SC Green Team Meeting Notes 2-17-2021

 Green Team Meeting Notes 2/17/2021

Attendees: Steve Fink, Mark Bohrer, Susan Johnston, Mary Pritchard, Bill Schroeder, Janet Clarke, Iric Rex, Candy Dann

 

1.      Church boiler - heating system replacement - Bill S is the point person for Green team

• Current status: boiler is still limping along, but functional
• Tour of Christ Church United/Lowell – Bill organized this, Al Joyall is going
  

·        Scheduled for Sunday Feb 28th

·        “We don’t want to get left behind”

·        Another tour? Utech Lowell (old church building) retrofitted their building also

• Next step – Al Joyall will schedule meeting with Bill & Andy
• Can the church investigate ground source heat pumpt (geothermal)?

·        Candy would pay for a test drill.

·        Iric noted: Sergio the engineer would recommend a test drill if worth exploring

 

2.      MV Renewal Fund survey - Candy's email

The Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) and the AGO have developed two short surveys (available in English and Spanish) to gather community input from Andover, North Andover, and Lawrence residents and businesses about the Merrimack Valley Renewal Fund. Link to surveys here..

Merrimack Valley Clean Energy & Energy Efficiency Programs Programs to serve residents and businesses in the City of Lawrence and the Towns of North Andover and Andover

Action for Green Team – fill out survey -  see link above

 

3.      Church Ceiling/Insulation update – basically going according to plan

ceiling and walls got some insulation (exact result there is not completely known)

Action – Iric – ask Tim Ozirsky how much cellulose went into the walls

Action – Iric – ask Ian Rex if he can

 

4.      Charging Station at Church - Decision: table for now

 Here's the current status (from Bill S):

·        National Grid will pay for the cost of the "electrical infrastructure"

·        National Grid will pay part of the cost for the EVSE (Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment, i.e. Charging Station)

·        Vendor will pay remainder of cost for the EVSE (Dennis Hacker's drawing prize)

·        Installation cost which utility doesn't cover is approx. $1,000

·        SC needs to keep the system working and available to the public for 5 years

·        SC pays for software to track usage and bill users - approx $400 initial fee + $700/year

·        SC pays for annual maintenance & repair contract.  $ Amount???

·        SC maintains liability insurance for injury or property damage.  Incremental cost is ?

·        SC pays for electricity but recovers cost via user charge.  Net cost for electricity approx zero.

One must file an application with National Grid, with detailed design documentation and firm costs, and receive approval.  Without prior approval from National Grid they won't pay.  At this point SC has not prepared an application.

National Grid recommends that potential hosts work with a qualified installer from their approved list.  I have had difficulty finding an installer who wants to work with us.

I considered a whole different business model for this project.  Suppose we simply provided parking spaces for chargers and an outside company installed the chargers and ran them as a service business.  I contacted Blink, a company which does have that model.  But they were not interested in our location, and they have only a small presence in MA.

 

5.      Not discussed this month

• support for AGAB Pesticide use survey - discussion with Maria Bartlett last month
• CCA – Community Choice Aggregation in Andover
• Retreat