January 17, 2013
Energy Project Town Meeting
Now that the public information sessions on the proposed energy project have concluded, the time has come for the town to make a decision on the project. A Town Meeting has been called for Wednesday, 1/23/13 at 7:00 PM at Bacon Academy. I encourage all to attend to discuss and vote upon this initiative.
This project has been in the works for many years. It really began years ago when an energy task force was formed to examine ways the town could reduce its consumption of energy in a responsible manner. Among other things, the task force discussed this type of project as a method for achieving energy savings.
When the town received a grant to do energy improvements, we decided to use it to start the process of a larger energy project for most town and school buildings. After an open process, we selected CELTIC Energy to examine our situation, advise on the best course of action, and assist with the development of an RFP for an Energy Service Company (ESCO) to do an energy performance contract.
An energy performance contract is when an ESCO will make a number of equipment upgrades to save energy. The project is financed through the energy savings achieved by the upgrades and the level of energy savings is guaranteed by the ESCO. If we don’t see the level of savings guaranteed, the vendor must pay the difference. Performance contracting has been done by municipalities such as Stratford, Danbury, East Hartford, Farmington, and Middletown to name a few.
After the RFP process concluded, the town selected Honeywell to perform an investment grade audit of most town and school facilities to analyze the potential for energy improvements. We excluded the middle school as we are actively discussing the renovation of that facility. The audit recommended what improvements we could make, the cost of the improvements, and the associated energy savings.
The recommendations were discussed by the Board of Selectmen, Board of Finance, and Board of Education. Through these discussions, we removed some of the recommended items as we felt the payback period was too long to include in the project. The project we settled on was a little smaller than the original proposal, but still met all our core criteria.
The end result is a project which will be financed over a period of 12 years. The energy savings achieved will be used to pay back our annual debt obligations which results in there being no negative impact to the taxpayer. If we achieve savings greater than the ESCO has guaranteed, which is a frequent occurrence in these projects, the town and schools get to keep those savings.
This is a very exciting project for the town and will allow us to actively manage our consumption of energy. We spend more than $1.5 million per year on energy and the time has come to invest in newer technology, reduce our energy consumption, and put in place the controls needed to actively manage our energy usage. All this can be achieved through this project with the added bonus of a guarantee from Honeywell that it will work.
I want to thank all the staff members, elected officials, and others who got us to this point through many hours of hard work. The decision is now in the hands of Colchester’s citizens. I encourage you to attend the 1/23/13 Town Meeting, ask any questions you may have, and vote on the project.
- Gregg Schuster
First Selectman
Previous Selectman Notes can be viewed at
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