Institute for Sustainable Energy
Board of Advisors
Board Meeting April 4, 2005Members present:
Arthur Diedrick, Board Chairman
Shirley Bergert, Public Benefits Taskforce Director, CT Legal Services
Donald Downes, Chairman, Dept. of Public Utility Control
Emily C. Smith, Managing Director, Government and Corporate Relations, CT InnovationsGuests:
William Leahy, Associate Executive Director, ISE
Dana Kubachka, DPUC
Michael Pernal, Vice President, Eastern Connecticut State University
Laurel Kohl, ISE, Acting SecretaryThe meeting was called to order by Arthur Diedrick at 10:04 a.m.
Arthur Diedrick requested that Advisory Board members consider the meeting minutes of February 2, 2005. A motion was made by Donald Downes to accept the minutes. The motion was seconded by Shirley Bergert. The motion carried.
2004 Annual Report Draft
Donald Downes made a motion to accept the 2004 ISE Annual Report. The motion was seconded by Shirley Bergert. The motion carried.The board discussed to whom the report should be sent. Suggestions included; Legislators and their staffs, OFA, Governor’s office, agency heads, and energy related boards. It was also suggested that information be given to Stacy Wong for a news article.
2005 Budget
$252,800 was brought forward in the budget as continuance of unspent 2004 funds. This funding was earmarked to support the continuation of 2004 activities. The ECMB has discussed reducing the 2005 funding by the continuance amount and assigning the recouped funds to other programs. At this time $766,000 has been approved in the 2005 Conservation and Load Management Fund for ISE for the 2005 budget year.ECMB Goal Activities
Building Code Training
Three full day training sessions have been scheduled for architects, engineers and other “trade allies.” Sessions will be held in Norwalk, Berlin and Groton. NEEP is supplying the building code trainer. Five half day training sessions have been scheduled regionally in the state for local building officials. These sessions will be held in Norwalk, Waterbury Berlin New Haven and Willimantic. The CT Department of Safety and the State Building Inspectors office have authorized 4 CEU credits for local inspectors attending each session.Green Campus Initiative
The Institute is working with the administrations of ECSU, WCSU and SCSU to develop short and long-range sustainability plans for their campuses. Each campus is being encouraged to follow the “12 Steps to a Green Campus” developed by the ISE last year. ISE will facilitate the process as well as conduct energy and emissions inventories, benchmarking and working with the campuses to create Green Campus Teams to formulate the plans.High School Training Program
ISE is developing the High School Energy Efficiency Curriculum. A stakeholder group will be formed to guide the program development. We are in the research stage at this time. The plan includes a web-based interdisciplinary curriculum that will be used by Science, Social Studies, Language Arts and Math teachers, as well as having technology applications.
Multi Family Program
The position of technical energy coordinator has been approved and ISE expects to hire in the next month.Other Programs
CT High Performance Green Schools Initiative
The stakeholder process has started in the first quarter, with a team that includes Superintendents, PTO, Boards of Education, Architects, Medical professionals, Environmentalists and Engineers. Funding for the project came from the Kendall Foundation in Boston through a grant to the CT Green Building Council. CT GBC has hired ISE to facilitate the stakeholder meetings and public hearings, as well as develop the draft report. CCEF will be funding outreach programs once the stakeholder process has been completed.Through the grant, ISE will also be completing a statewide survey of the current energy efficiency of existing public schools stock. The 1026 public schools statewide will be compared to the 100 schools already benchmarked used Energy Star Portfolio Manager to extrapolate the potential energy savings opportunity statewide. 90% of the existing schools in Connecticut are over 25 years old, and 65% were built in 1950-1973, a period of historically poorly building construction.
CEAB
The CD of the Connecticut’s Energy Future was presented to board members. CEAB is discussing plans with ISE to assist them with the development of the 2006 CT Energy Plan, creating a website to make the Plan more of a living document and to support the plan initiatives with research, in depth information and examples of best practices.
Combined Heat and Power
Bill Leahy will present the current status of CHP in CT at the Albany NYSERDA conference on April 6 titled “Realizing the Benefits of the Regional CHP Market.” The event will promote the virtual applications center at Pace University/UMass that currently offers sample bid documents, legal contracts and on-site engineering assessments throughout the Northeast Region. The CHP Applications Center is part of the NECHP Collaborative, a 5 year program funded by DOE.Grants
The ECSU fuel cell grant remains under-funded. It is possible that the work might be carried forward in the future under an RFP process.DEP/SEP grant for Biodiesel Boiler at ECSU. A 100 horse power boiler used on campus to heat two buildings will be fueled with a B20 biofuel mix this fall. There is an expectation of 30% reduction of emission when using B20. This is the first commercial biofuel conversion application in the state.
Math Science Partnership Grants. The ISE was not awarded these grants.
The next ISE Board of Advisors meeting will be held on June 6 at 10:00 am.
The meeting was adjourned at 11:40 am.
Respectfully submitted,
Laurel Kohl
Acting Secretary
