HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-03-09Climate Smart/Clean Energy Community Task Force
Minutes of the Meeting
5 pm Tuesday, March 9, 2021 via Zoom
Attendance: Joe Wilson, John Kiefer, Marie McRae, Terry Carroll, Alice Green, Loren Sparling, Ray Burger, Chuck Geisler
Call to Order at 5:02 pm
February Minutes Approved
Reports on Clean Energy Community Actions in Progress:
Community Campaign for Clean Heating, Cooling and Energy Efficiency –Marie, Alice Marie and Alice have started creating the campaign scoping document, and Marie will meet with Lisa Marshall from HeatSmart Tompkins to work out more details. Marie said she hopes we can announce the campaign in the new Town newsletter when the Town approves the campaign. She also noted that if the Town passes the Stretch Code it would result in a $5000 grant that can be used for projects like this. Alice said the announcement would appear in the newsletter that is planned for late March or early April. She suggested the campaign time line would begin in April, focus on a public webinar in May, and continue through June or July to capture credit for all the energy retrofit sign ups that occur. Joe said he hopes the seminar and educational campaign will include all options for energy assistance including those offered through other organizations like CCE. Marie said some municipalities might have difficulty promoting any particular business. Terry said these campaigns are educational, and not sending folks to any individual businesses, but the Town might check its own lawyer about this.
Loren noted that the Town is also embarking on a website update, that will give each Advisory Board a chance to post. Kathy Servoss is in charge of this update. Marie suggested a counter on the website that indicates how many hits a posting gets.
100 % Renewable Energy - John John shared an inventory of Town of Dryden Building Energy Use. Largest consumption is in the area of gasoline and diesel, natural gas. Electricity is about 5 percent of town municipal building energy consumption. The current topic is whether to purchase Town electricity from green sources. John suggested that the Town consider buying clean energy from NYPA. However, Terry reported that NYSERDA is not allowing the purchase of power from NYPA blended power program to count for this action, because the NYPA program uses power from old hydro facilities for their blended power. This program aims to stimulate the development of new renewables, basically, renewable energy certificates (RECs) from facilities that have been built in the last few years. Options are to go with an Energy Coop, (ESCO) or could buy RECs Could cost one cent more per megawatt hour. John asked, what does NYSERDA provide as an incentive for buying Tier 1 renewables? Terry said the 500-point incentive could bring a municipality up to the requirement for a $10,000 grant, in combination with other CEC actions. John said he’d still like to look at what NYPA blended power program, so the costs can be compared vs. the Tier 1 program. He said, that the next place to look for energy conservation would be gasoline, and he guesses that there may be cars/trucks in the Town fleet that could be replaced eventually with electric vehicles.
Joe asked for further clarification of the points system towards grants. Terry said that a long as a community achieves the points and submits the application, the grants are not discretionary, and will be given out until all the 40 grants available in the Southern Tier are claimed. Alice asked if any Dryden solar farms could be a source of renewables. Terry said it’s possible to create a power purchase arrangement with a solar farm. This could meet the point requirements, but they may have already pre-sold the “anchor” purchase agreements. The Town could also talk with facilities that are at an earlier stage of development. For NYSERDA you can meet requirements just by buying recs, but could buy electricity, too. Terry said NYSERDA is developing new guidance on this, but he’d suggest following up by contacting NYPA, getting figures from an ESCO, and also checking with local facilities. Ray said True Green facilities in Dryden are managed by Solar Farms; Delaware Solar is also a possibility.
NYS Stretch Code - Joe, John, Alice Alice referred to a new resolution to bring to the Planning Board. Joe presented a summary of his interviews with builders in the area.
• Last 6 years average # of Single houses build + 28 (6 year average for duplexes = 3 per year)
• Cost of materials has gone way up because of COVID; so less building happening or is likely in next years
• Because of materials costs, any building likely to focus on high end
• Therefore, Stretch Code won’t effect very many builders, customers or environment
• Multi-family building has been even less: average 9 D/U’s per year with just 60+ in pipeline
• Same principles would apply to commercial buildings – few to be built, smaller/cheaper the building, the more percentage the Stretch compliance will cost
• Impact of fixed costs on Stretch Code compliance means compliance impacts low-end housing more (e.g. $3000 incremental costs on average price TC house + +1% on Price and monthly mortgage payment; same cost added to $150K house = +2% to price and monthly payment
• Same for commercial buildings Residential and Renovators Comments: Talked to 6 builders - 2 knew too little about Stretch to comment. Common Themes:
• For energy efficiency, generally
• Today’s heat pumps are good; buyers should want them
• Current prescriptive code is pretty good on energy efficiency
• Problem is some code officers not enforcing it – more to inspect, don’t understand impact of new systems, skip requirements
• Real problem is existing buildings that are inefficient
• Can’t force current owners to change or renovate
• Make incentive programs known – HeatSmart Good
• Reduce/eliminate permit fees as an incentive
• Renovations effect all systems - requires care
• Code compliance in Dryden DZ6A) cheaper than Cortland (DZ5) =out-migration
• Stretch code assumes certain approaches to building which do not include everyone Terry addressed some of the points. You could reduce the building permit costs, maybe using the $5,000 grant. If the small home is built to this standard it will be more
expensive, but these buildings are the ones where energy savings will matter to the residents. The essence of the code is to require builders to do a better job for energy efficiencies. This is a first step toward increasing the quality of the Town’s housing stock. John also did extensive research on the NYSERDA guidelines with costs models for residents and shared his findings via spreadsheet. He picked two housing types: multi family with 1000 sq. feet. Units, and a bigger 2000 sq. foot single-family house. He compared: fenestration, insulation, hot water efficiency, ventilation and lighting, as required under the current energy code vs. under the Stretch Code. He said the new ventilation requirements are interesting. Tight houses require ventilation to be safe. Often builders use the bathroom fan to provide ventilation, not the best way to do this. The stretch code requires an energy recovery ventilation system, which ventilates the air in a balanced way. He called a design engineer, who said for big house they cost about $2000, less for a smaller one. But they do a much better job than previous systems. The ER device collects fresh air and distributes it inside the house. It recovers at least 5 times the amount of energy that conventional fans do. He estimated it would save about $140/year. But it’s a better design for a house, and it makes sense. A number of things in the stretch code just make sense, like requiring LED lights. The lion’s share of energy savings is in the ducts for ventilated systems. Many current ducts have lots of leakage, and they’re located in non-conditioned spaces. NYSERDA now wants to have the ducts sealed and placed in conditioned spaces. This is the right thing to require. Takeaways:
• A lot of the more expensive things in the Stretch Code are things that builders ought to be doing. The state is trying to correct some poor design practices that have resulted from past loopholes in the code. You get a better building when you do these things
• Builders will be able to adapt to these over time.
• We “shouldn’t beat our chests that there’s a great short payback time,” but
• Should emphasize that the requirements are smart, things that we should be including in our new houses
• An important benefit is recovering the heat that would be blowing outside, if you have a forced air system, it should be built without leaks and placed in conditioned spaces.
• Summary: NYSERDA, Joe and John agree: Stretch will increase costs on single multi family homes between 1 and 2 % As building costs go up, the percentage goes down.
• He’s willing to share this research and recommendations with the Planning Board, if they wish to spend the time Chuck offered some comments. He noted John’s caution against too much optimism about the paybacks. He said all around the country folks are couching opposition to stretch-type codes in terms of affordability. This is expressed as a worry that increased building costs will drive development out of the municipality. He hopes Dryden decision makers will be ready to answer these arguments, and will focus on affordability as well as energy efficiency. He said Dryden has 15-17 % of residents living in poverty, and assumes housing affordability is a difficulty for these residents. He wonders if the intent is to work to bring
contractors on board, or to concentrate NYSERDA funds on education about energy conservation incentives. John said he thinks we need to do this; eventually buildings need to be net zero. But he thinks we need to work on both this and affordable housing. The Stretch Code doesn’t break the back of affordable housing in Dryden; it’s already broken. We probably can’t convince contractors; we can just be honest with them. This is a values-based decision, which community leaders – in this case the Town Board - need to make. Joe said he thinks changes in density and incentives for multi-family housing are better ways of addressing affordability. Affordability and energy efficiency issues should be separated. Alice said the current timetable calls for a vote by the Planning Board at the March meeting. Then it goes to the Town Board for a decision. There was discussion about reducing building permit fees if the Town gets $5000 for passing the Stretch Code. Ray noted that building fees for a new dwelling can be about $1,000. Chuck thought it would be better to use such money for educational efforts. Update on Planning Board Comp Plan Update/ Climate Smart Work Nancy was absent so this report was postponed until the April meeting. Adjournment at 7 pm