June 8, 2009
Energy Committee minutes taken by: Chinloo Lama
Energy Committee Present: Chinloo Lama
Martha Broad
Paula Berg
Michael Gorr
Laura Kischitz
Beth McGilvray
Guest: Margaret Campbell
The Energy Committee met at 7:00 p.m. at the Town Hall.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:15 p.m.
Discussion:
Agenda
- Recap of the Earth Day Fair at the Winery on May 2
- Recap of Chinloo’s meeting with the Town staff about energy guidelines on May 20th
- Get a report from anyone who manage to attend the Wind turbine presentation put on by the MONTACHUSETT REGIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION (MRPC)
- Email from Mark Slade regarding a bid on a cruiser for the DPS. Discuss who should follow up on this.
- Update on Hazardous Waste Facility proposal to BOS on May 28th
- Bolton’s Energy audit reports from Shelly
- Talk about money strategies for the town’s electricity bills
- Bolton Celebrates will be holding the 4th of July event again this year, any interest in submitting a float? Lending our recycling bins?
Bolton Fair, begin planning the effort
Laura’s ending her committee member ship, Mike and Paula are planning to step down from their committee member seat, and John will also be ending his non-voting membership with us. We need to discuss further the repercussions and vote for a new chair.
In lieu of the committee member shuffle, should we try to adjust the meeting night to one that suits the group?
Updates: lecture series, green communities act
Earth Day Fair Recap (Laura, Paula, Chinloo, Margaret, John, Mike)
The attendance was not very good. Next year we should have it at the memorial field after Opening Day so that we can get some of the crowd after the event.
Paula paid for musicians $50/ea and winery $200 with her own personal checks and will have to get reimbursed.
$2500 owe for the energy updates. No receipt of the work done. Check to see if Margaret has that info and see if she can follow up on this. Also check with Linda.
Town Office Energy Guidelines Meeting (Chinloo)
It was a good showing. There were staff members from the Town Hall, the office in Emerson, DPW, and the IT support for all the offices, (Gary). Chief Alfano was not able to attend due to a conflict with a Firearms law training class. Not sure why other members of the department could not make it, but he did send along an email explaining that they “are a VERY “Green” department, from the cruisers (they) drive, to (their) pedal bike patrol. (We) can call (him) at any time to chat about what (they) have done regarding energy conservation!” (which is a great opportunity
for us to follow up on the new cruiser being purchased)
Apparently the staff in the Town Hall has been quite good about energy savings for a while due to the habits of past staff members. They have always been cautious about their energy use and checking of lights.
Linda Day has volunteered to be the coordinator at the Town Hall to make sure as much of the suggestions can be practiced as possible.
Some takeaways from the presentation:
- The 3rd floor office in Emerson (1 office) does not have a thermostat, so they are at the mercy of the rest of the building and tend to have to keep the windows open all year round.
Since the energy audit, CFLs and sensors have been installed in bathrooms and supply rooms. This has caused some issues and need some addressing. (Shelly is working with the staff and the installers to straighten some of the issues out.
- Bathrooms in the second floor of the Town Hall has one switch to control both the fan and the light, and people would like to have the option to control them separately.
- CFLs in the upstairs bathrooms have a significant delay before fully reaching its maximum brightness. Some staff members noticed that this is not an issue for the new bathrooms on the first floor. However, the ones on the second floor are more often used.
- The motion sensors in the storage rooms are not working since the light will turn off before the staff member is done in the room if s/he is down on the floor accessing lower shelves or not moving around very much.
- Maybe get an intern to come retrofit the strips.
- Ewg.org shows what brands are faster at startup
- Thermostats in the town hall are locked in lock boxes and the process to have the temp changed is very cumbersome and discourages people from reporting the need to adjust the temperatures. This results in people opening windows or using heaters unnecessarily. (Process: season changes, an estimate is made on what to set and when. If a change is needed, Harold is contacted. Harold has to get permission from the BOS before making the change) We need to provide a period of time that allows temp adjusting without runarounds and once all is set, record the proper setting and time on calendar. If we do this for the changes of the seasons and keep records on it, we can better predict the settings and encourage proper communication of the comfort level of the offices.
- Can we have a single person in each building to have the control without selectmen?
- Follow up with Shelly as to why this process was necessary.
- Show everyone
- All were interested in hearing about how much their interaction with their computers can help save energy. Especially monitors left on even during lunch breaks.
- They are interested in getting the statistics on which appliances contribute how much to vampire draining. They might not be able to unplug all the necessary appliances (due to the location of the plugs), but want to try to prioritize their importance. I told them that we can help provide this data if it helps.
- Gary was interested in getting some cost estimates on the smart strip and other possible device solutions like the radio switch which controls the power of an outlet. Especially ones for printers that are not accessible without having to move the printer each time.
- Some were interested in finding out ways to help insulate brick walls in their offices.
- There are many special “closet” rooms that have not heat and not proper ventilation that really need to be addressed.
- During our discussion, I suggested the possibility of better circulating the air around the offices and floors and Shelly was going to look into this.
Wind Turbine Presentation from MRPC (any attendees?)
Notes
New Cruiser for DPS (someone to follow up)
Mark Slade sent an email to the committee asking for us to help voice our recommendations. Not sure if we have missed the boat on this. Follow up on timing.
Hazardous Waste Facility Proposal to BOS on May 28th (update from Laura)
Was taken off the agenda for May 28th. Will be on the next BOS meeting. Laura will let us know when the presentation will be.
Bolton Energy Audit Reports from Shelly
Margaret (with Martha’s support) to follow up with the deciphering the report from an engineering point of view. Have a first meeting with Town Administrator to review the recommendations from the auditors. Decide which ones make more sense to do and approach the “Champions” of the buildings and BOS about the recommendations.
Easy Energy Savings
Margaret provided a report showing the savings for each location in town including street lights and exterior lights of town facilities. EE is able to beat NG’s price always because NG marks up the cost of street lights because they charge the energy use of street lights as if it runs all day long. However, EE only charge during nights. Also, EE constantly searches for the lowest every day. There is no contract so the town can end any time.
Margaret already spoke to Dawn (town staff) about the deal.
Constellation is not an option since we need to aggregate a group of towns to committee to a multi-year contract.
Committee motion to vote on recommending EE for the town.
(Laura) We will recommend to the town
Money Saving Strategies for Bolton’s Electricity Bill
Discussion and Margaret to present Easy Energy potential savings.
4th of July Participation or Support
Do we want to have a float?
Are we willing to lend our recycling bins? Yes. (15 to lend from the fairgrounds)
- Shelly for the containers, and Laura for the bags
- Put posters on the recycling bins as sponsors.
Bolton Fair Planning
Begin planning. Get key people to start leading the process. 10% less in our budget to pay for cost than last year. Event is now 4 days long. We should ask our vendors to try to donate to the cost of the tent. Laura will help with contacting vendors for our
There will not be a booth at the fair this year. The committee voted to not have the booth this year.
Get mailing (newsletter) ready to send to town before town mailing in December.
Keep a list to add to the newsletter.
Passing on of Batons
This is the last meeting for Laura and Paula. They will not be voting members anymore. Status on new member interests and submissions from article in the Commons.
Possible new meeting time to confirm with Town Hall’s availability
We should try to list out our goals and list all the current responsibilities that need to be filled.
Lecture Series
Beth to follow up on leads for program in September.
Green Communities Act
Nothing to report
PV Array
After it goes in, we will be able to afford it and still have money left to do a good data acquisition system. Still need someone interested from school to get info. Martha can send a sample RPF and have Energy Committee members can help draft it up to have Bill Spratts to send out. Margaret is interested in helping out.
Action Items
Chinloo:
- Try to pull together our long term and short term goals to present to the BOS and all of us to help advertise for a new committee member.
Martha:
- Work with Margaret to go over the energy audit. And meet with the Town Administrator.
Paula:
- Reimburse herself for the cost of the Earth Day Fair
Laura:
- Compose the letter of recommendation from BEC to the BOS suggesting that we go through a trial phase with Easy Energy for our electricity for our town buildings.
Beth:
- Follow up with Laura on the contact for September’s lecture series
Margaret:
- Work with Martha to go over the energy audit recommendation and organize a meeting with the town administrator.
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