Meeting Notes July 21, 2009

While only about half of the committee could make it to the July Energy Committee meeting, the meeting was well attended by over twenty guests.

Annette Smith (Chair, Danby) began the meeting with introductions. There were several new faces, including many members of town energy committees, as well as representatives from regional organizations around the County. This meeting was recorded on video by Devin Krevetski. Cristina Kumka, representing the Rutland Herald, also recorded a portion of the audio.

Smith announced a small change to the agenda by proposing that the wind forum item be addressed first. The group brainstormed topics and speakers for the four-week series of wind-energy-related forums that the RRPC will host in September and October of this year. See the attached notes for details.

The minutes from the May meeting were approved by voice vote on a motion made by Eric Mach (Pawlet) and seconded by Ethan Swift (Brandon).

The discussion moved on to a discussion of and brainstorming session on the federal stimulus money allocated to the Rutland Regional Planning Commission by the Vermont State Legislature. Smith explained that the RRPC will be getting $40,000 per year for two years.

During the discussion, the group was informed that there are several examples of town plans that address alternative energy sources in detail, including Searsburg (for wind). Larry Courcelle (Mendon) also mentioned that the minutes from the past year of the full Planning Commission board meetings contain detailed programs which cover many different aspects of alternative energy generation.

Mark Blucher (Staff) started the discussion by referring to the broad guidelines for use of the money, provided as a handout. The RPCs are still waiting for more specific guidelines for their use of the money. Blucher also referred to the Rutland Regional Plan 2008 energy chapter suggested actions, which the Planning Commission will use as a guide when deciding how the funds are used. The Commission needs to use the funds to broadly benefit the twenty-seven towns in the Region.

The group briefly discussed the Vermont Community Development Fund (CEDF) grant money and application process. The next deadline for funding under this grant is August 14, 2009. There will be another RFP issued in January with a February 26, 2009 deadline.

The group brainstormed ideas for how the RRPC should use the stimulus money. Smith went around the room, inviting each person to share one or more ideas. After everyone had an opportunity to speak, Smith encouraged the group to flesh out an idea that several people mentioned about funding a demonstration project at the Stafford Technical Center. Several ideas were introduced, including a residential-sized solar and wind project, plus a methane-collection system on the landfill at the school. While several people spoke in favor of this idea, several people identified potential limitations, including space constraints at the school. Some thought that the Stafford idea was too narrow a focus for the Regional Planning Commission’s money.

The group’s priorities seemed to be educating the younger generations about energy efficiency and conservation, providing a trained workforce for “green” technology, increasing public awareness of current possibilities for efficiency and conservation (especially weatherization), and supporting town energy committees.

Several people also debated whether or not the money could be effectively used to fund a staff position hosted by the planning commission. This staff person would coordinate energy efforts around the region and provided technical assistance to those efforts.

As discussion wound down, Smith thanked everyone for attending the meeting and commented on the group’s good energy.

Brainstorming Notes

Wind Forum Topics

- Questions about technology itself – lifespan, pros/cons, ability to displace oil for energy generation

- Financial issues: tax assessment – property values, grand list, how much stays in town v. state, how are the actual properties on which wind is developed impacted?

- How do town plans address alternative energy sources? How should they address wind and on what scale?

- Job creation

- More information about wind energy potential in Rutland County as well as other types of alternative energy such as geothermal, hydro

- Weatherization

- Impacts of putting wind energy in – natural resources, impact on residents nearby

- What are the varieties of wind energy in terms of scale, ownership, etc

- More information about small scale wind, for example in support of agricultural operations – especially Vermont-made

- Hear more from people experienced with financing, building and living with wind power

- Social cost of energy use. Comparisons between wind and other energy sources, such as strip mining for coal: there is a gap between energy use and production in Rutland County. Environmental health issues.

- Comparisons between potential projects in Rutland County based on scale

- Economics of base load v.

- Independent objective source for real impacts of wind – dispel myths of wind.

- Energy inputs v. outputs – lifecycle analysis. Cost of unit of energy for different power sources (wind, coal, hydro, solar, etc).

- How does the grid operate, how much energy is actually transmissible?

- Geography of successful wind farms – where does wind work? (Include international examples.)

- Operations and maintenance, including decommissioning

- Speaker ideas: Van Jones, Greg Paul (Middlebury, ACORN group), Bernie Sanders (Subcom green job training), Amory Lovins (Rocky Mountain Institute), Lyman Orton (arts council – visioning/visualizing the future of energy in Vermont)

Role of RRPC

- What energy efficiency programs are currently operating in our region and how can we help them be more effective?

- Research for alternative energy – how would solar or wind really impact our region?

- Providing assistance for setting up and/or assisting town energy committees to help them become more active and involved, including helping towns or consortium apply for funding or develop more extensive strategies in town plans (staff assistance, hire consultants)

- Broad, county-wide discussion panels for main issues

- Use the $ for an efficiency competition between towns with an educational theme

- Could also partner with Geographic Targeting Program being run by Efficiency VT right now

- Green Mountain Community Energy Challenge being put on by VECAN

- Demonstration project at Stafford Technical Center using solar or wind and student work (see Mt Holly example) – help train a work force for renewable technology (good precedent for successful student projects)

- Educational projects: partner with CVPS, VECAN, pool resources to create a regional project that draws in a diverse group, with a focus on kids (see solar project being planned with Stafford for this fall – that project encompasses the installation of a 50 kW grid-connected solar project as a demonstration. Stafford students (electrical/plumbing, landscaping/forestry programs) will provide some labor and will learn about solar installation.) Demonstration residential-sized system using solar/wind could be done for about $40,000.

- Work with a local college student/class and conduct a county-wide energy audit (including all fuels/sources), then find ways to reduce use. We could have a big picture data base of energy use all around the region so that we can plan for localized efficiency and production projects.

- Promotion of currently available programs for energy efficiency – tax credits, loan programs, weatherization and incentive programs, etc.

- Identify opportunities for towns to band together and become more effective. Lending library for committees for books or videos.

- Button Up Vermont program model worked well last year – average savings of 30% (fuel and electric) – use the money to keep up public awareness

- Work force training for renewable energy in general

- Wind turbine or solar generation site in a public place that invites interaction with the public

- Existing or former hydro dam sites around the county – look into redevelopment of these sites as well as run-of-river

- Investigate biomass cogeneration facility near Rutland City – see examples around the state

- Assist town energy committees with grant writing projects, funding sources, etc. : ) Staff time to assist current communities and help new committees get started.

- Conservation and efficiency!

- Transportation issues??

- Partner with Efficiency Vermont, NeighborWorks, for example, for consistent, long term educational programs. Example: Efficiency Vermont programs that went into the schools.

- Vermont Technical College

- Need a good plan to make scarce resources effective

- Partner with Rutland City to do Eco-municipality training which would be open to all communities

- Energy independence and local generation: how to be independent?

- Demonstration project

- Study the best success stories and technologies so that we can emulate

- Partner with existing regional sustainability group to enable them to become more effective, for example, with grant writing

- Green building technologies and planned developments – minimizing footprint of development, locally sourced labor and materials. Staff position/program to look at and capture long term economic benefit of green technology and housing development. Low impact development techniques. Material conservation programs. Outreach to developers and to towns (town plans, zoning regs).

- Research activities for inventing new technologies and ways to generate energy – Stafford could also be the place for this type of activity.

- Make Stafford more accessible to all towns ???

- Development director who would be assigned to work for the towns and raise money.

- Put a circular in the Rutland Herald to be distributed about energy issues.

- Mobile training unit to train high school students about weatherization work to be done in their own towns? (see example – partnership between State and VT Tech)

- Poster contest to get kids involved

- Green Mountain College – example, Neigborworks is partnering with GMC to analyze their programs as well

- AmeriCorps Vista program

See the write-up on the Sustainable Rutland blog.