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Home My WebLink About2022-10-04Climate Smart/Clean Energy Community Task Force Minutes for the Meeting at 4:15 pm Tuesday October 4, 2022 Town Hall Caldwell Conference Room and Via Zoom (link below) Call to Order: 4:17 pm Introductions: Alice Green, Ray Burger, Marie McRae, Loren Sparling, Chuck Geisler, Gina Cassidy, Kate Lee, Rachel Zevin, Ella Bormet, Mckenna Crocker Approval of September Minutes: Unanimous Additions to the Agenda: None Clean Energy Community Actions Review Actions needed to achieve next levels ($20K and $70K): 1) LED Streetlights Complete! – Alice a. Alice met with the LED installation company. We have 71 cobra head lights and 13 decorative lights. The cobra head lights will bring 700 points and the decorative lights will count for 200 points. These 900 points will bring Dryden’s count to 4,300, qualifying us for the $20k grant. 2) Advanced Benchmarking - Alice a. Alice, Gina, and Ella completed the data entry needed for the Advanced Benchmarking action. This action is worth 200 points. 3) EV Purchase – Ella a. Ella is going to help with the electric vehicle search. Joe found an electric vehicle at a dealership called Destiny in Albany, NY. He expects them to have plenty of electric and hybrid vehicles available. This action is worth 300 points. Marie came across the Demand Response Program that Newfield is doing now. This is a NYSERDA sponsored campaign. She reported that this will count for 200 points in Clean Energy Communities, if we do this campaign. Dryden would only need 10 households to sign up to have their smart thermostat controlled by NYSEG during peak use. They would be able to opt-out at any time. NYSEG would turn their thermostat down just a few degrees to prevent overuse and save money for residents. Marie is going to form a subcommittee and Gina and Alice will work on the scoping document. DHS Student Actions (Congrats on EV Charging Station!) - Kate, Mckenna On Monday, the Dryden High School Superintendent signed the commitment letter to the EV charging station. The High School is officially getting the charging station. They are now looking for contractors to do the preparation. The Sustainability Club at Dryden High School is eager for more collaboration. Alice reported she found a statewide organization of conservation boards, focusing on getting high school students engaged this kind of work. They will be featuring other students across the state who are working on similar projects to Kate and McKenna in Climate Smart work. Alice is going to find more about this and connect the students with them. Community Choice Aggregation subcommittee reports: 1) Status of proposed local law enabling Town to pursue CCA –Alice, Marie a. The Town Board agreed to put the CCA enabling legislation and hearing on the September 13 meeting agenda. A few days before that date, Alice received a set of confusing comments and questions about the proposed local law from a NYSERDA representative. At the same time, a long time CCA supporter from another municipality told Marie that the CCA program isn’t currently positioned on the market to promote more renewable energy development or deliver cost savings to residents. Alice and Marie decided to remove the item from the agenda until the NYSERDA questions could be answered and further research is done. . 2) Research on two CCA Administrators- Marie, Alice a. Administrators and providers are relatively sparse. The CCA subcommittee interviewed Paul Fenn about doing a separate CCA 1.0, when he is certified by New York State, and also representatives of Joule Energy and Good Energy. 3) RFP for CCA provider response from Town Attorney – Alice Before he left for a month away, John Kiefer prepared a request for proposals that could be sent to potential CCA administrators when/if the enabling legislation were approved by the Town Board. He said the RFP was a whittled down version of the NYSERDA RFP template. Town Attorney Nate Van Why reviewed the Dryden draft and suggested further review of the NYSSERDA template. DPW Office Building Upgrade: Audit conducted- Ella/Alice An energy auditor contracted by NYSERDA conducted the audit of the DPW Office building last week. The auditor’s report is being sent to NYSERDA to be reviewed. The Office building is heated by natural gas, and shares a gas meter with the Highway Barn. The auditor calculated that the Barn uses about 85% and the DPW Office uses 15%. The office has its own electric meter. The list of remediations includes new windows, added insulation, and potentially heat pumps. The balance of the most recent NYSERDA grant, $6600 is earmarked towards the cost of these remediations. When the LED streetlights are installed, the Town will be eligible for another $20K towards making the building more energy efficient. The upgrade will not result in an overall 10 % reduction in overall municipal building GHG production (required for CEC points) because the DPW office represents just a fraction of the total municipal building square footage. However, the audit and upgrade can be submitted for CSC points toward Silver Certification. Updates on other Town and Inter-municipal Efforts Report from Affordable Housing Task Force – Ray, Chuck, Ella The Task Force met with Chip Ray from the mobile home park, Hillside Acres in Varna. Chip informed the group that he is constantly getting offers to buy his park, but he has declined them all. By keeping this local ownership, Chuck said, Chip Ray is contributing to the Town’s supply of truly affordable housing. The housing committee’s next meeting is November. Chuck is looking into the assembly of manufactured homes to prioritize energy savings. He said that the report he finished last month with mobile home park opportunities with energy reduction, utility reduction, and affordability has been circulating very well. Report from TCOG Energy Grid Group – Loren Loren attended a July meeting of the Energy Grid Group of Tompkins County focused is on solar development. There was a panel in August about troubles of siting solar installations and sharing this with other municipalities. Report from City/Town CCA group – Marie The Town of Ithaca has passed the Enabling Legislation, and the City of Ithaca has not yet. Report from Land Use and Sustainability Marie attended a webinar by Gay Nicholson on solar sites last week. She said that currently there are 16.3 gigawatts in the New York independent service operator’s queue. Determining what NY will need as a total by 2050 is unknown completely but is estimated somewhere between 20-65 gigawatts. Climate Smart Community Actions Review –Rachel, Alice, Ella Silver certification Count Update on actions/ points needed by January 2023- Ella/Rachel The Climate Smart Communities program gives opportunities for preparation, adaption, and resiliency towards climate change. Ella is uploading documentation to work toward 300 points for silver certification. These will be submitted and reviewed in January 2023. Alice, Ella, and Rachel met last week to review actions. Rachel brought to our attention a way to get 33+ points through creating planning documents aimed at climate change response planning, hazard mitigation, and resiliency building. This would include things like planning for flooding or droughts, infrastructure, and becoming more sustainable for our future. Existing Tompkins County plans provide a foundation for more Dryden-specific planning. This may be another avenue for the high schoolers’ to be involved. We plan on reaching out to the Conservation Board and the Safety and Preparedness Committee in the Town of Dryden. These groups focus could help address the plans we have and generate information on specific ways to be prepared for climate change in Dryden. Adjournment 6:00pm Respectfully submitted by Ella Bormet