Energy Committee Minutes

Meeting date: 
Monday, February 15, 2021

Newbury Energy Meeting   February 15, 2021      MINUTES By: Andrew Cockerill

2/18 Includes edits from Lisa, Mary, Deb

Attendees (Bold indicates present)                   Quorum        Yes/No

Deb Benjamin

Peter Fichter

Joy Nowell

Andrew Cockerill

Mary Fuller

Dan Wolf

Lisa Correa - Chair

Susan Kelley

Tracy Wood

Guest: Jamie Hess, New London Energy Committee Chair

  1. Call to Order, check in, agenda review.

 

  1. Approval of minutes. 1/25/21 Approved with correction (Susan Kelley was present, Delete Item 4B)

 

  1. Jamie Hess presentation:

Solar/financing

In March 2018 New London voted for 100% renewable municipal electricity by 2030 and heat and transportation by 2050. Have installed two solar arrays that produce 40% of municipal electricity demand. 210 panels on highway building 428 ground panels adjacent to sewage pumps. These installed under power purchase agreements with private investors who take advantage of the town’s tax credits.  Under these agreements the town has no capital outlay. After 5 years the town could purchase the installations at the fair market value.  These two installations were attractive as much of the power generated is consumed “behind the meter” by the sewage pumps. Any excess power is net metered with Eversource and Summary Billing is used with other municipal loads.

 Jamie will send a copy of his slides.

 

Key points:

  • Advantageous to have electric use on site.  Behind the meter use is more valuable. Look at biggest bills.
  • Roof or site should be oriented between SE and SW, few trees.
  • If roof, best with 20-to-40-degree pitch

 

Community power

Usually does not yield large cost savings but does allow consumer to choose power source i.e., renewable. Experience elsewhere suggests 100,000 consumers needed to be viable. For NH this will likely mean a single community power group. Lebanon (Assistant Mayor Clifton Below) taking a lead and joined by Hanover.  If established, will give New London and other towns the option to join.

EVs

New London is considering a police cruiser or a shared municipal vehicle for short trips.  Looking at public EV charging, if possible, using VW settlement funds.

Sub committees

NL Energy committee has two subcommittees:

  • Energy and Efficiency looks at physical changes (including the new solar arrays, lighting, heating etc) For example got the DES (Sharon Nall) to conduct a sewer energy audit – already had variable speed pumps but found need for better thermostats to control electric heat in sewage buildings.
  • Education and Outreach.  Pre COVID, they organized in person events including an energy efficiency “trade show” with vendor booths and an EV exhibition. 

 

  1. Reports:

Mary – solar update

Mary circulated Kristin Bahny’s presentation.  She is available to join one of our meetings if we wish. LED lighting contract is signed, and next step is for World Energy to verify the audit data. Mark Wrona of WESS will identify someone the town can work with to optimize operation of the Blodgett sewer facility with existing equipment. 

A Level 2, more detailed audit of largest municipal buildings costs $10k ($5k after subsidy) This includes electricity, heating, cooling, weatherization, water etc.  Another option is to use the online benchmarking tool at no cost, but this requires considerable data input.  There is no spare capacity among town staff to do this work.  Good opportunity for an intern from a high school, tech college or university.

Town electricity is around $38k per year and propane/oil is $17k per year.

Mary will circulate solar proposals:

  • World Energy available in a week
  • Granite State has submitted two proposals for highway building roof. 50 panels to serve only highway building load ($50k) and 329 panels equivalent to 92% of Newbury municipal load ($322k)
  • Norwich Solar proposed extending the existing Newport solar array under a power purchase agreement (No capital outlay and $650/year credit) They have offered to also make a proposal for the highway building roof and committee voted yes to this.

Dan – legislative update

There are several important bills coming up on Feb 19th. Please go online and support.

Lisa – composting/food waste

Short discussion on how to advance the composting agenda.  It is likely infeasible to truck waste for composting in Vermont.  Deb is working on a guide for easy home composting.  Potential to collaborate with the Newbury Beautification Committee.  Tracy suggested NE college may have an environmental sciencec[1]  business student intern who could work on this. We should make composting a topic for more detailed discussion at a future meeting.

UVclimateactiondigest – Barre, VT Energy Committee

Potential to create an energy survey like the Barre example.  Handout at the beginning of the May 1st Town meeting and collect responses at the end.

Hannaford

Andrew advised that a call has been arranged with the Hannaford Sustainability Manager to discuss their short-, medium-, and long-term sustainability goals and explore what the New London store might pilot.

Tracy has posted a note on the planned Hannaford competition in the google drive.

  1. Old / Unfinished Business/ Review action status.

LED lighting project is awarded.

Goal statement – we will clarify the goal with respect to keeping abreast of state and federal legislation… we will all do this individually and share intelligence but as a committee we have no role to support legislation.

The Bylaws and Meeting Process document is now complete and adopted and will be stored on the google drive.

 

  1. New Business

Select Board Meeting – February 16 – report on NE news, Lisa and Mary will provide the SB with an update on our progress and activities. Raise the issue of town providing us with a meeting recorder.

 

Publicity/Communication/Google drive, Lisa

Tracy offered to set up a tutorial on use of the google drive

 

  1. News/Intelligence/Info –  No time for this

 

  1. Meeting Review – All

Went well:  A robust meeting! Jamie’s presentation was excellent and helpful.  Mary has made tremendous progress.

Could be better:  This was a long meeting.  In future we should identify the purpose of each agenda item and the planned duration

  1. Summarize new actions, Next meeting is March 15th.

 

Actions – Outstanding and New

What

Who

Due

Complete? Comments.

Explore possibility of aggregate energy for municipal building

Mary

 

 

Liaison with New England College

Tracy

 

 

What is town’s total electric bill

Mary

 

yes

Single use plastics

Tracy, Deb

 

Ongoing

Identify intern to input building data into benchmarking tool

Mary, Tracy

 

 

World Energy and Norwich bids for highway building roof arrays

Mary

 

 

Arrange for Blodgett Sewer Facility power optimization

Mary

 

 

Report back on session – understanding where our garbage goes

Peter

Mar

 

Consider discussion with Mt Sunapee/Vail re energy use and efficiency

 

 

 

Support NH state bills on Feb 19th

All

 

 

Home composting guide

Deb

 

 

Connect with NBC on composting

Joy

 

 

Prepare a Newbury energy survey for residents for the May 1 town meeting

Lisa

 

 

Report back on call with Hannaford Sustainability Manager

Andrew

Mar

 

Arrange a google doc tutorial

Tracy

 

 

Review EPA benchmarking tool

Deb

 

 

 


@tlwood1987@gmail.com @c.lisa7716@gmail.com

 

tracy re lisa's comment, I believe you said business student.  Perhaps we state both?