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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Energy Committee - 02/07/2024PAGE 1 SOUTH BURLINGTON ENERGY COMMITTEE MEETING FEBRUARY 7, 2024 The South Burlington City Council held a regular meeting on Wednesday, 7 February 2024, at 6:30 p.m., in the Auditorium, 180 Market Street, and by Zoom remote participation. Members present: Steve Crowley, Keith Epstein, Fred Kosnitsky, Ethan Goldman, Marley Hauser, Sam Lipschutz, Carrie McLaughlin, Rob Meader, Tim Perrin (Chair), MJ Reale (Vice Chair Committee members absent: Brittany Baldwin, Frans Van Boden City staff present: Lou Bresee, Nick Atherton City council member present: Andrew Chalnick Community member present: none 1.Convene: Tim called the meeting to order at 6:35 PM. MJ volunteered to serve as scribe. 2.Additions, deletions or changes in the order of Agenda items: None. 3. Comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda: None 4. State of VT EV charging standards The group continued the discussion from the January, 2024 meeting. Nick reviewed the RBES and CBES EV parking standards and explained the 3 categories; EV capable, EV ready, EVSE/full build out. Nick asked for the SBEC input to share with the Planning Commission who will be reviewing the final recommendations. The group reviewed the regulations in detail and asked how the stretch code and Climate Action Plan Transportation implementation dovetail with this. Let’s not recreate the wheel if this work is being done elsewhere by/for the city. We also discussed the costs of EV charging to residents. Working with a vendor like Chargepoint will likely be more costly for multi-family housing residents than working directly with GMP like individual homeowners can. There could be a number of scenarios to consider to keep rates reasonable and competitive and also incentivize vendors to maintain their charging units. CITY COUNCIL MEETING MONTH XX, 2023 | PAGE 2 It would be good to have more data on local EV use, growth and demographics and what different level charges cost to install. There is now a folder (EV 2024) in the Transportation folder on SBEC google drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1eYma3y25Ed8bJMAPVf4d0JjkpGk-0fjV The group discussed residential vs commercial development planned for next few years and how that impacts this. Keith made a motion to ask the Planning Commission to update South Burlington's EV charging requirements for new construction so they continue to be stronger than in the baseline state energy code, now that the EV charging requirements in Vermont's stretch energy code will be the same as in the baseline state energy code starting in July 2024. This request is based on the South Burlington Climate Action Transportation Implementation Plan, Action T.1.2 New Building EV Charging, page 19. The Climate Action Transportation Implementation Plan can be found at https://www.southburlingtonvt.gov/departments/planning_and_zoning/final_reports_a nd_plans.php#revize_document_center_rz725 under the Climate Action section. The Energy Committee can assist in this process and provide more detailed feedback on specific recommendations related to the regulations, if the Planning Commission requests that. Sam seconded the motion and it was approved by the committee. 5. 2024 Community Engagement Events Book discussions Fred reviewed the January 18 Braiding Sweetgrass event. The discussion was good and there were 10 people in person and 2 online. Upcoming is March 21, 2024 – Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson • September – TBD • November – TBD ACTION: MJ will promote this on FPF, TOP, city newsletter, SBEC newsletter. Keith will promote on FB. Nick provided more details about Road To Nowhere, by Paris Marx The author is available for a zoom event for a $500 fee. We discussed budget and if this book will appeal to the community. We can do our normal promotion and also reach out to transportation organizations and individuals to attend and help promote. We can aim to get sponsors who can also promote it. Sam made a motion and Ethan seconded for SBEC to commit to the fee and arrange an event. The committee approved. ACTION: Nick will reach out to the author. CITY COUNCIL MEETING MONTH XX, 2023 | PAGE 3 Workshops Rob updated the group on the February 20 event. This will be held at Allard Square in partnership with VEEP (Vermont Energy Education Program) and DriveElectric VT. ACTION: MJ will promote this on FPF, TOP, city newsletter, SBEC newsletter, high school. Keith will promote on FB. MJ will ask CCRPC to promote and also reach out to the EV dealers to promote. We are considering doing a heat pump event later in the year. ACTION: Rob will look into this after we see how the EV event goes. Other events The committee discussed whether we should do another festival this year or other years. We agreed not to do it every year as it is a big lift for SBEC. Discussed the challenges with trying to do a co-hosted event with other city/town energy committees. Perhaps connect with other Energy Committees to see if we can work out a schedule whereby we alternate years for hosting and help each other promote the events. ACTION: Carrie will reach out to other city/town committees. Community Coalition A goal with these events is to build a community coalition. Encourage attendees to “Join Us” and “Be Part of the Solution”. For the next events, we should have a sign-up sheet for people to join our email list and a short survey to determine what would interest them. ACTION: MJ and Marley will put together a survey. MJ will make sure that Rob and Fred have our email sign up sheet. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1idIMq9lzVxsk0KP9v-FjFYRjYuzkIung/edit 6. Logo Nick reviewed the results of the logo vote among committee members. Sam made a motion to accept the winning logo, MJ seconded and the group voted in support. We now have a logo that we will use in any of our outreach materials. The logo in various formats resides here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qMw6RMLno0NQpRFlnMFi0u40IBR5nY2j The group discussed our current ways of connecting with the community. We have 188 emails of people who have signed up for our newsletter. We want to grow that with sign ups during our events, promotion on FPF and FB and in our occasional spot on the city’s newsletter. We can create a dedicated newsletter on the city’s newsletter platform. We need to be clear what the goals of the newsletter are – in addition to promoting our events, CAP, we can include climate action tips, news from Keith’s FB posts, links to our Clean and Green articles in The Other Paper. We can also ask other city committees if they want us to cross promote their events in our newsletter and ask them to do the same for us. ACTION: MJ will meet with Andy to set up the newsletter and work on an editorial calendar. Any other members who want to get trained in the platform should let MJ know ASAP. The meeting was adjourned at 8:30 p.m.