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Meeting Minutes
Thursday, May 20th, 2010
6:30 pm
120 Washington St.
Salem, Ma
In Attendance: Cindy Keegan (Chair), Jeff Barz-Snell, Adam Segal, Rick Nye
Members not in attendance: Rob DeRosier (V. Chair), Jeff Brandt, John Hayes, Jenna Ide, Nick Lewis
City Staff: Paul Marquis (Salem Energy Manager & RETF/ City Liaison
Public: None
- Paul Marquis updated Task Force members on the status of the energy performance contract; He provided a table containing a preliminary listing of Energy Conservation Measures being considered by the City and the ESCo.
- Paul Marquis updated members on the status of the Green Communities Program (GCP) grant application and solicited suggestions from the members as to what projects the grant application should support. Marquis noted that at this point the maximum grant that DOER was expecting to award to a given municipality was $1M.
- Projects seriously considered included LED streetlight retrofits, LEED certification for the new Senior Center, buying down the energy performance contract project currently under development between the City & Schneider Electric, a bike share program connecting the Salem State College campuses with downtown Salem, and photovoltaic panels for the Congress St. parking garage. It was agreed that given the fact that the Winter Island wind turbine feasibility study had not yet been completed, that project should not be included in the mix in this GCP funding round
- Also discussed was the idea of leveraging project funds by using easily-measurable savings from streetlight retrofit program to fund a green collar job training/ home weatherization program, and by trying to capture utility rebates/ subsidies for the LEED project and the streetlight project.
- After considerable discussion, the Task Force voted to recommend the following grant requests to the City:
- Performance contract buy-down- $500,000
- Covering the incremental cost (in part) of LEED certification for the Senior Center- $250,000
- LED streetlight retrofits- $100,000
- Project selection criteria included ability to develop a reasonable plan quickly enough to meet the grant deadline of June 4th; bang for the buck; potential as a demonstration project; ability to easily quantify energy savings; and general public benefit.
- Cindy Keegan volunteered to reach out to National Grid to inquire about the availability of rebates and incentives for the projects; Jeff Barz-Snell offered to gather data on the incremental cost of constructing a building to LEED specs vs. non-LEED construction
Meeting Minutes recorded by Paul Marquis
Meeting adjourned at 8:00 pm
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