Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Facility related electric costs - Facts and figures

If Hopkinton were to participate in a power purchase agreement through the Commonwalth Solar initiative of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, we could build a solar installation that would normally cost over $2Million at no cost to the town.

In lieu of paying bills to the utility for that portion of energy produced, Hopkinton would instead pay similar amounts - but at a locked in rate of increase of only 3% each year, instead of actual increases in current energy bills in the double digits (this year's NStar rates were 22% higher than last year) -- to a the third party solar company who would install and maintain the system on the roofs of municipal buildings through a contract agreement.

After 20 years, we would fully own the system and all power generated from it, saving the town hundreds of thousands of dollars each year at that time.

Potential overall capacity: 416,242 KWH/year across all 4 bldgs

  • The High School and Middle School would account for 87.1% of the system production (362,547 KWH/year)
  • The Fire Station and Police Station would account for 12.9% of the annual production (53,695 KWH/year).
  • The total production of the systems would offset 11% of ALL the schools electricity or 14% of ALL the town buildings electricity, including the well pumps.
  • Cost of building such an installation without this program would be over $2Million.

Total facilities electric usage in 2007:

  • Hopkinton spent close to $1M on facilities related electric in 2007
  • School's approx. 3.6 Million KWH / $500,000
  • Non-school town facilities approx. 3.0 Million KWH / $400,000

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Making energy costs more predictable, and many other benefits too

Massachusetts has introduced an initiative to make it easier for towns to install photo voltaic solar panels on municipal buildings, through an innovative third party financing program.

Through public private partnership, market incentives, and leveraging state and federal tax rebates through third party installers, towns like Hopkinton, MA, can now install solar panels on the roofs of schools and other public buildings with no up front costs. The Third Party Financing arrangement replaces expected energy payments to utilities with payments to the private third party who finances and installs the solar panels on the public building. After a period defined in the contract, the town owns the equipment outright and any energy produced from it.

Total available funding

From the CommonWealth Solar web page: "Starting in 2008, Commonwealth Solar has $68 million available for funding over the next four years to support PV installations in Massachusetts. The effort combines $40 million from the Renewable Energy Trust (Trust) and $28 million from the Alternative Compliance Payment funds that the Massachusetts Division of Energy Resources has collected under the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard program. The state estimates that Commonwealth Solar will result in 27 megawatts (MW) of PV projects over the next four years."

Why is the state doing this?

The Governor recently signed the "Green Communities Act" which includes aggressive targets for alternative energy adoption in Massachusetts. To achieve these environmental targets, the states has worked to develop innovative programs. Energy providers and delivery companies like NStar are also enthusiastically supporting the Green Communities Act because they believe it will enable stabilization of energy rates as well as new business opportunities.

How can Hopkinton benefit?

Hopkinton's participation in this program - by partnering with a private third party company who has the expertise on financing, installation and maintenance - can provide several benefits:
  • Predictable energy costs, a large cost item for the town, over an extended future period of expected energy price volatility
  • Enhance the science curriculum of the schools, through real-time classroom access to energy production and consumption data and other curriculum enhancements included in the program
  • Return additional money to homeowners who pursue solar.
  • Reduce the amount of pollution created by producing a portion of energy used from solar instead of traditional energy sources
  • Social and reputational benefits to our community as a leader in environmental sustainability
Why not do it?

There are reasons not to do it too, but these are difficult to defend:
  • We've never done this before
  • What if price of traditional energy come down drastically in the future?
  • Let's wait and see
Is Hopkinton considering this?

Hopkiton's Town Manager and Facilities Director have been investigating options, have inquired with several potential third party companies, and have signed a letter of intent that allows us to move forward to negotiate the best possible terms for an agreement under Massachusetts's Commonwealth Solar program. Their diligent work could reap Hopkinton additional financial benefits by enabling us to get started soon enough to design a contract that captures federal tax incentives due to expire at the end of 2008.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Planning Downtown Enhancements - Team Effort

Attention to the Hopkinton downtown area has long been identified as a priority in various town meeting discussions and surveys.

On July 7th, the Hopkinton Planning Board hosted a 1-hour dialogue with the Downtown Revitalization Committee (who presented a summary report of the challenges and solutions they see, which you should get a copy of), and DPW (who shared expertise on infrastructure upgrade challenges). Also, some key stakeholders were represented in the audience, including the Hopkinton Library, the Friends of the Common, the DPW Board, Legacy Farms LLC, the Historic District Commission, Parks and Rec (the Common), and the Garden Club, amongst others.

The Town Manager proposed that DPW be the lead on examining what is needed from an infrastructure point of view, and after discussion indicated support for the Planning Department to partner with DPW as a single point of contact within town hall -- a place where the various stakeholders can report their plans and a point of leadership on providing vision and planning coordination. Pulling together all the various initiatives is the best way to examine and identify points of dependency and commonality of objectives amongst various stakeholders.

The Downtown Revitalization Committee gladly welcomed this approach and is interested in a single place in Town Hall where they can go to piece together the various individual visions to identify the points of commonality (e.g., "both these groups are applying for grants or seeking actions for similar things"), the dependencies ("this can't be done until that is done," etc), and independent items ("flower pots and benches don't need to wait for new roads or water main replacement"). Until now, it was mentioned, the lack of coordination has created hesitancy amongst all parties to take any actions. Also, the Downtown Revitalization Committee expressed interest in Town Hall helping provide process expertise and execution when it comes to preparing for future Town Meetings.

An interesting component to all this is the Host Community Agreement (HCA) between Hopkinton and Legacy Farms LLC, in particular the commitment to complete specified 85/135 intersection improvements by May 2009. The goal of the town boards, committees and key stakeholders would be to identify as much other interdependent work that can be done at the same time, in order make the most of the one-time disruption that work will cause ("if we're already digging up the road for the HCA specified improvements, perhaps it's the best time to do this or that at the same time").

Our next step will be the August-25th Planning Board meeting, at which Legacy Farms LLC will present design charets for the intersection improvements. The idea being that work performed in the 250ft radius of that intersection would set a theme for other improvements eyed by the DRC. By then we expect many stakeholders to have shared additional ideas and plans with the Planning Department (and we asked this of those in the room). The HCA work will provide a forcing function to coordinate the many other downtown improvements.

The Planning Board recognizes this is a complicated set of projects, and not everything the town wants or needs may be possible in the time frames or with the resources available, but that trying to coordinate and plan proactively is a better solution than to do nothing. We envision a gant chart of sorts, listing the various projects, time lines, and dependencies, and then quantifying the steps and resources needed to complete; as Ken W put it in recognizing the broad support for downtown improvements, let's get it all out there, see what it would take, and sell this to the town.

Like the marathon that starts its long journey with a slow crowded jog right through the area we're talking about, right now full articulation and implementation of the vision for downtown feels far away, but from a planning point of view, we've started and we expect the pace to pick up quickly.