November 15, 17, and 19, 2022
Meeting Summary
The Southeast PA Regional Clean Energy/Ready for 100 Fall Conference for 2022 was held virtually by Zoom over 3 separate sessions on November 15, November 17, and November 19. The recordings of all sessions are available as noted below.
November 15: The first session featured 2 very different presentations from 2 different high schools, North Penn HS and Upper Dublin HS. The NPHS ENACT club described a wide range of activities to enhance and educate about sustainability in the school district and the community, including tree plantings to offset paper usage, presentations to the School Board on a sustainability plan for the district, and the Envirothon. A student in UDHS’s Environmental Project-Based Learning class described the Living Building Challenge (LBC), on which the class’s curriculum is based, and how LBC concepts have been implemented in designing a new building to be built at Robbins Park in Upper Dublin. Both sessions were excellent and should be of interest to other high schools and environmental clubs around the region.
November 17: Joy Bergey and Brandon Ford from Springfield TWP described the benefits of building energy audits, even for new buildings. Even a basic benchmarking can be useful to determine if the building is energy efficient in comparison to similar buildings and determine if additional auditing is required. In this case the audit more than paid for itself in a very short period of time. These audits were done by Practical Energy Solutions. Audits should be done both in cold weather and warm weather.
Jim Baldassarre described the process for conducting a technical and financial feasibility study of solar panels for a municipal building. An initial analysis suggested that solar was highly cost effective; however, the township was able to negotiate a lower rate for ‘renewable’ energy from a commercial supplier, which reduced the financial benefit; and required structural changes to some existing buildings increased upfront costs. As such, solar is not feasible at this time, but the new building will be built as ‘solar ready’ for reevaluation in 5 years.
Paul Spiegel and Dennis Rowan discussed the importance of planning in meeting clean energy goals and commitments, including benchmarking both buildings and fleets for efficiency. They introduced the concept of the ‘energy pyramid’, in which an energy strategy is based on an energy analysis. Dennis instructed the group assess the costs of electric vehicles based on the 3 ‘E’s:
- Economic in terms of total cost of ownership and operation (TCO) in $ per mile.
- Energy in terms of Btu/mile, fuel /mile (MPG or MPGe) or Energy $/ mile
- Emissions in GHGe/ mile.
Unless a community knows it's current 3 ‘E’s, statements like: 'An EV costs more' are meaningless.
November 19: Jon Lesher and Brandon Ford described the ongoing development of the MontCo Climate Action Plan (MontCo2050; https://www.montcopa.org/4213/Montco-2050), being developed through the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection CAP program. This is being led by a Steering Committee who have developed a vision for Montgomery County. This should be of interest to any county or local municipality that is interested in developing its own CAP.
Dana Robinson and Dale Harris described the local efforts to engage the community for sustainability efforts in Lansdowne. These include activities in energy conservation, solar energy and solid waste reduction and recycling, among others.
Following this, Kathy McDevitt and Kirk Reinbold discussed community engagement activities in West Vincent, including a Sustainability Fair and EV demonstration, which included numerous vendors and participants, including PECO contractors who can arrange free residential energy audits to residents. Another issue under consideration is how to consolidate solid waste pickup to make it more efficient (by having fewer haulers).
