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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Energy Committee - 11/15/2018 South Burlington Energy Commiee 575 Dorset Street South Burlington, VT 05403 (802) 846-4106 www.SouthBurlingtonVT.gov facebook.com/SouthBurlington Approved Meeng Minutes & Notes November 15, 2018 Committee members present: Andrew Chalnick, Don Cummings, Keith Epstein, Linda McGinnis, Karen Mckenny, Marcy Murray, Tim Perrin, Sam Swanson, Patty Tashiro Committee members absent: Fred Kosnitsky No community members were present. Meeting called to order by Chair Linda McGinnis at 6:30pm. Linda noted that it is helpful to call out “actions” in the minutes and amended the draft minutes to so provide. Don Cummings moved that we accept the October 29th meeting minutes, Sam Swanson seconded. Motion passed unanimously. Quarterly Meetings with Municipal Staff. There will be the first of a series of quarterly meetings with Kevin Dorn on December 18th at 10-11:30 to discuss municipal energy efficiency projects. Don Cummings, Tim Perrin, Sam Swanson and Keith Epstein agreed to attend, Button Up Vermont. Patty Tashiro and Andrew Chalnick reported that the event was very successful. SBEC tabled at the three South Burlington polling stations, handed out all 275 energy efficiency kits and collected a number of Button Up Bingo cards. It was noted that if the event is held again it would be good to contact the high school earlier for volunteers. Additional button-up bingo cards are at City Hall and the library. The public has until the end of November to submit cards. EV Charging Stations. Effort to secure funding of $90,000 (each) for 2 charging locations (initially) from the VW Settlement Fund was discussed by Linda McGinnis. The application for charging locations at the middle school / high school parking area is under review by the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources (ANR). The review needs to be completed by Nov 30th to meet the first round of funding deadline. The application for charging stations at the new City Center is being drafted by Ilona Blanchard and has not yet been submitted to ANR. If not complete by Nov 30th it can be submitted for the second round of funding. The charging stations will be available to the public and will have discounted rates for staff. The school is applying for five EV stations (ten ports) – 5 spots will be dedicated to EVs, 5 will be available for non-EV parking in the event the school lot is otherwise full. The school will contribute to the project in kind by providing trenching services. City Center is applying for the maximum of six EV stations (12 ports). Action: Don Cummings moved for Linda McGinnis to send a thank you letter to the regional planning commission in recognition of the tremendous support provided by Dave Roberts. Patty Tashiro seconded. Motion passed unanimously. Solar Projects. City Center. The City will send out an RFI for the City Center solar roof. As the solar array should be cash flow positive it should not need any funds from the solar array on the landfill. The committee noted that the excess positive cash flow should be used to fund other energy efficiency measures at City Center (or other municipal energy efficiency projects). There was then a discussion as to whether the City still has an exclusive arrangement with Encore Renewable Energy. Linda shared that Ilona Blanchard had confirmed that the City no longer has a contractual arrangement with Encore, and that the RFI is intended to gather information from a range of solar developers. FedEx Facility. SBEC learned that SunCap Property Group is intending to develop a large distribution facility for Federal Express on Community Drive. Andrew Chalnick reported that he attended the DRB hearing where the sketch plan for this facility was discussed. Andrew suggested that SunCap consider installing a rooftop solar array on the building and provided to SunCap a short letter outlining some of the benefits of doing so. SunCap responded that they would – at the least – ensure that the building is solar ready. Don Cummings reported that Chad Farrell also spoke with SunCap to encourage them in the same direction. SBHS Solar Bicycle Canopies. Marcy Murray reported that the school is exploring solar canopies for the bicycle racks at the school and that, according to SBSD’s Sue Spear, there are $13,390 in the solar consortium fund that could be used to support this project. Linda McGinnis noted that if the solar consortium funds are used, consideration should be given to installing an educational plaque explaining the benefits of solar and thanking the consortium members that contributed to the fund. Keith Epstein suggested that a solar canopy over the football/soccer seats would also be a potentially attractive project. Solar Parking Canopies. Sam Swanson raised whether SBEC should re-engage in discussions with the city around solar parking canopies. Linda McGinnis noted that the Alchemist (a brewery in Stowe) recently completed a 400-panel solar canopy array over its parking lot. The committee noted that South Burlington has ample parking that could accommodate solar canopy arrays but in the past concern had been expressed around snow removal. With the Alchemist array in place there was optimism that those concerns could be addressed. A question was raised as to how to encourage the private sector to adopt solar parking canopies: Should the land development regulations be modified to provide “sweeteners” to developers that include solar canopies or should the regulations be modified to simply require solar canopies for some percent of new spaces? Discussion of Municipal Energy Projects. Tim Perrin then walked the committee through a presentation that addressed the life cycle of energy efficiency projects and that highlighted energy efficiency projects that the City of South Burlington has undertaken or is considering. Tim noted that SB has commissioned various assessments and audits over time. These reports helped to identify energy efficiency projects in the city. The reports are public and will be available on the SBEC share drive. Tim further noted that Commons Energy is assisting SB in progressing energy efficiency projects by scoping projects, identifying funding and assisting in implementation/measurement. Tim presented a spreadsheet of various projects that SB has completed. The spreadsheet shows that the average payback for the projects (in the aggregate) was three years, and that the savings continued to accrue afterwards. To illustrate, for the 2012-2016 period, the estimated energy cost savings of efficiency upgrades was around $205,653 per year, totaling nearly $800,000. The total project cost was $616,888, and the savings continue to accrue year in and year out. The key projects remaining from the initial Efficiency Vermont list are: · Traffic Signals to LED (80% Complete) · HVAC Improvements at the DPW building · Bartlett Bay Wastewater Plant – 20 year upgrade · Decorative leased streetlighting to LED (GMP selecting fixtures -> tariff) · City-owned streetlighting to LED · Parking lots and exterior wall packs to LED · Wastewater pumping stations · Retro-commission Police Station HVAC Tim commented that funding has not been the main obstacle to moving projects to completion. Rather, the main impediment has been the lack of project management. The committee discussed that – particularly since the projects are likely all cash flow positive – some of the funds from these projects and/or the landfill solar could be used to fund a project management staff person. Patty Tashiro noted there is a possibility that Vermont Gas would fund a staff person and has initiated these discussions. Action. Tim will provide estimated costs and related energy savings (annual and cumulative) to the remaining projects for SBEC to share with Kevin Dorn at the next municipal staff quarterly meeting on December 18th. Kevin and city staff will be asked to add to the list to make it more complete. SBEC will raise with Kevin whether energy efficiency savings – or landfill solar revenue - could be used to fund a new project management staff person. Marcy Murray reported that Kevin Dorn provided her a report on the solar landfill showing revenue for 11 months of $91,918 and expenditures of $68,196 (on three projects: LED upgrades at the Dept of Public Works and Jaycee Park, and electrical improvements at Veterans Park). South Burlington Climate Action Plan. The committee discussed how the Vermont Climate Pledge became the basis so far for the city’s Climate Action Plan. The Vermont Climate Pledge was envisioned to provide the opportunity for the city to reduce our municipal impact on the climate and for the city leadership to become advocates with our city’s residents & businesses and within the region and the state for fighting climate change. Andrew Chalnick noted that—following significant Energy Committee efforts in 2017—the City Council formally pledged on 8/7/17 to meet or exceed the obligations that the United States had agreed to in the Paris climate agreement (which means reducing greenhouse gas emissions 26-28% from 2005 levels by 2025) and that it would be important for SB to update its municipal carbon footprint to determine whether it is meeting this pledge, or to determine what it would need to do to meet the pledge. Andrew Chalnick further noted that it would be useful to produce a menu of tools that SB could employ to meet its goals. For instance, consideration could be given to requiring solar on new buildings, providing property tax rebates for solar arrays or requiring that new homes be built with EV charging stations. Don Cummings commented that cars and trucks are SB’s principal source of GHG emissions and consideration needs to be given to reducing congestion and encouraging alternative modes of transportation. Linda McGinnis noted that it would be useful to explore how other cities are approaching their Climate Action Plans at the Vermont Community Energy and Climate Action (VECAN) Conference on December 1. Linda also commented that it would be useful to have a member of the Planning Commission at an SBEC meeting to discuss climate action tools that the Planning Commission could utilize. Andrew Chalnick commented that he would ask Michael Mittag on the Planning Commission whether he would be willing to meet with the SBEC. Next Meeting. December 13th, 6:30 pm, South Burlington Police Station’s 2nd floor conference room at 19 Gregory Drive (middle entrance). Adjournment. The meeting adjourned at approximately 8:40 p.m.