HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022-01-04Climate Smart/Clean Energy Community Task Force
Minutes of the Meeting Tuesday Jan 4, 2022
Via Zoom
Attendance: Ray Burger, Marie McRae, Joe Wilson, John Kiefer, Alice Green, Nancy Munkenbeck, Rachel Zevin, Todd Knobbe
Call to Order at 4:17 pm
Approval of December Minutes unanimous
Additions to the Agenda: Joe volunteered to service as Vice Chair of the Task Force
Review of Clean Energy Community Actions
Community Choice Aggregation – Discuss with Mayor of Owego The Mayor did not respond to a request to share his village’s experience attempting to establish CCA. Marie relayed a perspective from Owego’s energy consultant, Gerri Wiley, who said that they were frustrated with MEGA, because they originally set up their CCA with renewable energy, but then they switched to “dirty energy.” She’s written a report that she’ll share with us. Todd said Village of Owego was on 100% renewables for its CCA from 2019-March 2021. In March MEGA told municipalities that they could get 100% renewables but the day before contract renewals were due in April, they said those renewables were not longer available. Participating municipalities were disappointed in MEGA’s supplier, Constellation Energy, because of its handling of the offerings. John clarified that Constellation is Dryden’s current supplier, and he talked with their rep last summer. He told John that NYS recs were hard to get and expensive. Joe asked for more background. John said MEGA is a not for profit representing municipalities all over the state. They periodically bid out suppliers. Constellation is the current electric energy supplier. He explained that the marketplace is really complicated; NYS produced REC’s are very hard to find. Todd confirmed there’s a shortage, and prices are rising. However, Constellation just signed a CCA contract with Canandaigua. It’s important to work with a trusted CCA administrator. He wouldn’t recommend working with MEGA. Joule energy focuses only on 100% renewables. Joe said the situation doesn’t sound very stable. John agreed that NYSERDA is buying up REC’s; “it’s a buyer beware world.” It’s probably possible to buy 300 REC’s for Dryden’s municipal building energy. Joe Mascaro from Energy Coop of American told John last week that he can find them. But it may be harder to find enough for a town wide CCA. Marie and Alice reported on viewing a CCE hosted Community Conversation with the City/Town CCA Administrator, Paul Fenn. It sounded like the Ithacas want to pursue all the groundwork on establishing a CCA and registering it with the state before other municipalities will be brought on board. The timetable was about 15 months from now. There was little guidance about how outlying municipalities could signal that they want to join. Marie felt that a municipal resolution from Dryden might be a concrete first step. Joe said his work with the TCOG group’s earliest effort on CCA indicated that Paul Fenn is working on CCA 3.0. He cautioned against jumping in to commit to be part of the Ithacas effort. Alice said the Town could pass a resolution committing the Town to create a CCA as a standalone action, regardless of who is later chosen to be administrator, but this will require some community education. Todd said the Mayor of Lima could be a resource about
how to initiate this process. Rachel added that she has also been pushing the Ithacas to give more info to the outlying municipalities. She believes there will be more communication. Loren reported that the TCOG CCA subcommittee will meet Jan. 6 to decide whether or not to dissolve. He can’t attend that meeting but he offered to send questions. The Task Force generated the following questions:
What is current timetable for the Ithacas’ CCA plan?
How frequently can other municipalities expect updates?
Is there any new thought about bringing other partners aboard before 15 months?
What signal would they need to let them know that Dryden is committed to doing CCA?
Is there an RFP, list of deliverables, planning document, framework or description of the
project that could be shared with municipalities? Marie noted that Paul indicated that it would take the full 15 months to get the paperwork done to file with the state. Alice suggested that the there’s lots of information for the Task Force to gather before a resolution would be brought to the Town Board. John said one aspect of Town homework would be to find out if there is renewable energy. Alice reported that the Village of Cayuga Heights contacted Dryden about CCA. The Village has a new Climate Smart Community Task Force, chaired by Alice Wagonknecht-Wieser. She wondered if Dryden and other municipalities might wish to work on this independently, if the Ithacas are moving too slowly. Alice said Dryden wants to know more about the Ithacas’ work before even considering an independent effort. Todd suggested that Nathan Nagle, Mayor of the Village of Horseheads, might be willing to help. They were in a MEGA contract for 100% renewables. The Mayor of Lima might also be a resource. John said he’d like to hear from others about their communication plan to bring in CCA. The community education strategy is different topic from simply securing the energy. Alice suggested that this might be an area where CCE might help facilitate a regional discussion among municipalities interested in CCAs. Todd said he’d look to see if this has been done before. He can discuss this with the regional team to see if an informational webinar might focus on the two areas of community engagement and securing the renewable energy. Joe agreed that this webinar could be interesting to many municipalities. TCOG had the potential to be a clearing house for this kind of information. Alice said she was interested in hearing from a broader regional base of municipalities working on CCA. Todd will advocate for this for a first quarter webinar. It was decided to wait on CCA work, but to focus on the smaller step of obtaining 100% renewables for municipal buildings.
100% Renewable Energy RFP–- John Todd provided names of some additional providers who may be able to provide 100% renewables and REC’s for municipal buildings. He gave feedback on John’s RFP, and John expects to meet with our bookkeeper and then send it out this week.
Clean Energy Internship- Ray, Alice
The Clean Energy Planner job has been posted for Civil Service, and now that the Town has been approved as an employer, it’s possible to view the NYSERDA vetted applications. Alice said there were 21 applicants, but many of the applications were a year
old. More applications are needed, so she and Amanda have extended the deadline from Jan. 7 to Jan. 21. Rachel said she’d help send out the job description. Marie offered to help with posting the position to college job boards. Ray suggested advertising through the local non-profit network. Joe suggested posting on Next Door. Also can check with the Heat Smart folks about sources for their interns. Nancy mentioned there was something posted on Next Door about the Planning position that is recruiting. Ray noted that there are two positions posted, and being advertised in the town newsletter.
Advanced Benchmarking Narrative & Chart with Solar Info –John, Marie John has provided more data on solar panel production in Town Hall and the Town Highway garage. It appears that they’re functioning better than we thought. Marie, John and Alice met with Todd and Gina to get clarification on what should go into an Advanced Benchmarking report on Town Energy Use. As a result, we will change the way data is entered, to separate out energy use at the DPW office vs. the Highway garage. John agreed to continue taking readings on solar panel production until late Spring, early summer, along with a parallel effort to get a more automatic system or delegate this to Town staff. John noted that NYSEG readings don’t tell the whole story for energy use because they leave out solar production. There’s been no word yet from Liberty Solar about what it would take to set up more automatic monitoring, but they did say they would do some work on whether error messages indicate any faults in the system. John had chance to get familiar with the Energy Star system that’s currently being used for recording Town energy use with NYSERDA. It looks like the Advanced Benchmarking report will be possible only after more solar output data collection.
Clean Building Energy Demo – Update on Town Hall upgrades –Alice HVAC upgrade is done but the final bill has not yet been received. Ray says it’s not quite in sync, but there’s heat back in the building. This is likely the next action that will put us in line for a $10K grant. When that comes on line, Alice suggested that the grant might be applied to an energy audit and study of remediation needed to make the Town DPW office more energy efficient. Todd said his program can use grants for energy audits. He’ll coordinate with Gina to get that info, and to see if it could match what the Town would like to know about the DPW office building’s functioning.
LED Streetlight Installation Update - Alice Town has armature and fixtures in place, but there’s still is some back and forth between the Town and NYPA about completion of that project. This will also bring more points.
Review of Climate Smart Community Actions – Rachel/ Alice The plan is still to wait until April to apply for CSC Silver status. The new Planning intern can assist with some of that documentation.
Adjournment at 5:53 pm