ORDER-2020-61 : Authorization to Accept a Grant in the amount of $9,500.00 from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) through the 2020 Heat Smart Massachusetts Program; and Authorize the Mayor to Execute a Contract; funds to be deposited into Fund #4039

Transcript (~14 min @ 4:45)

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▶ 4:44 Speaker 2: seconded by councillor Tramontozzi all those in favor any opposed hearing none this motion will

▶ 4:48 Speaker 4: move to the full board all right thank you chief thank you good evening

▶ 4:55 Christopher Cinella: next on our list is order 2020-61 an authorization to accept a grant in the amount of nine thousand five hundred dollars from the massachusetts clean energy center through the 2020 heat smart massachusetts program and authorize the mayor to execute a contract funds to be deposited into fund 4039 and I see with us tonight thank you for coming hello I'm Susan Murphy I'm

▶ 5:36 Speaker 5: appearing tonight on behalf of the Melrose Energy Commission along with Martha Grover who I know you all know the city sustainability manager we are

▶ 5:45 Speaker 6: here to request that the council authorize the city to accept the grant

▶ 5:55 Speaker 6: and sign a contract with the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center to participate in their Heat Smart program, which is a program to promote clean heating technologies in communities

▶ 6:05 Speaker 6: that they've been running for the past few years. Under the contract, the MassCEC would provide funding for outreach and marketing, up to $9,500, as the order states, as well as technical support from MassCEC personnel and their technical consultant cadmus the city's commitment is to provide primarily volunteer labor in support of this marketing and outreach they require a lead volunteer that's going to be me the heat smart coach also we have several key volunteers who are here tonight sunil sanus laurie timmerman and gary lamothe and we uh liaison from the city which is going to be martha um you're probably aware of some of the mech activities the melrose energy commission activities over the years where we've

▶ 6:51 Speaker 6: been working to promote energy efficiency and clean energy within the city that's included a number of campaigns that are similar to this one there was the solarized melrose which promoted rooftop solar arrays as well as the home energy assessment campaigns we're very excited about this opportunity because it addresses home heating which is a huge energy consumer within the city It's one of the more intractable forms of fossil fuel use because of all the thousands of individual systems, most of which are on natural gas and oil. And we have found in talking to residents that there seems to be a real lack of knowledge and a lack of comfort level with some of the alternative clean heating technologies that are available, including air source heat pumps, ground source heat pumps, and solar hot water, which would be covered under this program. Heat pumps are a great technology that we'd like people to be more comfortable with and have more information about. They operate by stripping heat from the outside air or ground. Even under cold weather they can do that. They can pull whatever latent heat there is in the environment and concentrate that and use it to heat a home. Therefore they're extremely efficient. They can put more heat energy into the home than they actually use to run the unit. So a natural gas system, which is kind of the default that people think of, might be very close to 100% efficient, but a heat pump will be far greater than 100% efficient because it's using that energy that's in the environment. So we'd like to see people who are considering changing their heating system really understand this technology, know about it, be able to have a comfort level with it, and this campaign I think will really go a long way towards doing that. Heat pumps also, because of the way they work, can go in reverse and provide air conditioning. So it's also an option for people who are considering switching out a central air conditioning system can go to something that's much more efficient and also allows them to use a clean heating technology that is possible to power entirely on renewable energy and can be taken out of the fossil fuel infrastructure. I'd also note that in 2019, Arlington and Winchester collaborated on a campaign, a Heat smart campaign with mass cc we've spoken to the people who worked on it there they've been very happy with it arlington in particular was very successful this is a campaign that would be going through 2020 we'd be partnering with particular installers for each of the technologies we'll have a number of events that are specific to heat smart as well as a presence at the usual city events healthy melrose victorian fair um we'll have signs website you'll be seeing a lot of us

▶ 9:36 Speaker 6: assuming that this goes forward um finally we just think this is a great opportunity for the

▶ 9:38 Speaker 5: city we hope you agree and happy to answer any questions council chairman thank you good evening

▶ 9:46 John N. Tramontozzi: and thank you for coming by and again another wonderful grant they were able to to get is there any city matching funds for for this grant the no city matching funds we're providing volunteer

▶ 10:04 Speaker 6: effort will provide use some of the city communications channel maybe some event

▶ 10:07 Speaker 5: space and and some some of martha's time and that's what's required that's great so so if

▶ 10:09 John N. Tramontozzi: i understand correctly this uh these funds are made available for purposes of mostly marketing and education of the the residents it doesn't provide for any funds to residents to offset any cost for replacements of heat pumps their heating systems air conditioning units and so

▶ 10:30 Speaker 5: no it does not there are incentives on you know through some of the utility companies and loan programs and such but this this grant in itself does not provide any funding for that

▶ 10:42 John N. Tramontozzi: it's just for marketing and outreach right which is which is always good and important anyways because the consumers and residents as you say a lot of them don't understand what might be available to them to improve and upgrade their systems so thank you appreciate it thank you

▶ 11:00 Cory Thomas: Thank you both for being here because this is a marketing thing that you're doing I think it's a wonderful thing it helps Melrose become more sustainable in that marketing vein we are on MTV are there any websites or social media sites that you can provide us that people

▶ 11:18 Speaker 6: can learn more about your programs we will have that going right now we're in the process with the contract they they'll do um website and and facebook pages and such but the contract

▶ 11:29 Speaker 6: process has to go through we do have um the heat heat smart melrose that at gmail.com is the email address for it so we're happy to take emails um but and and we will be promoting those um

▶ 11:44 Speaker 7: uh social media and other sites when they become available so we're hoping that will be

▶ 11:46 Speaker 6: you know after this contract is signed it should be March or so that's great

▶ 11:58 Mark Garipay: thank you anybody else thank you for being here one question is this an

▶ 12:07 Speaker 2: annual grant or is it a one-time great campaign thank you thank you for coming

▶ 12:11 Leila Migliorelli: um sounds like a good opportunity is there any what are the reporting

▶ 12:17 Speaker 6: requirements and their opportunity for additional funding like what would be the measure of success for this grant there are some goals in place for how

▶ 12:26 Speaker 5: many installations we have the way the program works is for each technology we

▶ 12:31 Speaker 7: sort of we set a goal but it doesn't have any sort of money or anything attached to it it's just it's more of an aspirational goal so there isn't any

▶ 12:38 Speaker 6: benefit any reward for meeting it or any any detriment to not meeting it

▶ 12:46 Speaker 7: so we'll be reporting how many contacts we have and how many on-site assessments

▶ 12:54 Speaker 7: there are how many quotes are given out and then how many people sign on to contracts with what we'll be tracking

▶ 13:02 Jen Grigoraitis: thank you all for being here and thank you to the volunteers I think you guys are the hardest-working crew in Melrose what are you like what do you think is a a reasonable target in terms of outreach, what will make you guys feel successful?

▶ 13:15 Speaker 5: That's a good question.

▶ 13:19 Speaker 5: I think we, for the different technologies, air source heat pumps is probably the one

▶ 13:22 Speaker 7: that's most, usually the most popular.

▶ 13:31 Speaker 7: I think we, in our grant, targeted somewhere in the 70s for it. Arlington has over a hundred, they are bigger, but.

▶ 13:38 Speaker 8: probably a handful of geothermal we have a handful of geothermal systems already here in town it's a much more expensive technology and a little more you know there's a lot more to it and then solar hot water again it's probably a smaller

▶ 13:54 Speaker 8: amount maybe but the other thing I think you mentioned it but the nice thing is that we will be vetting the installers they'll go through an RFP process and there would be a committee of three people vetting the installers so that's the way we've done it in the past for solarize and for home energy challenge and other things so you know some people are sometimes uncomfortable with the city promoting a certain installer but they've got they will have gone through a vetting process with a technical advisor and so i think for residents to know that these installers have gone through the process gives them a little extra reassurance that that it's a good choice now they shouldn't also get other clothes but um that's one of the benefits of this program we're going to do some

▶ 14:46 Robb Stewart: of that work for them that's great thank you how's this do it thank you chair and thank you for being here uh tonight uh so i've looked a little bit into this this uh i fully support this i think it's a great program um i saw the work that was done in winchester in arlington and belmont uh it seems like melrose is a good natural continuation for this kind of a program given the kind of demographics that those towns support um i'm hoping that we can maybe get some learnings from these towns i know that it seems like you're going to exclude the wood pellet uh part because i know arlington did wood pellet as well as the the heat pump and the solar water heating so that's going to be excluded in this okay which is good that's fired concerns right I would I would ask if you're if you have contacts in those towns and you're working closely with them as well as some of the existing vendors that they have there you know New England ductless and energy smart and all that so we'll be able to take advantage of some of those okay good good we've already picked their brain quite a bit sure good good and in terms of the select what is the selection process look like for the the installers because it's a real

▶ 16:00 Speaker 5: important part of this that makes it successful right so the mass EEC who's

▶ 16:03 Speaker 8: they've done a number of these programs have they provide us with technical assistance and technical guidance for the actual technologies and they're familiar with what's out there and what the latest and greatest is in this field so what we do is create a committee of three four volunteers and we issue an RFP on the behalf of city of Melrose the contract with the installer is that selection process is run by the mass CEC it's not we're on the committee and helping with the selection but they're they're running the process and the installers respond to the RFP we would interview them have scoring criteria and then choose the one that based on the criteria that seemed to be the best fit obviously we would want somebody who's large enough has the capability of doing you know taking on quite a few you know customer acquisitions kind of all at once because it's probably not gonna it's gonna be heavy over the summer and

▶ 17:22 Speaker 8: fall sure so that's and then just you know the technology and their customer service and their and how they deal with complaints is a huge thing of course

▶ 17:30 Robb Stewart: because yeah the number I saw for Arlington to for all four of these was

▶ 17:36 Speaker 8: like 700 I believe 700 phone calls contact phone calls to yeah hundred

▶ 17:40 Robb Stewart: people that actually took advantage of yeah okay that's pretty typical in these

▶ 17:45 Robb Stewart: programs okay that's a that's a good amount um and do you do you have a like a timeline for you know rfp vendor selection and we roll this out we're shooting for like before victorian fairs

▶ 18:01 Speaker 7: that way the information oh yeah i think the the installer it's it's dependent on mass ec's timeline a little bit but so that the plan is that the installer selection will be happening in march and that by early april we'll be in a position to move forward we'll have them meet the installer event in april and then we'll be doing this program you know through the summer and into the fall um and and probably and i think it concludes towards the end of the year in terms of the last uh sign ups for through the program okay so hopefully we'll be we'll be on we'll be running

▶ 18:35 Robb Stewart: by april okay great and who's the heat smart coach i'm the heat smart coach all right okay

▶ 18:41 Christopher Cinella: great thank you thank you anybody else for the first time all right council thomas thank you

▶ 18:47 Cory Thomas: mr vice chairman um on the rfps this is an open rfp or their hand selected you know a few selected

▶ 18:54 Speaker 8: vendors it's posted but they will also send it to installers that they know are capable yeah

▶ 19:07 Christopher Cinella: thanks again any other further discussion motion recommend i have a motion to recommend by Councillor Tramontozzi seconded by Councillor Thomas all those in favor any opposed hearing none so the motion will move to the full board recommended