; mandating LEED certification. Another key element? A fully paid, city sustainability staffer focused on this effort. Other national examples, including Takoma Park who did neighborhood to neighborhood competitions. Berkeley, CA: Office of Energy & Sustainability Development. Requirements for real estate listing and sales (i.e. energy efficiency standards). As a finalist, Montpelier is automatically in the GUEP network and future engagement opportunities, ideas, resource and model sharing etc possible. MEAC IDEA: Point of sale energy assessments/investment opportunities; bring together realtors, assessors, banks/credit unions etc to explore. After the Weatherize Montpelier campaign is over, Paul Markowitz will take the lead on furthering this discussion and exploring. Updates from working groups -- Residential: Weatherize Montpelier update: 126 general inquiries. 30 completed questionnaire to request walk through, 23 scheduled a visit, 17 got proposals delivered and 1 has signed a contract. Outreach to date: 2 ads in The Bridge, article in the paper, insert in water bill, Front Porch Forum (deadline approaching), Facebook. MEAC members did follow up calls to interested parties. Personal stories of energy saving success stories (Montpelier residents) were very successful/strong response on Facebook. More of those needed! Deadline for walkthrough request -- March 31. Promote! Planning and Policy -- Talking about the Master Plan again. Exploring a couple of committees a year; staggered phases. Request: Have all committees submit goals to ID goals for Master Plan. Unclear if that will be acted upon. Idea: Explore with Mike Miller; pull together a meeting with reps of all of the committees to discuss and explore coordination, set goals? Transportation -- Transportation Infrastructure Committee meeting was postponed b/c of snow storm. Will meet next month. Committee discussion of 1 Taylor Street project, and concerns that as currently designed the new transit center could not support rail service. Municipal -- Kate and Barbara met last week with Sue Allen and Steve Twombly to discuss energy audits. Reviewed all recommended measures for 6 audited buildings. ID’d a few with best payback to go out for RFP for contractors to bid on. Goal: $20K worth of work funded by revolving loan fund. Moving forward with RFP drafting. Goal: Projects to be completed in 2018. This will be the first real use of the Revolving Loan Fund. The plan is to do an annual true-up of revolving loan fund by the finance office; not clear when this would happen each year. Retro commissioning projects in line: water treatment plant, snow melt at fire station and district heat loop. Updating municipal metrics spreadsheet. Finalizing FY 2017 soon. Will present to city council when completed. GMP billing for commercial customers (like Montpelier) is very confusing. This makes the tracking and meter management (credit allocation for solar etc) challenging and complex to manage. No new news on ESG at the moment. IDEA: Explore a part time or full time sustainability position/facilities manager at the city, like Hartford has, funded through energy savings? Could it be shared between the schools and the city? (Possible, and more likely so, if the business office managed the contracts). Other business -- Paul M, motion to adjourn, Geoff seconded. Agreed. Meeting adjourned 8:35.