Energy Committee

I was tired last night, so I went to the Energy Committee and got charged up. Here are the highlights –

• Fred Davis reported in depth on an MAPC meeting he attended about the savings that can be achieved by the town buying our streetlights from NSTAR and converting them to LED fixtures.  Many towns have done so already and are saving tens of thousands of dollars a year.  We are paying about $40,000 per year to light our 345 streetlights, and the guess based on what other towns achieved was that we might save $15,000 a year.  See my prior post.
• David Temple updated us on the thermal imaging conducted by Sagewell.  They took thermal images last winter of about 3,000 homes in town and to date they have processed about 1,400 of those, they got about 600 requests for thermal images from town homeowners, and got about 125 requests from town homeowners for energy audits.  Town homeowners can still get information and energy audits by contacting Sagewell.
• Marie Zack Nolan reported on an energy audit of the Waste Water Treatment Plant that she attended that the major energy saving things have already been accomplished there by the town – e.g. variable speed pumps.
• Next meeting will be at 7 PM on 10/25/12 to hear from the Dartmouth town administrator about its solar PV installations and other energy saving steps.