Meeting Minutes

Newbury Energy Meeting   March 15, 2021      MINUTES By: Sue Kelley

Attendees (Bold indicates present)                   Quorum        Yes/No

Minutes:  Lisa Correa

1. Call to order, agenda review.

1. Approval of 2/15/21 minutes. as amended (minor edits online), approved.

1. Reports

Hannaford Sustainability: Summary of 2/25 meeting – Andrew (5 min.)  Slides are on Google drive.  Andrew, Joy, Jamie Hess had call with  Peter Monigle New London store manager and with the ME sustainability manager.  High level view of Hannaford’s plans with strategy and goals for next few years.  Specific to New London store:

•  food donated to food kitchens in Danbury, Sunapee, Newport
• and to Hopewell Farm in Newbury
• and waste is trucked to Exeter ME to biofuel contractor

Will meet again on 3/29 to drill down on other areas e.g. power usage or EV charging station.   They have benchmarks built into business processes re: waste, power and health.  Depending on how 3/29 meeting goes, consider broadening out to other groceries.

Where Our Trash Goes(seminar) – Peter (10 min.) “Destination Disposal, Where does our garbage go?” (SWANA, Solid Waste Association of N. America)  status from DES reps ME, NH, VT and Casella and Waste Mgt presentations.  Solid Waste is a dangerous profession.  ME recycling rate 2.5% household; do accept from out of state.  NH 2M tons 2019; 44% of waste accepted from out of state.  NH also sends 150K tons out of state.  VT allocates part of tipping fee to education fund.  Tipping fee is $85/ton trash; $140/ton recycling.  Cascella sees more facilities closing and more trash shipped elsewhere.

Newbury Food Waste Disposal – Lisa ( 5 min.)Lebanon has started taking food waste.  Spoke to them about Newbury delivering to Lebanon; no other towns are doing this.  Churchill at our transfer station is not enthusiastic -- big endeavor.  Will continue to consider what we might do.  Tracy suggestion:  that this be a topic for NEC students to research and consider different models.  It would be next December before work complete.  Yes, proceed to discuss with NEC professor.

1.  Old/Unfinished Business/Review Action Status

 Town energy efficiency and solar projects – Mary (10 min)  see Google doc with definitions and information.  Proposals from Granite State (own our equipment) and Norwich (will build additional solar arrays at their Newport site and provide us with $);  Mary took an action to go back to Norwich for additional proposal.  Also have proposal from Revision.  Of the proposals Revision (bond, or they will finance for us, or will pursue PPA with us) and Granite State (bond and purchase equipment outright) have us owning the equipment.  Norwich strictly PPA; they have investors, no up front cost to us.  Dennis (town mgr) clarified we would have to go forward with warrant article given the amount.  Cannot add warrant article to 2021 town meeting.  Recommendation: we should look at the finances for all the options.  Agreed Mary  will take lead on researching potential makeup of a sub-committee to dig into solar options and make a recommendation; bring in financial and legal expertise from residents.  Joy will contact NH Municipal Association to see if info available.

Also could look at community power and aggregate purchase in later phases.  3/18 Community Power webinar.   May 1st opportunity to survey residents re: saving town money on energy bills.  Potential costs to do structural analysis of building and to have an electrician weigh in; Mary will try to understand what these costs may be.

 NEC Students: Tracy ( 5 min.)  see above under Newbury Food Waste Disposal.  Other projects for students?  Benchmark figures for HVAC?  Could be great but no field work for high school students until fall due to COVID.  Sugar River Valley technical high school Claremont Alex Herzog. 

 Newbury Goals Document – Andrew ( 5 min.) Adopt?  Deb on goal #2; additional specific language proposed.  Current language covers what Deb proposed without being too specific.  Action plan and benchmarks will continue to evolve and we will update them and vote.  As new initiatives come forward need to hold them up to the goals document.   Goals document was approved by unanimous vote.

       Proposal for written report to Select Board re: current and long           

       term goals Summarize, here is what we have done and here is what we are planning to do.  Lisa will get us on agenda, try for 3/29.

 Town meeting/Communication  -(10 minutes)

        Survey attendees, keep it short  (Sue will help Lisa)/Info booth/Other ideas?  Lisa , others?

1.  New Business

Committee organization – Tracy (20 min)

     Purpose – re:  goals, projects, interests, are sub-committees/task          forces indicated at this time? committee size? Consider town, businesses, residents.  Communication/Publicity?

     Discussion, Motion (s) 

Continue to discuss and evolve as we move forward.

1.  News/Legislation/Info – All

1.  Meeting Review – All – Went well? How to improve?
2. Actions —Outstanding/ New

Explore possibility of aggregate energy for municipal buildings – Mary

Identify intern to input data for HVAC audit (Portfolio Manager) – Tracy

Solar bids – Granite State, Norwich , Revision Energy – Mary and Tracy

Consider discussion with Mt. Sunapee/Vail re: energy efficiency/EV charging station  Find report Vail files with NH annually.  Tracy interested in joining call.

Community education: Composting/Food Waste – Tracy, Deb, Lisa, Library

Prepare Survey for town residents to be distributed @ Town Meeting, Info booth? – Lisa, Tracy, Sue others?

Liaison with KAC – Local Energy Committees

Arrange Google Doc tutorial- Tracy

NEXT MEETING APRIL 19TH 4PM.

Actions – Outstanding and New