Town of Sharon, MA

ENERGY COMMITTEE

Minutes

Wednesday, 5/2/07  7:30pm

 

Members present:

            George Aronson, Ed Connelly, Thomas D’Avanzo, Ernest Kahn          

David McCabe, Rosemary Tambouret, Lynn Wolbarst

 

Member absent:

Joan Spiegel, Arnold Wallenstein

 

            This was the third meeting of this committee.

Items Discussed:

  1. The options for input by the energy committee to the Brickstone Sharon Hills project
    1. Recommendations of energy related standards
    2. Development of a bylaw to be presented at fall Town Meeting
    3. Meet with the standing building committee

2. Tom D’Avanzo offered information about energy efficient building resource at www.buildinggreen.com and www.nexusboston.com ; we can visit the Nexus Center at Downtown Crossing, 38 Chauncy St, 7th floor. The center was designed by Cambridge based ADD, Inc.. NEXUS is part green building museum, green building tradeshow and includes a print and on-line resource and samples library, networking and events space. 

Tom also provided information on the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (www.gasb.org) whose mission  is to establish and improve standards of state and local governmental accounting and financial reporting that will result in useful information for users of financial reports and guide and educate the public, including issuers, auditors, and users of those financial reports. GASB 34 is a comprehensive financial reporting standard that has been adopted by many cities including Newton and Boston. Saco, ME has a comprehensive discussion of GASB 34 at the town website (http://www.sacomaine.org/departments/finance/gasb34.shtml).  Information on NASEO, the National Association of State Energy Officials, was also distributed (www.naseo.org).

  1. Update on analysis of town energy use:
    1. Don Hillegas will consider creating a global data base for the town
    2. Display of data should begin with summer months to create a smooth graph
    3. Ed Connelly has only 8 months of Sprague gas data for the library; Sprague data is listed by reading date and Baystate Gas is displayed on the web by billing date
    4. Joan Siegel met with Marie Cuneo of the DPW who helped Joan decipher the gas bills
    5. George Aronson stressed that  ultimately the useful data needed will be cost per kilowatt per square foot for the town buildings in a spread sheet
    6. Discussed energy used by town wells; need to determine if NSTAR has funded projects to put VDS water pumps for other towns; we need to determine if there is motor inventory for the water pumps; Tom D’Avanzo and George Aronson will contact E. Hopper of the DPW with a few specific questions
  2. Report on visit of the newly constructed energy efficient private home in Easton by several committee members.  Features included: passive solar design with tremendous solar gain; concrete floor provided great mass for radiant floor heating; 97% efficient gas furnace; 2 x 6 inch studs provided extra space for isonene insulation; use of pellet stove to supplement heating system; heat recovery ventilator; LED lighting (no mercury but no more efficient than fluorescent)
  3. Ed Connelly will visit an energy affordable home in Colrain, MA on Sat May 5.

 

Next meeting:  Wednesday, June 6, 2007 7:30 PM