AVON CLEAN ENERGY COMMISSION
AVON ROOM BLDG. #1 TOWN HALL
MINUTES
DECEMBER 7, 2011
I. CALL MEETING TO ORDER
The meeting was called to order at 7:04 PM by Acting Chairman Bernard Zahren in the Avon Room, Building 1 Town Hall. Members present: Acting Chairman Bernard Zahren, Martin Kaplan, Brian Glenn, Lisa Levin and Jeffrey Bernetich. Member absent: Linda Meyers. Advisory member present: Giorgina Paiella. Advisory members absent: Jonathan Craig and Diane Zhao. Also in attendance was staff member Steve Bartha, Assistant Town Manager, and Steven Weisman, Vice President of Peregrine Energy Group.
II. APPROVAL OF THE PRECEDING MEETING MINUTES – October 5, 2011
Mr. Zahren questioned the meaning of Ms. Zhao’s sentence telling of teacher’s comments made to her regarding controlling the temperature inside the classroom. Ms. Levin suggested striking the sentence completely. Mr. Zahren also questioned the last sentence of the same paragraph asking who had the respect. Ms. Paiella suggested changing the sentence to “Mr. Zahren was glad that the faculty was providing feedback to our student members of the commission.” Mr. Bartha cautioned Commission Members to be sensitive to content being recreated rather than being simply clarified.
VOTE: Ms. Levin motioned, Mr. Glenn seconded and all agreed to accept the October 5, 2011 minutes with the changes. Mr. Bernetich came later and missed the vote. Mr. Kaplan abstained as he was absent from the meeting.
III. COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE
Mr. Kaplan introduced Justin Haaheim who is associated with Clean Water Group, headed by Roger Smith. The group was asked to pick ten towns in Connecticut who might need help with energy savings through the State or other means. Mr. Kaplan recently met with Mr. Haaheim who made a copy of the meeting notes that he will forward to the other members. Mr. Zahren reminded the members that the main topic of the evening was to get the energy plan as close to a presentable form as possible. He referred to Mr. Haaheim as the next phase after the plan is done, approved and validated by the Town Council and BOE.
Mr. Haaheim requested that introductions be made. Mr. Bernetich announced that he would most likely step down from the commission given his recent election to the BOE and its demands. He also said that there wasn’t one thing he’s seen with the commission that he wouldn’t implement such as solar panels, geothermal, etc. Mr. Bernetich added that cutting energy costs was one thing that everyone agreed upon.
Mr. Haaheim compared Avon to other groups he’s worked with and said it was a great group that has made great strides and is also sort of in the lead compared to other towns.
IV. COMMUNICATIONS FROM STUDENT ADVISORS
Mr. Zahren asked Ms. Paiella if she had anything to report. She said no that the storm was disruptive but that her group planned to get back on track after this. Mr. Zahren asked her to relay a message back to her members saying that the recent storm is a primary example of what we may have to look forward to in the future. He said it was not just a one in one hundred year freak storm that we’ve had, but probably one of the weirdest weather years on record with tornadoes, floods and the fires in New Mexico for example. Mr. Zahren asked her what she thought about it and how it affected her resolve to carry on what the commission is trying to do. He asked her to carry the message back to the members of her group and bring some feedback.
V. OLD BUSINESS: a. Review Energy Plan
Mr. Weisman referred to the October 28, 2011 draft plan. He described it as a good representation of the technical analysis that was done last spring through the summer identifying specific energy efficiency opportunities in both the town and school buildings. He continued that it was a plan that was actionable as it includes specific recommendations that can be done, analytical in that it takes the 2008 baseline and looks at energy use over the next three years, and goals as to where we want to be by 2015. Mr. Weisman said timelines and resources needed still have to be filled in by the commission.
Mr. Weisman referred to the town and BOE baseline analysis charts. Town buildings energy use remained relatively constant with changes seen mostly through building use. The schools definitely showed reductions in energy use through better technological upgrades. Looking at projects that could have a significant impact to school efficiency he suggested retro commissioning which will address the comfort issues and added that these energy efficiency opportunities will have a more immediate impact for the near term rather than looking at alternative energy sources. Mr. Kaplan asked how Mr. Weisman sets priorities. Mr. Bartha answered that the plan’s suggestions can guide the Town when considering capital projects. He cited the example of selecting high efficiency boilers as replacements in the schools when the equipment
had reached the end of its useful life. Mr. Weisman referred to page 21 of the draft detailing recommended actions. Mr. Zahren deferred to Mr. Bartha as to the “who, what and where” the approved energy plan would be acted upon. Mr. Bartha said that once it is approved by the Town Council and BOE, the primary users of the plan would be Bruce Williams, Alex Trujillo and Peter Gaski, who are the folks that are responsible for Town and School facilities.
Mr. Weisman reported that the balance of the grant was approximately $23,000, which could be used for the first step (discovery phase) of the retro commissioning process if that’s what the town finds to be of value. Mr. Zahren summed that Mr. Weisman’s suggestion after approval of the plan would be implementation.
Mr. Kaplan asked why the sewer pump energy use issue had not been addressed. Mr. Weisman said that he wasn’t asked and that it should be a very quick analysis looking at the pumps to see if they should be modulated. He added that you just can’t assume that modifying equipment will give you beneficial results.
Mr. Haaheim questioned if performance contracting had been considered in the five town grant. Mr. Weisman said the Town of Farmington has been doing it and that West Harford is not interested. He added that Bloomfield has a very divisive split between the town and BOE side, and that building assessments had not begun yet in Simsbury. Mr. Weisman continued that Avon wasn’t a good candidate for performance contracting because it had already made significant investments on capital upgrades, which is a good thing. He continued that the best candidates for performance contracting either had no money to invest in capital, had a history of disinvestment, or lacked technical capacity to manage capital improvements and upgrades. Mr. Zahren noted that the best way to save money, if you have the resources and
capacity, is to do it yourself and reap 100% of the benefit.
Mr. Zahren questioned what information was needed to be inserted in the outside lighting section on page 34 “to be determined.” Mr. Weisman said that he had not yet done the analysis on street lighting to answer that. Mr. Bartha said that CL & P owns the lighting and we really can’t make any major changes. He referred to a memorandum from the prior summer that he drafted after consulting with the Town Attorney, the Chief of Police, and the Director of Public Works that tried to determine if installing dimmers to save money and reduce energy consumption would offset the potential liability of darkening previously lit roadways from midnight until 6:00 AM. Legal counsel had advised that there was no case precedent, and that perhaps the Town should wait until more communities went that direction. Mr.
Zahren suggested we could eliminate street lighting from the plan, given that Mr. Bartha addressed the issue in a memo and because CL & P owns the system. Mr. Bartha suggested that the best time to approach this subject again would be at the five year cycle of bulb replacement. Ms. Levin wants the record to show that she would be very opposed to dimming any lights as she thinks the roads are abysmally dark as it is.
Mr. Haaheim suggested the plan’s final page’s “Plan Implementation: Timelines and Resources Required” will take brainpower on the part of the Commission and it is why he is here to help. He also suggested eliminating the section as the rest of the plan reads like a set of recommendations to the town.
Mr. Kaplan found two items missing in the plan: 1) education and 2) outreach to the town. Mr. Bartha questioned Mr. Kaplan to determine if is he’s asking Mr. Weisman to tell the commission what they should be doing or simply to recap what they are doing. Mr. Weisman said it was up to the commission to determine what to do and what was realistic to do. He added that he has provided a structure which he tried to present in the Commission’s voice and then leave blanks for the group to assert itself to the town on its own. Mr. Haaheim said that he was here to help the group pursue grants and that he’d take a laid back approach and wait for the group to contact him.
Mr. Kaplan said that right now the State is looking for towns to award a grant to for solar PV which he happens to know of because of the Farmington Woods application. Members discussed pursuing the State solar PV grant that Mr. Kaplan mentioned. Mr. Bernetich volunteered to get more information in order to make the application with keeping the BOE in mind. Mr. Bartha suggested contacting Max Warren from Farmington Woods to get more information. Mr. Bartha also suggested emailing a copy of the RFP to him for his review.
Mr. Bartha discussed bringing Mr. Weisman’s portion of the process to a close as we’ve exhausted the first part of the grant that was set aside so that we can start other things. He suggested tapping Mr. Haaheim as he’s had a lot of experience with community outreach and charettes. Mr. Bartha said the process had dragged on too long, resulting in Mr. Weisman attending more meetings than anticipated. Mr. Weisman himself suggested the next step for the members is to have a series of meetings to go over the draft plan page by page to add language that expresses what they feel. He has put together a “head” document and not a “heart” one. Mr. Weisman said it’s a commission that had been tasked to work with the BOE and town to implement these recommendations that the consultant
has made and that the members agree with. Mr. Zahren paraphrased this to have the members thoroughly read through the plan and come ready to attend workshops to work on getting our own language into the document as he feels is not ready for presentation to the Town Council by the January meeting. He asked Mr. Bartha to find out how the members can have workshops without a recorded meeting. Mr. Bartha can also find out if there is a conflict to have a commission member as both a member of the BOE and the Clean Energy Commission. Mr. Weisman added that he felt money left would be more valuably spent in creating specs that could be brought to a contractor to actually make improvements in buildings than he would through running charettes.
VI. NEW BUSINESS
None.
VII. COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE COMMISSION
Mr. Zahren showed Mr. Weisman a handout of a sample agenda he received while attending a Wethersfield Municipal Outreach Workshop November 15, 2011. Mr. Zahren praised the Wethersfield Clean Energy Commission saying they have a strong commission for example by allocating tasks to different members. He said they not only wrote a plan but are getting there as well. The seminar was held to get towns together to cooperate and share ideas. Mr. Weisman agreed that for a volunteer organization, the Wethersfield group was “together.”
Mr. Weisman summed that there’s money left to spend with a current deadline of June 2012. He said work could be done to the plan but not until after the commission members have had a chance to go through the plan and work on it. Mr. Weisman suggested that energy savings be measured by adding up the Btu’s of oil, gas and electricity and using those totals to see savings. He also suggested converting fossil fuel use to emissions to greenhouse gas as a way to measure “green.” If retro commissioning is the next step, he suggested focusing on the schools and he can put a budget together. Mr. Weisman suggested doing the analysis of the library’s geothermal system to see if it would be a viable model going forward in terms of pursuing alternate energy sources. Mr. Bartha agreed that Mr. Weisman
could prepare a budget for the retro commissioning. Ms. Levin clarified that it would be for the discovery phase and not the actual commissioning. Mr. Bartha said to provide a “scope” as the Town had RFP documents to work with.
Mr. Bartha asked Mr. Kaplan what he was hoping to see with the sewer apparatus. Mr. Kaplan wanted to see how much energy we are using on an annual basis, and based on the equipment we currently use, could it be retrofitted so that it will provide savings – ROI. Mr. Bartha suggested a meeting with Mr. Baril, the town engineer, to get an idea of the projects they are already considering. Mr. Kaplan was concerned that they are being used efficiently. Mr. Weisman said he could make a calculation when given the numbers.
Mr. Bernetich questioned if some of the grant monies left could be used for the purchase of motion detectors. Mr. Bartha said no, that the monies left were not for buying things. He noted that the regional grant is focused on the planning process as that is what it was intended for. Mr. Zahren referred to another document he brought showing survey information gathered by DEEP of towns’ needs, roadblocks and hurdles and finding funding sources. He will pass it on to the other members. Mr. Zahren requested that Mr. Bartha send an updated list of emails which he said Ms. Dearstyne should have. Mr. Bartha suggested that everyone send their current address to her so she can update the information.
VIII. DO ANY BUSINESS TO COME BEFORE THIS MEETING
IX. ADJOURN
VOTE: Ms. Levin motioned, Mr. Bernetich seconded and all agreed to adjourn the meeting at 8:40 PM. None opposed.
Respectfully submitted:
Acting Chairman Bernard Zahren
Attest: Susan Gatcomb, Clerk
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