April 14, 2008
Energy Committee minutes taken by: Chinloo Lama
Energy Committee Present: Chinloo Lama
Joel Lindsay
Martha Broad
Paula Berg
Michael Gorr
Laura Kischitz
Beth McGilvray
Non-voting members: John Balco
The Energy Committee met at 7:30 p.m. at the Town Hall.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:20 p.m.
Discussion:
Agenda
1) Finalize mailing (everyone was to review it and send feedback.)
2) Finalize plan for timing and distribution of pamphlet
3) Introductory meeting w/ Town Planner, Jennifer Atwood Burney.~ Suggested topics:
~~~~~ A) Possible Grant opportunities for some of the Alternative Energy ~~~~ initiatives w/ new municipal buildings
~~~~~ B) The concept of establishing a Sustainable Building Policy and Guideline as Arlington & Belmont have recently done. (Martha sent out Belmont's example recently and Jennifer is getting examples from other towns as well.)
~~~~~ C) Discuss PPA possibility for town
4) Updates on lecture, workshop series (John/Frank)
5) Update on LCD group starting in May (Martha/Laura)
6) Earth Day at the Library Update
7) Library Construction Updated from Joel~~~
April Mailing
We don’t have all the funding needed to pay for the total mailing. We have $276 need $350 for mailing. Members unanimously voted to set the mailing as is. There will be enough funding from our next funding request from the MTC grant.
Town/small neighborhood fueling supplies
Members would like to look into better rates for bundle fuel supplies. There are opportunities to get groups or towns together to look into possible lower rates, possibly school systems as well. This should be ion our future agendas.
LCD (Low Carbon Diet)
May 4th, 6pm Davis Hall. Linda King volunteered to lead the LCD talk in town. There will be 4 meetings spread across the year. A few of our members will be supporting this effort.
Bolton Library ordered books already. Not sure how many. They will be showcased during the Earth Day event on 4/22. We should purchase more LCD books and have them available at the event.
Education Series (from John)
John reported that the series will be looking at things that might affect people in our local area. The series will also look at what people in this town are doing. There might be a showcase of Geothermal homes and PV and solar water installations in town. This could be an open-house event. This would be a monthly workshop. Groton has a good example of what to do for classes. They tapped the town’s people to lead the presentations. Some ideas so far:
1. Alternative Energy Open House – PV, geothermal, solar hot water, Smart boilers (Pederus Boilers – get external temp to compare the necessary heating for the seasonal climate)
· Suggestion to provide a consistent spec list to showcase the systems.
· Even if we have the spec and snapshot for a slideshow presentation
· Present pros and cons for a presentation
2. Solar Solutions – Particle applications, vendors
3. Is Wood Good?
4. Where does your money go?
5. Green buildings. Residential design and retrofit
6. Town efforts where are your tax dollars going to? – Interested in getting info on the schools. Have more talk about how the schools are being efficient. Give School system the opportunity to showcase their efforts.
7. weather stripping and DYI insulation stuff
8. Solar pathfinder How-To’s.
We can ask for volunteers to lead talks in our next newsletter. Joel has volunteered to learn about the Solar Pathfinder and be the how-to guru as well as the liaison at the library where the Solar Pathfinder equipment will be available to be borrowed.
Also mentioned was that there is a column in the Commons about Community Solutions – energy stuff. Our members are welcome to write for it.
Library update (from Joel)
MEP engineer is very good about energy efficiency. They have not put together a energy performance goals. They have a standard sheet for LEED they are working off of. It gave them a good guideline to achieve possible Silver LEED level. It is getting a Silver score - water savings, energy savings, low VOC paints, lighting, High E, windows. Currently, commonwealth solar has made the solar possibility very attractive. But as a private entity, they can take full advantage of the state rebate. They have calculated that it will be a 5 year payback just on the Library building. It would be a 5KWh system. Minimum for PPA is 250kWh. For the PPA options, town pays for nothing but requires a 250 kWh. Rebates would apply for public building and private owner of the PV. The best deal would be to put the systems on schools. Not sure
what the payoff contract would be.
E-Quest research study of the Library system. They checked to see the best ways to heat and cool the building. The geothermal system came out to be the worst – 20 yr payback. The best option (in terms of best cost and efficiency) Induction System used in Europe a lot. No one is familiar with this technology.
Geothermal – cheapest is standing common well (open loop). The problem would be the return water bleeding. There is no where to put that water.
Joel feels that the library effort is still on track for being green. Everyone in the library community is willing to make the case for the green efforts.
The feasibility for PV is much better now and the payback is much better. That is the direction it looks like they are taking.
Public Safety Meeting Review
View of the public safety meeting with Mark Guinta. They are looking into PV because geothermal seems very unlikely with the water return with nowhere to go. See minutes from that meeting.
PV Opportunities
It looks like the best place to use this PV system is in Schools. Since our school system includes three towns, can we suggest to them the opportunity to save the towns money? We would like to pursue a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). The system can provide a kiosk in the schools to help educate the students.
If we can get a buy-in from the BOS to support this effort, we can look to see how to approach the school system.
Cost per KWH would be less. So the more town buildings we can pull together, the more interested the supplier would be.
2009 Budget
Energy budget should be out soon.
Fourth of July
Garbage recycling – high school students are not interested. However, DPW will be providing bins for recycling. Paula, Martha, Laura - is interested in helping Chinloo with the effort. Float/booth – the committee does not have the bandwidth to put together a float. We might put together a booth.
Action Items
Chinloo – EERE.gov, office document. Get latest minutes to be signed off by group and published online.
Joel – talk to Constellation to give us a talk about options. Learn about the Solar Pathfinder.
Laura – Speak with Linda about speaking with the BOS about PV on schools.
John – Talk to Jennifer in Belmont about sustainable buildings
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