ORDER-2016-57 : Bond in the amount of $1,176,167.00 to convert city-owned streetlights to LED

Transcript (~31 min @ 21:25)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 21:27 Speaker 4: please come forward I was hoping that our Siemens contractor would be here consultant project manager I'm not sure there must have been a miscommunication

▶ 21:35 Peter D. Mortimer: but we can go ahead and do this without your option if you'd like to defer this

▶ 21:37 Speaker 4: oh no no no no no we got we got him we got to move ahead very good then thank

▶ 21:42 Peter D. Mortimer: you very much though thank you very much and ms. Grover is joined once again by a director of public works mr. John Chenna please proceed so I've got three slides

▶ 21:49 Speaker 4: I'll get through this quickly I know you've got a you've got a big agenda tonight my name is Martha Grover I'm the energy efficiency manager for the city in the office of planning community development we've come to you before to discuss this project it's been underway since middle of last year when we created an RF RFQ went out to bid with eight other communities through me with MAPC selected Siemens in November of last year came to you in March to get approval to conduct an audit of our streetlights for the purpose of converting all of our city on streetlights to LED from high-pressure sodium you you approve that audit in April and May Siemens and CDM Smith came into town counted and located and collected data and every one of our streetlights created a GIS map map layer that we now have access to and created an audit report we decided that it would be as this is a kind of a one in 20 year opportunity to relight relamp our community as these LEDs are projected to last you know 100,000 hours four times the lifespan of high-pressure sodium that it would be important to get public feedback on some of our choices we conducted a survey in July and August we got about 40 40 50 responses very interested people the ones who did respond and for the most part first they are very thankful that we asked what they thought they that was that was well received but we did get some response from some people who are very concerned about the glare and brightness of the LEDs which you're going to get when you ask people to go out and look up at the LEDs but in any case the samples that we had set out were of the you know the standard LED samples from manufacturers that every other city and town in the state of Massachusetts and all over the country have installed. It's the 4,000 Kelvin. But a lot of people were concerned about they were too much too deep into the blue spectrum and especially in comparison to our high-pressure sodium, which were down in the 2,200 Kelvins, which are the orange-yellow. So based on that feedback, we decided to, we asked our contractor to seek out an alternative and just around the same time, the lead manufacturers were starting to come out with what, newer technology, 3,000 Kelvin. So if you've been out there and taken a look at it and seen the difference, it's warmer, not quite as blue it's easier on the eye but still has the same the same lumens the same light output in almost the same energy efficiency so we then put that

▶ 25:07 Speaker 4: put that second survey out and it was overwhelming that the folks we I re-invited the people that I had gotten email addresses from and we again put it out in the newspapers and the blog and Facebook and got a probably 25 26 responses and again overwhelmingly in favor of the the warmer less blue less bright equipment so then lucky for us that's when Elena Paracas Ellis came on board our new city engineer and she and John and I sat down and Elena went out more than several times to take a look and really rolled up her sleeves asked a lot of great questions of our contractor and we selected acuity and I'll we'll go over it'll be on the next slide but in any case as the equipment of choice so here we are tonight asking you for the appropriation and the approval to fund this and to enter into an energy services management agreement if it's approved tonight the installation there's about a four to six week lead time on ordering equipment we'd get that in sometime in February and get all this installed in February March with you know the full substantial completion doing done in April so we're talking about three thousand one hundred and city-owned streetlights I think back in 2008 the city purchased most of our streetlights we for some reason I nobody really knows we left out 51 so this proposal includes buying the last 51 streetlights we have about a hundred National Grid accounts and some of these streetlights are on just one floodlight on a bill so it's it probably was easy to miss some of those random lights that are out there but we found them we want to buy them for seventeen thousand dollars which and then we would convert those as well as part of this proposal this is the picture of the equipment this is the acuity it's we would we would it's the top sample there it was chosen well the price was right twenty 20 less than the cree option and we were given an additional five percent off because of these communities in this group procurement acuity hadn't yet been chosen so the acuity sales guy was ready to make a deal with the next community but they all have you know they all offer the same thing one year labor warranty 10-year equipment warranty we're going to buy we're proposing that we buy a control ready seven pin pc receptacle which means that all of these fixtures would be control ready so in the future should control the price for controls meaning dimming capability or other types of uses we might put use for the street lights they would be ready for that for that technology right now it's just too expensive we thought to invest in that at this point um acuity is already installed in newton worcester new bedford newburyport manchester and dairy new hampshire and lots of other smaller towns with an overall expected energy savings of about 65 one of the reasons another reason it was chosen if you take a look at it looks a lot like our current street light the shape

▶ 28:54 Speaker 4: is the site is the same cost overall cost is including all of the seven pin receptacle the field adjustable output etc is 1.4 million dollars less a green community grant we probably should have proved that before anyway that's the next item on your agenda is to prove the green community grant towards this project but in any case less the green community grant less an estimated two hundred thousand dollar National Grid incentive that's pretty conservative but that's our placeholder for now with the net cost of the city of just under a million dollars with a simple payback of six years if you count the energy savings annually and the decreased maintenance the nice thing about this with a 10-year warranty your maintenance savings goes down by almost 75% and the

▶ 29:58 Speaker 4: proposed funding for this is a 10-year bond which matches the 10-year warranty funded by a reduction in the streetlight budget starting in FY 17 that's all I

▶ 30:11 Peter D. Mortimer: I got so questions thank you very much for that presentation that was excellent before we proceed is there any interest in joining the next order to zero one six dash five eight they seem to be logically intertwined so moved second alderman McAteer Margolis has made a motion to conjoin this order and the subsequent order duly seconded by alderman boy cell any discussion seeing None. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We will proceed now. Alderman Tramontozzi was first in line.

▶ 30:44 John N. Tramontozzi: Thank you, Martha. Thank you for the presentation, but it's a lot of money. It's a lot of money that you're asking the taxpayers to fund through a borrowing process of 10-year borrowing. I'm going to be asked, and I need to know the answer. wrong with our streetlights I understand the proposal to change the lights maybe have some savings but can we can we can we change them as they expire on us one at one at a time do we need to go through this entire project to replace every single three thousand one hundred thirty eight light fixtures I don't know I don't know the answer to that I'm not convinced that the borrowing that kind the money at this time is appropriate. What do you say about the thought about just replacing as they die on us?

▶ 31:46 Speaker 2: I think the purpose of this program is to continue the ESCO type of programs. When you do them all at once, you get the economy at scale, but you also get the savings right up front. The intent is to pay the bond with reductions in energy consumption so we would we would reduce the utility budget in dpw by the amount equal to the bond payment that's the intent of how to move the project forward that's what the cfo has elected to propose it's going to start next year there'll be a reduction in our dpw maintenance budget because we won't have them to maintain that's enough to cover the first year payback and FY 18 will have to further reduce it now sometimes further reducing it also you get this energy consumption and that always goes against energy rate increases so it's a balance but it's a very aggressive way to save a huge amount of energy right up front within you know by April 1st we'll start to realize the energy consumption we could go one at a time we'll never see the energy savings that this program proposes I would also just say that

▶ 32:57 Speaker 4: we're a green community we've made a commitment to reducing our energy consumption significantly and we continue to do projects as they go along and it makes sense this is a project that pays for itself in a very short amount of time and when you don't do it you're leaving those savings on the table it's there's there's very little you can do very few things you can do in in terms of energy savings that give you a 65% energy reduction in 7% of your utility budget or 7% of your energy usage that makes such a huge difference.

▶ 33:34 John N. Tramontozzi: So from what you're telling me that the payback period is six years, and, John, what you're telling me is that we expect to see a reduction in your Department of Public Works maintenance budget and uh utility budget that will match what the the payment would be per month or a quarter or whatever that's correct that's that's that's the plan the cfo has put in place and and and is that um how do you how do you calculate that for the record

▶ 34:00 Peter D. Mortimer: i see mr de la rusa was also nodding his head you want to come up in the affirmative in response to your question just just so we have a full record mr de la rusa

▶ 34:14 Speaker 3: Can you hear any affirmative?

▶ 34:17 John N. Tramontozzi: Pardon the interruption, Alderman, please continue. That's quite all right, thank you. Mr. Delaruso, do you have an answer for, how do you come up with the reductions that we're going to see in the budgets?

▶ 34:28 Speaker 1: Yep, let me ask you a question. We have a debt service schedule attached. Yeah. And the objective is to match the debt service cost, so for the first year it's like $14,700. Then it goes down to 113,125 thereafter. We're going to match the reduction in the DPW budget by the cost of this note every year. So you'll be able to see it as an alderman that is reduced by at least that amount. Obviously, I'd love to see it reduced by that and then some, and that only time will tell. But that's the plan is to reduce it by this amount each year, cover that debt cost, get your permanent savings on the energy, and moving forward, I think it's a reasonable and a cost-effective way of putting this new...

▶ 35:16 John N. Tramontozzi: Well, I say hallelujah to that if we're going to be able to match the cost with these savings. I'm going to try to keep an eye on that, and I'm going to hold you to that.

▶ 35:28 Speaker 1: That's perfectly fine because I'm holding myself to that, too.

▶ 35:31 John N. Tramontozzi: All right. I want to see those reductions in the expenses in the budget. I appreciate the feedback. This is important to have, important for the citizens to know that in these times when we're being asked to approve borrowing of this kind in these sums, that we're going to see some positive outcomes from that spending.

▶ 35:59 Speaker 4: state also that um if you've read the agreement the energy management services agreement as procured under chapter 25a these savings are guaranteed well i saw that i saw the by the contractor so if we fall short of those savings how do you enforce that i saw the language in

▶ 36:18 Speaker 4: the contract about the guarantee every year i'm sorry measurement and verification every year of

▶ 36:22 John N. Tramontozzi: those savings and deserve and and then you know you have to sue them uh to uh they deserve a fund

▶ 36:29 Speaker 4: that you can then attach well if they they have a bond all right collect on

▶ 36:32 John N. Tramontozzi: the bond well they guarantee and then the contract as well which I did see that too in the language and I appreciate that mentioning that thank you Thank You alderman Tramontozzi ozi next we have alderman lemmerman please thank

▶ 36:47 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: you mr. chairman thank you very much for this information I just have a couple of questions I don't know if this number if you if you have this number if you've able to run this number but in addition to the savings of just the more energy efficient lamps along with the savings and maintenance and then in addition you know one of the items that we when this first when we voted on this to go into the audit back in march another item on our agenda during that meeting had to do with the community aggregation which we are now seeing being implemented and it was just announced that through the mayor's office that the rate that was locked in was cheaper than national grid and has been a good rate all of that taken together do you have a sense of the potential savings that the city could see you know from what we're paying now with everything for its

▶ 37:44 Speaker 4: savings but I mean John can talk to this further but it's it's mostly you have to

▶ 37:54 Speaker 4: look at it as you know what do you call it deferring on future utility cost increases hedging future utility cost increases which we know you know are going up we're paying now eight cents per kilowatt hour and you know the new contract is you know nine point six cents not all of the city accounts are going into the community aggregation because that contract is through next year some of them are um

▶ 38:26 Speaker 4: i mean the city's contract is through is still we're locked in through next year but you know it's all of this is just part of a package of continuing to as you know electricity costs will increase and we know they will two or three percent a year um whatever we can do to to save on energy use hedges those increases. Sure. But I don't know numbers,

▶ 38:52 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: because nobody knows the future of electricity prices. But they'll be, sure. But it's about keeping those increases down. Yes. For us.

▶ 39:01 Speaker 2: And I think the simplistic explanation of it is we're combating rate increases, because rates always go up for electricity like everything else, but we're combating that with reductions in consumption. we consume more at a higher rate we're able to keep our budget at the same level and we've done that we've level funded DPW utilities which is all city utilities including schools and we've been successful and level of fun they get for two years in a row it's not because electricity is costing us less electricity is costing us more and although we're aggressive through Martha and the Energy Commission and their work and help from MAPC and renegotiating rates but we're consuming less and it's because of these projects so that's how we combat our operating costs and electricity okay thank you another

▶ 39:53 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: question I had just trying to look at all the potential outcomes of you know whether this gets approved by this committee or not if I'm remembering correctly I just want to confirm that this is true back in March when we decided to approve the audit and going into the audit a piece of that was that doing the audit would cost the city fourteen dollars and sixty cents per light is that right it if we didn't move forward with the project so if we don't move forward the project what would it cost the city at this point to just have just done this audit $45,000 okay okay so we would owe Siemens for that audit would have to then pay those costs are not included in this they waived if we do this they waive those costs and it's not that they're rolled in it's they're gone rolled in okay made sure of it okay okay thank you and finally just a logistical question when these if these are to be installed are there going to be traffic interruptions what will that be like in practice it's one bucket truck they'll be probably three or four deployed around town I think they move

▶ 41:08 Speaker 4: pretty quickly okay we'll have police detail on the busier main streets but it's generally not required and on the residential streets we'll have a really cool interactive map that CDM is created so if any of you want to watch the trucks move in your ward as they install it's updated they have little ipads i guess it takes another two seconds for them to you can watch the installation take place kids are too old for that

▶ 41:38 Peter D. Mortimer: now my kids are too old for that now so it's sad okay great that's all i have thank you very much

▶ 41:44 Peter D. Mortimer: thank you thank you mr chairman thank you alderman lemmerman and um next in line we have alderman Alderman Medeiros, and I have you in queue as well. Alderman McAteer-Margolis. Thank you.

▶ 41:54 Monica C. Medeiros: Thank you, I might enjoy watching that move along.

▶ 41:58 Speaker 4: Maybe you should make an app or something and just have it on your phone.

▶ 42:06 Monica C. Medeiros: When we went out and had this audit, did we do any kind of identifying of how many street lights work or how many street lights are functioning, non-functioning?

▶ 42:15 Speaker 4: They did it during the day, but that's not really the point of what they were doing. If they find as they, you know, we have an outage program that, you know, they get replaced.

▶ 42:28 Speaker 4: But if they, as they go out and start doing the installation and they find that the outage is not, it's wiring, they'll repair that as they go along. We've got contingency built in to pay for some of that. They also identified where we need tree trimming in order to free up and make the light more visible. get a list and dpw will work through that list they also identified where the lights are inconsistent

▶ 42:54 Speaker 2: um in terms of right of um how much power and obviously how much light they give what the wattages are and we were able through the gis we're able to look at neighborhood by neighborhood to make sure it comes to my rope to make sure damon ave has more light than the side streets off the damon app for instance so we were able to do that we were and this project's going to to be able to correct some inconsistencies in the layout of the lights themselves and

▶ 43:23 Monica C. Medeiros: when when we do this we'll have a 10-year equipment warranty if we do this right

▶ 43:35 Monica C. Medeiros: in terms of street light outages will seem will we have to have a separate contract for replacement and repair of outages or how will that work with so there's a one

▶ 43:45 Speaker 4: year labor warranty so when that runs out we'll need to you know renegotiate or go out to bid or to Siemens for the continued maintenance but mostly for knockdowns I mean any where these LEDs have been installed the outage rate is less than 1% these these very reliable in comparison to our current high

▶ 44:12 Monica C. Medeiros: pressure sodium and in this slideshow and you had mentioned it the National Grid incentive and the estimate of two hundred thousand dollars which you think is low can you explain kind of what that is this National Grid incentive so what

▶ 44:23 Speaker 4: National Grid does is they have a they have a very aggressive incentive program especially for streetlights it's called prescriptive incentive program and they take the kilowatt hour savings multiplied times 25 cents and you get about you get about $200,000 sometimes for a project of this size they'll add in another percentage if you you know certain amount and I actually have a $10,000 incentive certificate that I got from going to a conference of theirs that I'll throw in on top of that so that number is is definitely conservative

▶ 45:05 Monica C. Medeiros: it's kind of up to negotiation and what I was reading in the documentation well and you would mention we'd kind of put these switches in the light post so in

▶ 45:15 Speaker 4: the future we could do it dimming what were some of the other uses they could use for the receptacles like Wi-Fi or cameras or they're all kinds of uses you

▶ 45:24 Monica C. Medeiros: could use now I my my my eyes perked up when I saw we could perhaps provide Wi-Fi

▶ 45:32 Speaker 4: know i spoke to it right so there would be open pins that could be used for all kinds of things

▶ 45:36 Monica C. Medeiros: even reading the water meters they mentioned in the proposal that we could possibly do them from the street lights which would be kind of futuristic we could incorporate it into the system but

▶ 45:49 Speaker 4: i don't think we'll go that route the software that goes with some of that stuff is really

▶ 45:53 Monica C. Medeiros: expensive yeah yes it did seem so um so all that being said i i and just to go back to this again so we have in here there's a guaranteed savings uh and we think we're going to come out at a net net zero or possibly some additional savings by doing this and we'll use less energy we're going to own more street lights can you talk about what street lights we don't own and we won't own as a result of this are there certain streets like is the lindfels parkway us we own

▶ 46:24 Speaker 4: all of them the one just to be clear we you know um lindfell's parkway that's that's all dcr so those won't get touched um and you know all around oak grove the um what's that access road that's not us either so that you know some people will ask but that's not those aren't our street lights So I think they pretty much counted everything. We matched up against all of our accounts and our inventory that we got from National Grid, which was rife with mistakes. So that's another for once. We won't be paying for lights that we don't have because we're going to clean up their inventory. So this is a great opportunity to just get everything in order.

▶ 47:10 Monica C. Medeiros: I personally, it drives me insane when there's so many streetlights out. And right now, as I drive around town, there's a ton that are out. And it makes me excited that this has the potential for a 10-year warranty, potential for the energy savings, reduced costs in the long term, certainly reduced maintenance because I know Mr. Shenna and I have talked about it, that there's nobody from DPW that's going out and checking our streetlights on a regular basis. so you know anything that we can do to reduce those outages it's it's part of public safety it's part of our quality of life and having you know consistency and not that aggravation geez that lights out it probably doesn't bother other people as much as it bothers me but I definitely support this so thank

▶ 48:04 Peter D. Mortimer: you thank you very much Alderman Medeiros next we have Alderman Inferno

▶ 48:09 Gail Infurna: please thank you very much my question was actually answered by you Martha about the one-year labor warranty and what would happen after that so I'm all clear that so I'll just say thank you very much for all your expertise and all the work that you do in this it certainly helps us understand it better and I think you've been a great community outreach person also to the

▶ 48:31 Peter D. Mortimer: community so thank you for that thank you very much alderman inferno next we

▶ 48:35 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: have alderman McAteer my goal is please thank you some of my questions have also been answered but what I wanted to know was so like in the future if the lights if a light isn't working will residents still have the option of calling that lights on number and reporting it or no most likely contact DPW directly okay

▶ 48:58 Speaker 2: we want to keep track of warranty issues right we want to make sure that the vendor responds so at that point in time sometime in the spring when we come out of winter will make a change and the existing contacts will be changed that contractor will go away we come in take all the calls and then deal with Siemens

▶ 49:21 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: on warranty issues okay and the proposed details slide indicates that they're to choose acuity autobahn series a TBS with field adjustable output features so is Is that the kind of thing you were talking about with the options? You can manually adjust the lumens up and down. Okay, because I know there were some that we had looked at in the past that people thought there was too big a spill over, and so those can be adjusted if it's necessary?

▶ 49:55 Speaker 2: There are slight adjustments. We can't go from off to, but we can slightly adjust it.

▶ 50:00 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: But if somebody, I mean, if it's really shining in somebody's house or something and there are options for them to contact the options to contact to the yes someone

▶ 50:12 Speaker 4: and there also are house shields that you can put on so if you've got a lot of light coming into your second floor because install house shields okay there but one of the things that we can't correct for our crooked bowls so you know even looking at some of the samples I noticed that you know they did different things in terms of putting light on the ground based on the arm or the pole being crooked right right so so they will adjust it to the best of their ability when they're out there on you know when they're doing the installation

▶ 50:46 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: and my other request would be if there was any way to coordinate any of this with DCR for the fells way because in I mean I'm up and down the fells way all the time at night is probably many of us are and they are horrible and there's no you can call people call all the time and there's no I understand the slate is

▶ 51:06 Speaker 4: the state is slowly but surely switching over to LEDs on their roads but it's a

▶ 51:13 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: slow process yeah so I mean I don't know if there's any opportunity for us to encourage that or to say could we take a few of them over you know or anything like that but I think it really is in some areas it is it is a safety issue because there might be two or three out in a row so but um great job and really excited for it to

▶ 51:37 Peter D. Mortimer: support it thank you thank you alderman mccarty margolis next we have alderman bird please thank

▶ 51:41 Jaclyn L. Bird: you mr chairman and uh thanks to both of you for the the updates and the presentation um i just had a quick question to put um the savings in context can you talk a little bit um either one of you on the the utility line item that we usually have for running the street lamps like for the annual operating budget just so people have an idea of how much it costs annually and

▶ 52:03 Speaker 4: then what where the savings will be is it like two or three hundred thousand two hundred eighty

▶ 52:08 Jaclyn L. Bird: thousand two hundred and eighty thousand okay so when they see the number you know that's just under a million after the green community grant and the national grid incentive i think it's helpful for people to understand what we're paying for the the electric bill on those um every year that's what we pay okay excellent that's all i have thank you mr chairman thanks to both of you

▶ 52:26 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you Alderman Byrd, seeing no other Alderman in queue, is there a motion please?

▶ 52:32 Speaker 5: So moved. Recommend to accept.

▶ 52:33 Peter D. Mortimer: We have a motion to recommend the order for passage from Alderman Lemmerman. It was seconded by Alderman McAteer-Margolis. Seeing no further discussion, and this is also joined with the next order, just for the record. The acceptance of the grant, an acceptance of,