Energy Committee Submission for the 2018 Annual Town Report
The Energy Committee was established as a requirement of the Town’s participation in the Commonwealth’s Green Community program. Our charter is to reduce the Town’s energy consumption and promote conservation of water resources. We are working to reduce the Town’s overall energy consumption by 20% relative to our baseline year of 2012.
Although we have not yet made our goal, we have made significant progress by using grant money to add insulation and weather seal town buildings, install building analytics software to better measure and control building mechanical systems, and conduct audits of the how the Town consumes energy.
Facility growth, like the new Town Barn; increased miles driven by Public safety due to additional patrols and emergency calls; and new services like the Council on Aging Bus require us to improve our efficiency at a pace greater than the growth in consumption. Secondly, the mechanical systems of Berlin Memorial School and Municipal office buildings have exceeded their expected service life and will need to be replaced soon. We are working with the Capital Planning committee to get these systems added to their five-year plan. The age of both buildings’ roofs also prevents them from being candidates for roof-top solar.
By the time this annual town report is published the Town’s old high-pressure sodium streetlights should be replaced with new energy efficient LEDs. In January, when this was written, we were about to start with the actual replacement of lights using $25,000 approved at the 2018 Annual Town Meeting. We are well under budget and have a healthy reserve to address contingencies that may arise during installation. Upon project completion we will receive an estimated $7500 in grants and rebates improving the economics of the project. Our committee chose streetlights that are full cutoff, have adjustability in the beam shape and light output, and support auto dimming. The light controllers know the date and turn the lamp on and off based on sunrise and sunset data. Additionally, they will reduce the output of the street light by 50% between 11PM and sunrise. National Grid has not yet adopted a tariff to support this technology but the other major utility in Massachusetts (Eversource) has and we expect to receive savings in the future.
This spring, the Selectmen approved a long-term contract with Constellation Energy to provide 100% green energy for the Town’s Municipal Energy Aggregation program. From November 2018 to November 2021 participants will pay a flat rate of $0.10999 per kWh. For the winter of 2018-2019 that is a savings of about $15 per month for the average household.
For the first time in three years Berlin has qualified to participated in the Green Community Competitive Grant Program. We are considering several different proposals for submission including additional LED lighting upgrades for Berlin Memorial School, public vehicle charging stations, building HVAC improvements, and training for Town employees. We will learn the grant recipients in the summer.
Respectfully submitted,
Amy Beaudet
Judy Booman
Eloise Salls
Greg Tremelling
Tim Wysocki
(Editor's Note: The actual rebate and grants for this project is closer to $9000 but at the time this was written those numbers were not finalized. We elected to under promise and over deliver.)