Energy Commission Minutes 2/13/18

Meeting date: 
Tuesday, February 13, 2018

STRATHAM ENERGY COMMISSION MEETING – MINUTES OF MEETING
Tuesday February 13, 2018
Meeting held at the Municipal Center @ 7:00 pm

Committee Members (Attendees in bold)

  • Michael Ream
  • Matthew O’Keefe
  • Michael Gorman
  • Charlie Case
  • Michael Welty
  • (Town Manager) Paul Deschaine

7:06 PM Call to order

  1. Approve Meeting minutes from January 9, 2018
    1. Minutes approved
  2. Solar Update @ Stratham PD
    1. Installation complete.  Not generating yet.  Open issue with installation to be resolved.
    2. Concern:  disruptive snow runoff occurring in 2 places, causing a potentially dangerous condition.   1) by Portsmouth Ave facing roof; 2) by main door. 
    3. Remediation: snow fencing to be installed week beginning 19Feb17, will require some reconfiguration of panels to provide required space.
    4. Other consequence:  lose 6 panels so some loss of nominal rating, down to 36.6 kW array.  This is seen as neglible by both ReVision and by SEC.  Costs are expected to be minor, details TBD.
    5. Go live in next 2-3 weeks.  Dedication plaque progressing.
  3. Year End reports
  4. Municipality Solar
    1. Reviewed high level opportunity to join this shared community initiative.  As Stratham are a Unitil customer, who are not an Eversource customer, this is not germaine to Stratham.  No action , item closed
    2. Action:  Mike Welty to reply back to requestor to formally decline.
  5. Energize 360 Social Fund -emails
    1. What is it?  Weatherization and solar arrays benefits within a fixed allowance.
    2. Fund is selecting charitable foundations to whom the benefits of the fund can be applied for participating local communities.  List of charities were discussed:
    3. Great Bay Kids (early childhood edu nonprofit), Pease, New Market, Exeter (multiple locations raise potential to reduce costs associated with multiple sites)
    4. Foundation for Seacoast Health (child healthcare, community center, social services), Portsmouth
    5. HAVEN (violence prevention, support services), Portsmouth
    6. Seacoast Habitat (home building for those in need), Portsmouth
    7. Dover Children's Museum, Dover
    8. My Friends' Place (homeless services), Dover
    9. Dover Housing Authority (community housing), Dover
    10. Strafford County Head Start (community action partnership, support services), Dover
    11. Seacoast Family Promise Shelter, Exeter

      Stratham have any we’d recommend to add to the list?  Brainstorm follows:

  • Stratham community church
  • NHSPCA
  • Habitat for humanity
  • Seacoast Family Promise
  • SMS?   Charlie Case to follow up on whether they can do schools
  • Institute of Professional Practice Inc
  • Action:  Charlie so send stratham draft list to Energize 360 Fund Panel
  1. LED Street Lights – emails
    1. Eversource is working with municipalities to incentivize them to convert streetlights to LED.
    2. Unitil has no such program, even though the economics are clearly beneficial, commensurate to scale.  Complications exist, as in installation price
    3. Exeter is interested in this and are actively pursuing this with Unitil.  SEC will remain in contact with Exeter on this.
    4. Colin Laverty / Stratham Highway department is also pursuing this conversion, considering number of fixtures and cost / fixture to replace (equipment; labor).   Colin to reach out to SEC for assistance as needed.
  2. New Business -

Adjourn 7:54 PM

Next Meeting Tuesday, April 10 @ 7pm.