Institute for Sustainable Energy
Board of Advisors
Board Meeting December 6, 2004

Members present:
Arthur Diedrick, Board Chairman
William Palomba, Dept. of Public Utility Control, representing Donald Downes
Shirley Bergert, Public Benefits Taskforce Director, CT Legal Services
John Mengacci, Undersecretary, Strategic Management Division, OPM
Emily Smith, Managing Director, Government and Corporate Relations, CT Innovations

Guests:
Dr. David Carter, President, ECSU
William Leahy, Associate Executive Director, ISE
Dana Kubachka, DPUC
Laurel Kohl, ISE, Acting Secretary

The meeting was called to order by Arthur Diedrick at 9:37 a.m.

 

Old Business:
Arthur Diedrick requested that Advisory Board members consider the meeting minutes of November 9, 2004. A motion was made by Shirley Bergert, and seconded by John Mengacci to accept the minutes. The motion carried.

New Business:
The board considered the 2005 meeting schedule. A suggestion was made by E. Smith that in order to avoid a conflict with another meeting, the ISE Advisory Board meetings should start at 10:00 am . It was suggested that in 2005 the Board meetings will be held every other month with the interim months reserved for meetings on an as-needed basis. Meeting will normally be held on the first Monday of the scheduled month. The next meeting, however, will be held on Monday February 1 because of a conflict in W. Leahy’s schedule. A motion was made by Shirley Bergert to accept the 2005 schedule as modified by the Board. The motion seconded by John Mengacci. The motion carried.

Budget
The ECMB submitted a budget of $766,000 to the DPUC for the ISE along with the proposed 2005 Conservation and Load Management Fund Plan. The ECMB also included an amendment resolution requiring quarterly performance reports on ISE’s progress with achieving specific mutually agreed on goals.

ISE Goals
The goals arrived at with the ECMB goals subcommittee reflect that ISE activities should reflect that the majority of ISE funding comes from the Conservation and Load Management Fund, and therefore should directly support the mission and programs of the ECMB and the Fund. The 2005 Goals include

1. Working cooperatively with the utilities, develop and initiate regional training courses to update town building inspectors on the energy conservation components of the state building code and international energy conservation code;
2. Development and implement a high school level energy efficiency curriculum to complete the K-12 eeSmarts program;
3. Research, design and pilot multi-family residential customer energy efficiency initiative using the Customer Initiated Program (CIP) framework;
4. Develop energy efficiency plans for at least three of the CSU Campuses.

Board members questioned the appropriateness of the multifamily goal in line with ISEs mission. The multi-family project will include research on the implementation, target market and effect incentive to make the program successful. The board questioned whether the ECMB expected ISE to continue administering the program after the model program design phase is complete. The target markets for the program are senior citizen housing, condos and subsidized housing, with a model program designing effective strategies to reach each housing type.

W. Leahy also stresses that ISE has every intention to complete those project initiated in 2004, including; the benchmarking of State of Connecticut facilities, developing energy plans with the eight communities already benchmarked, completing the Green Campus model for Connecticut universities and actively supporting the implementation of the CT Energy Plan and CT Climate Change Action Plan.

The board suggested that ISE offer “Potential of Conservation” op-ed opinion to the Hartford Courant, with emphasis on conservation and savings, and a targeted message to the state legislature. This discussion was prompted by an editorial in the Hartford Courant that minimized the effectieness of conservation.

Fall Programs

There were 170 in attendance at Connecticut ’s Energy Future Conference on December 2 at the Legislative Office Building . The event was cosponsored by CEAB and the Institute. The meeting was recorded and shown by CT-N and will be available on DVD. The power point presentations are already available on the ISE website.

The Peer Exchange for Southwestern CT , cosponsored by the Institute, CT OPM and Rebuild America, was held in Fairfield CT on November 18. Three area Mayors and a First Selectman presented their communities’ energy plans and experiences. There were representatives from 16 of the 20 towns invited. The program drew rave reviews from the attendees as well as the CL&P and UI representatives who partcipated.

The Green Campus Initiative, cosponsored by CT DEP and the Institute, is planned for December 10 at CCSU in New Britain . 20 schools already have representation attending.

The Solar Connecticut Group will hold its second quarterly meeting on the ECSU campus on December 8. The meeting will include presentations on renewable energy activities by ECSU, Sustainable Energy Studies and the Institute.

CT $hops was held at the CT Expo Center on November 9. OPM, DAS, CCEF, DEP and the Institute presented the State of Connecticut ’s green purchasing program and CT Climate Change Action Plan information to the 1200 purchasing agents in attendance. Barbara Moser of DAS and W. Leahy of ISE presented a workshop on purchasing Energy Star products.

Grants
ECSU has received a SEP grant from DEP to operate one of the residential hall and classroom boilers on B20 Biodiesel. The grant for $45,200 will cover fuel differential and 18 months to 2 years of monitoring of the system operation and stack emission data, with the result published by the Institute in 2006.

ECSU Fuel Cell project is still seeking to complete the funding package for the $3.8 million project. A presentation and recommendation will be made by the Working Group to the ECMB on December 14. There is currently an extension of the DOD funding until April 19. The project is short $1.5 million.

ISE has submitted 3 grants. One is to US EPA that will fund a model recycling program on the ECSU campus. The other 2 are through CT Department of Education for curriculum programs, including the new CT Science Framework standard for addressing Alternative Energy.

The winter 2004 issue of the ISE newsletter was presented to the board.

 

D. Kubachka announced that FERC is holding a meeting at the LOB on January 6, 2005 .

The next meeting will be held on February 1, 2005 , at 10 am .

A motion was made by John Mengacci to adjourn. The motion was seconded by Shirley Bergert. The motion carried. The meeting adjourned at 10:33 am .

 

Respectfully submitted,

Laurel Kohl

Acting Secretary