Sustainability, Energy, & Resiliency Committee

Meeting Minutes - FINAL December 21, 6:30 PM 120 Washington Street, 3rd Floor Attendance: Jeff Barz-Snell, Chris Cantone, Jeff Cohen, John Hayes, Gail Kubik, Lisa K. Rosenthal Not in Attendance: Rick Nye Staff in attendance: Jenna Ide, Kanchan Kandel (intern), Daria Scofield (intern) 1. Review and approve meeting minutes: Minutes from November 16th meeting were approved unanimously after edits by John, Jeff and Jenna. 2. Update on interns: Daria pulled together SERC’s historical projects to show what the committee has accomplished over the years. She presented updates she made to the website, and John and others suggested some improvements to the language. Everyone expressed gratitude for the interns’ contributions to the City of Salem and the SERC committee; SERC hopes the City can add line item to budget to allow for interns in the future. 3. SERC goals: a) Jeff Barz-Snell proposed site for MET tower on Gooseberry Island. The assessment will cost $200,000 (tower, drill for guy wires, marine contractor work). The goal is to collect variable wind speed data for viability of a multi-community offshore wind farm. Data shows there are 100 megawatts of wind off Gooseberry Island in relatively shallow water. b) Jeff Cohen met with Beth Gerard, who will be the City Council president starting January 1. She offered to be a liaison for SERC. The committee also proposed to try and meet Dominick, who is the Chief of Staff of the Mayor. c) Daria passed around copies of the Wind Energy FAQ page on the SERC website. Chris suggested an edit to the “why not offshore wind” section, which would need to be a collaborative effort among coastal communities to make it financially viable. Chris offered to re-write those sentences. We discussed the Winter Island Feasibility Study. Update FAQs with a question of: What has Salem done to collect data? Are we evaluating something going forward? Jeff will draft new response. Daria will send around Wind FAQs for everyone to edit. d) SERC is hoping to hire a City champion for resiliency. Gail will come up with outline of criteria that people could be interviewed against to find candidates. She will also share the Cambridge study for the Alewife community with us as example. e) Jeff Cohen presented about the Air Source Heat Pumps program. City Hall is 100% oil – the building could be outfitted with heat & air pumps. f) Jenna could work with police station for microgrid, as the police station is under sea level; the City could put solar panels on roof and invest in battery storage if there is storm to not lose emergency equipment. Another possible improvement is adding solar power on the roof of the senior center. Jeff Barz-Snell suggested we look further into a deep energy retrofit project and suggested the DOE has excellent resources. The plan would be to choose one municipal facility, do energy model, enact changes, make improvements, measure again, showcase/highlight what we’ve accomplished. Jeff presented details of the 2014 – Solarize program and what we achieved. Gail suggested we use it as marketing to promote heat pumps. g) Kanchan updated us on MEI database. Through his internship, he added 600 accounts, accumulated data about emissions, fill out green communities’ annual report. He distributed reports detailing the total amount of electricity use in the City, data regarding solar generation in City (Witchcraft Heights, Bentley), and reports showing the City reduced total greenhouse gas emissions use by 24% since FY 2009. 4. Intern Feedback: Kanchan reported that it was challenging to get data from specific departments showing details of energy usage. He also reported that the installation of LED lighting showed the most drastic change in cost savings on electricity for a City initiative. Daria reported that all of SERC’s projects over the years have saved the City $950,000 in total. * We all agreed we should find more ways to promote the success of past projects to set the stage for getting support for new projects. We agreed the next steps are to focus SERC’s energy on energy efficiency within City buildings. We can explore federal and state grant opportunities. Meeting adjourned at 8:11pm. Minutes respectfully submitted by Lisa K. Rosenthal *Upon subsequent calculations, the number is $746,218 Know Your Rights Under the Open Meeting Law, M.G.L. c. 39 §23B, and City Ordinance Sections 2-2028 through 2-2033. Please contact Jenna Ide at jide@salem.com or 978-619-5699 for more information. 120 WASHINGTON STREET, SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS 01970 ♦ TEL: 978.745.9595 FAX: 978.740.0404 ♦ WWW.SALEM.COM