In attendance: Sandra Bravo, Kathleen Bigford, Jenny Locke-Howley, Laura Ryder, Susan Moss, Marlene Freyler
Review and approval of October Minutes
- Community Power Update
Andrew Hatch from CPCNH has informed The Energy Aggregation Committee (Jenny and Kathleen) of how to move forward with our plan for Community Power for Bradford. Our Energy Aggregation Plan (EAP) is due Jan 1. CPCNH will return it to the Town by January 8th. We then submit our EAP to the Public Utilities Commission (PUC). Our first of two public hearings is scheduled for Monday, December 4th, at 6 in this room. (Update: we needed to have posted this 10 days before the hearing, so the date has been moved to Dec 12th at 6pm at BACC) 2nd public hearing on January 9th. Jenny and Kathleen will submit a warrant article in December to the Select Board for consideration at the Town Meeting 2024.
- Town Hall Renovation Project – See Bradford Bridge for updates.
- Municipal Weatherization Status
- Highway Garage Update – The Incentive from NH Saves has come in: $5,612.13. This was $1,295.48 more for the Town than anticipated. (We expected $4,316.65.)
- Fire Station Update. Air sealing and insulation of the attic spaces above the offices and training room and the above concrete walls was conducted 10/30-11/1. Shakes to Shingles will return to seal gaps above the parking bays, etc. using AeroBarrier.
- Solar Energy – No updates.
- Heat Pumps – No updates.
- Kearsarge Climate Action
- Site visits to a number of businesses and schools was carried out on 11/7 and additional site visits scheduled for 12/6.
- Window Dressers build 11/9-11/15. This collaboration of the Kearsarge Neighborhood Partners, KCA and Windowdressers brought custom low-cost window inserts to local residents and businesses.
- New Hampshire Network: The New Hampshire Network for Environment, Energy, and Climate was founded in January 2021 to facilitate communication among groups concerned about New Hampshire’s environment, energy future, and climate. Sandra and Laura participated in a kickoff meeting of a newly formed Energy Group on 10/19/23. Laura will be our representative and has sent us all a link to future online meetings for listening. NHN is focused on State climate action plans, advocacy, legislation and policy through connection and conversation with other NH town energy committees.
- Legislative Updates
- A good place to stay on top of NH legislative updates is through the https://www.newhampshirenetwork.org/NH-bills
- Although this is not a new law, NH RSA 261:153 (2022) enables towns and cities to adopt a $5 fee to vehicle registrations to fund EV chargers in your municipalities. This could help Bradford raise money to fund Energy related projects such as EV charging stations. Do we need to do this as a warrant article? Sandra will work on this.
- BEC Public Outreach
- The November issue of the Bradford Bridge contained an article entitled Bradford Community Power Moving Forward and an article on Business Food Waste Diversion in the Kearsarge Area – Pigs to the Rescue: Who knew they could help the climate?
- Proposed articles for December Bridge
- Susan proposed writing an article on benefits on switching to heat pump water heaters.
She will work on this for winter 2024.
- Other Items
- 2023 Local Energy Solutions (LES) Conference November 2, 2023. Take away message: Distributed Energy Resources (DER) have the potential to reduce peak electricity demands by 20-30%. Details are contained in a newly released report by the
Department of Energy’s (DOE) “Pathway to Commercial Liftoff for Virtual Power Plants”.
- Brian Nowell is leading a Hazard Mitigation Plan starting in December. Floods, and other environmental hazards. Sandra will join this.
Conclude – Next meeting: Dec 19 5-6pm.