Osler ”Pete” Peterson
Medfield Select Board member
I started this blog to share the interesting and useful information that I saw while doing my job as a Medfield select board member. I thought that my fellow Medfield residents would also find that information interesting and useful as well. This blog is my effort to assist in creating a system to push the information out from the Town House to residents. Let me know if you have any thoughts on how it can be done better.
For information on my other job as an attorney (personal injury, civil litigation, estate planning and administration, and real estate), please feel free to contact me at 617-969-1500 or Osler.Peterson@OslerPeterson.com.
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Recent Comments
pmdunner on Crosswalks & Sidewalks at… EILEEN DESORGHER on Vote Djuna Perkins for DA Amy Cohen on Delineator Flexposts – t… Zach on Warrant Committee’s slid… Donna Knott on Reading for “Read Across…
MSHMC GETS ITS AWARD
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MSHMPC gets APA award
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Posted in Uncategorized
Water main break near 77 South Street
Posted on: December 14, 2018
Water Main Break
Notice:
There is a water main break in the vicinity of 77 South Street. Local residents may experience water pressure loss or times when water is shut off altogether temporarily while repairs are being made. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Department of Public Works
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Posted in Water & Sewer
Cyclocross at MSH Saturday


Cyclocross came to Medfield State Hospital last Saturday, thanks to Medfield resident Greg Bonnette, and apparently it went well. See the ton of photos of the races, the costumes, and the sport at this site –
https://www.facebook.com/pg/IceWeaselsCometh/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1942072672557566
This email to Kristine Trierweiler and John Thompson (Chair of the MSH Blds & Grounds Committee) came today from the organizers –
========================================================
Hi Kristine and John,
On behalf of the entire event team I wanted to express our thanks and gratitude to the town for your support (and patience). We’re pleased to report that there were no major issues and the event was an overwhelming success. We saw nearly 700 pre-registrations which translated to 550 starts (with some overlap between racers who participated in multiple categories) and we estimate that at any given point throughout the day there were several hundred racers and spectators on the grounds. This made the event the largest in it’s 11 year history, and we attribute much of that success to the venue.
We had no reported issues with dog walkers, no one came in contact with any of the structures, racers kept clear of both the overlook and the water tower, and there were no issues enforcing the 12PM tailgating rule. We were also pleased to encounter so many members of the local community that came out to spectate, even on such a chilly day. The feedback that we have solicited from residents, dog walkers and participants has been overwhelmingly positive.
We were fortunate to have cold temperatures and frozen ground following this abnormally wet fall season. This vastly diminished the potential for turf impact from the event. There is a short southern-exposed section in the front which saw full sun and became a little muddy, but in speaking with John Thompson during the event he felt this should recover very quickly with a little re-seeding in the spring. We will coordinate with John on that front to ensure we uphold our commitments to restoration.
We have also made several passes of the property over the last couple of days to make sure we caught every last thing, and we think it would be difficult to tell that a bike race happened there on Saturday.
During pre-registration Colin observed a an above-average volume of early commitment and felt comfortable in estimating that the event would turn a modest profit. Given that this is not the intent of the production, he suggested we make a donation to a local cause. After discussion we’ve selected the Medfield Foundation, and more specifically, the recently added rail trail campaign. We are still awaiting all expenses to come in, but hope to be able to donate somewhere between $1500 and $3000 to the MFi. In addition we’ve promoted the online donation page to the broader New England cycling community following the event and have observed a ~$9K increase in the donation counter since doing so on Sunday AM (this could also be coincidence – but we hope we had something to do with it).
In closing I would encourage the group here to provide us with feedback. If there is anything that needs further attention please let us know. Also, if the town supports it, we would like to inquire about reserving the grounds for Saturday 12/7/19.
Thank You,
Greg, Chip and Colin
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Posted in Uncategorized
This is an article my Dad wrote for The Atlantic in 1960, before the USA had Medicare and Medicaid, and the government was thinking of getting into health care for the elderly. Lots of the same issues. –

How Good is Government Medical Care?
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Posted in Uncategorized
Revised agenda for tonight (in red)

Board of Selectmen
Agenda December 11, 2018
6:00 PM Declare meeting open
6:00 PM Vote to go into Executive Session for the purpose of discussing land acquisition
7:00 PM Call to order
Disclosure of video recording
We want to take a moment of appreciation for our Troops serving in the Middle East and around the world
7:05 PM Introduce new Facilities Director Amy Colleran and new Building Commissioner Gary Pelletier
Citizen Comment
Action Items
Director of Public Works Maurice Goulet requests Selectmen vote to sign following contracts:
. Environmental Partners Group, Inc., Quincy, MA to perform Landfill Monitoring Services; fee not to
exceed $31,800.00
. Southeastern Regional Services Group, DPW Services for 2/1/19 – 1/31/20
Board of Selectmen are requested to vote to sign Agreement with Patriot Properties, Inc., Marblehead, MA; to provide services in compliance with Department of Revenue Regulations; fee amount $7,950.00
Regarding Gift of Land by Estate of Carol Stockman to the Town. Board of Selectmen are requested to vote to
Sign Assent to Probate and Acceptance of Deed
Fire Chief Carrico requests the Selectmen vote to accept the Hazardous Materials Emergency Preparedness Grant provided by MEMA
Selectmen are requested to vote to approve the following 2019 Alcohol Licenses and Common Victualler Licenses:
Avenue, Basil, Jing’s Garden II, Kingsbury Club Medfield, Noon Hill Grille, Nosh and Grog, Takara
Selectmen are requested to vote to approve the following 2019 All Alcohol Package Store Licenses:
Bullard’s, Medfield Package Store (Larkin’s), Palumbo Liquors
Selectmen are requested to vote to approve 2019 Wine and Malt Beverages Licenses:
Medfield Wine Shoppe, Medfield Commons (Gulf Station/Main Street)
Selectmen are requested to vote to approve 2019 Farmer Brewery Pouring Permit to Seventh Wave Brewing, Inc.
Selectmen are requested to vote to approve 2019 Farmer Distillery Pouring Permit to Astraluna, Inc.
Discussion Items
Discuss draft Town Wide Master Plan Committee Charter and appoint Town Wide Master Plan initial committee members:
Mary McCarthy; Roberta Lynch; William Harvey; Teresa James; Tom Erb; Kevin Ryder
Citizens at large / Jay Duncan; Philip Stashenko; Jerry Potts;
Discuss potential 2019 ATM articles
Discussion of FY2020 budget and Board of Selectmen review of department budgets; budget plan for FY 2020
Discuss schedule and plan for Medfield State Hospital RFI review; preparation for December 18 meeting with
development committee
Licenses and Permits (Consent Agenda)
Resident Kristen Williams requests permission to hold the 4th Annual Hunter’s Run 5K and 1 mile Fun Run on Sunday April 7, 2019. Ms. Williams 10 year old Hunter is a double lung transplant recipient. Funds raised will be donated to local charities. Chief John Wilhelmi has approved.
Memorial School Kindergarten Teacher Ms. Grace would like to post signs December 23 to January 8 announcing Kindergarten Registration
Town Administrator Update
Discussion of Meals Tax distribution
Review Board of Selectmen Action List
Selectmen Report
Informational
Copy of Notice #1, Planning Board Hearing on Monday January 7, 2019 relative to proposed Zoning By-Law
Amendment; Special Permits by Board of Appeals
Copy of Notice #2, Planning Board Hearing on Monday January 7, 2019 Relative to Proposed Zoning By-Law
Amendment; Inclusionary Zoning By-Law
Copy of Town Counsel letter to Powers & Sullivan, LLC (Town Auditors)
Copy of Conservation Commission’s Order of Conditions for 193 South Street
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Posted in Uncategorized
Your hot water heater’s future as a virtual battery
Interesting concept from my Route 50 e-newsletter –
How the Humble Home Water Heater Could Play a Big Role in Energy Storage

Power transmission lines. AP PHOTO
A pilot study in the Pacific Northwest shows the promise of “the unexpected battery in your basement.”
PORTLAND, Ore. — In the largest pilot study of its kind to date, more than 270 households in the Pacific Northwest volunteered their hot water heaters over the past year to be used as a battery for the power grid. Participants installed plug-in devices that allowed their water heaters to be controlled remotely, both starting and stopping the heating of water when ordered to by the grid operator.
According to a report on the joint program between Portland General Electric and the Bonneville Power Administration, the success of the pilot study has national implications. If fleets of water heaters, like fleets of electric vehicles, can be harnessed to shift excess electricity from wind and solar power on command, then water could be heated at times when energy on the grid is more abundant—and cheaper.
Equally, if these same fleets of water heaters could be instructed to not heat at times of peak demand, that frees up power when energy is scarce, and more expensive. More broadly, this could reduce the amount of energy storage we will need to build as the power grid evolves in an era of renewables.
Centered on customers from eight local utilities in Seattle, Portland, and the Tri-Cities region in eastern Washington state, the study was a substantial undertaking. Over 92 percent of the program’s participants expressed satisfaction with the trial.
“Every stage required a lot of work: lining up vendors, testing the hardware, choosing marketing materials for customers, and educating our participating utilities,” said Conrad Eustis of Portland General Electric (PGE), who was primary lead co-investigator with Tony Koch, at Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). “Settling on an analysis method that would yield useful results, that in particular took much more time than we expected.”
Operationally, the study relied on the ability of smart-grid enabled water heaters to be fitted with a hybrid communication device: an FM radio frequency receiver that would take the start-and-stop heating signals—at times chosen by the utility—and a WiFi device that could relay all the associated data for analysis. These interactions are called “events” and over the course of three seasons—summer, winter and spring—the program generated over 600 events.
One concept that often trips people up when thinking about using water heaters as batteries is that water heaters are not, in fact, batteries. An electric vehicle has a battery, so it’s easy to see how an EV could be used to take, and give back, energy to the grid. Scale that up to millions of vehicles, and now you have a very large battery to charge up, or discharge, at opportune times.
But how does this work with a humble appliance, like a water heater? Moreover, in the PGE-BPA study, the majority of the 600 test events consisted of a signal sent to customer water heaters to simply not start heating. “Don’t heat now!”—says the signal (by the way, we’’ll heat you up a bit later). To most, this may sound minor. After all, the water heater is not, in fact, putting energy back into the grid. But, it might as well be.
“You see, this has the exact same effect as an actual battery,” Eustis said. “I mean, what do you do with a battery? You choosewhen you put energy in, and you choose when you take it out. So simply choosing not to use as much energy is equivalent to taking energy out of a battery. The heater goes cold. Later, when we have that cold water at hand, we can choose to put excess energy back in from the grid, from solar for instance, to heat it up. From the viewpoint of the grid, it’s identical to a battery.” In other words, a fleet of water heaters can be used as a virtual battery.
Eustis has been interested in energy storage, and in particular the potential of water heaters, for over a decade. To help educate the public more fully on the transformation of such appliances, Eustis has coined the word alonetic, to mean devices that can, at times, beneficially support the operation of the power grid—as long as the needs of customers are met first. The support comes in the form of “events” when communication, or any method of control, activates these devices into service.

Under this umbrella term, devices that can both take and return power to the grid in both directions, or only take power from the grid in just one direction, are beneficial when paired with smart-capability that allows these events to occur either at the choosing of the local utility, or the customer. For this study, the program designers chose an internet-of-things device from e-Radio that plugged in to capable water heaters, turning them into a smart-grid device.
These capabilities are already appearing in Europe and in the U.S. with electric vehicles. eMotorWerks, a Silicon Valley based EV charging company, bundles up the charging preferences of its customers, for example, and works with the California grid operator, CAISO, to strike favorable prices on their behalf. This is called demand-shifting, or demand-response , and at scale it’s enormously helpful to the system. Typically, the customer sets the parameters. But both the customer, and the power grid, benefit.
The Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) has described the potential of water heaters, or specifically grid-integrated-water-heaters (GIWH), as “the unexpected battery in your basement,” adding that GIWH may be “as sexy as Tesla.”
An RMI report in 2015 estimated the total potential value to the grid from these integrated appliances, water heaters especially, at a minimum of $13 billion. Why might that be? Well, power prices follow the laws of supply and demand, and therefore fluctuate, often to a great degree, throughout the day. This was true even before the rise of wind and solar power, but those two technologies have started to make pricing fluctuations more extreme.
In California and Texas, for example, wholesale power prices can now go to zero, or even negative, during the day when solar power creates surpluses, or overnight with wind. These events represent large economic losses across the nodes of the system. To counter those losses, society will have to pair energy storage with the rise of renewables but at great expense. But if software-enabled tools can utilize existing devices for storage, at scale, then large portions of those investment costs can be avoided.
“Most homes in the future will likely have a central-energy-manager,” Eustis said. And it’s easy to imagine this trend already, with electric cars, rooftop solar, a home battery, and also grid-integrated devices now coming on to the scene. One issue that policymakers will have to confront is the technology standard that enable these devices to talk to one another. The PGE-BPA study utilized a standard that, like the USB standard that allows a laptop to connect to a mouse, tied the waters heaters to a radio device. It’s called CTA-2045, and one of the conclusions of the study is that to to use water heaters in the future as a virtual battery, they’ll need to ship from the factory with a common standard.
The US has roughly 125 million households. Harnessing each of those water heaters as an energy storage solution could eventually scale up to major cost savings as the country modernizes its power grid.
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Posted in Green
New Facebook “page”

New Facebook page
Today I added a Facebook “page” (see above) called Osler Peterson, Medfield Select Board, so that my blog posts at Medfield02052 could once again get simultaneously posted on Facebook. Facebook changed its policies and shut me off last August when all I had was a “profile,” and this gets the posts back on Facebook again.
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Posted in Select Board matters
BoS 12/11/18
The agenda and back up materials are all available here – 20181211-agenda & materials


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Posted in Select Board matters


