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01/19/2011 11:00 PMWith the town's Energy Plan now done, Energy Committee members are charged up and eager to tell town residents and business owners how to use its strategies to save money and reduce their energy use for little or no cost. The committee will present the plan to the Board of Selectmen and the public at the Board of Selectmen's meeting scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 27.
The plan, devised by Woodard and Curran working with the committee, was supported by $35,000 allocated from the town's Municipal Energy Conservation Block Grant (EECBG), a federal stimulus grant awarded to Connecticut towns in 2009.
"The charge of the committee is to bring energy efficiency measures and renewable technology options to town businesses and residents," said Energy Committee Chairman Chris Ehlert. "The work of the committee is to leverage resources in the state of Connecticut to make sure that the Westbrook community knows about and utilizes these low-cost resources for reducing energy use."
The plan includes three levels of strategies for achieving more energy efficiency: Tier I, II, and III priorities. Ehlert explained that the plan's Tier I priorities are considered the "low-hanging fruit" that offer a quick payback and will be the easiest to implement.
In the list of the plan's Tier I priorities are strategies to help homeowners to be more energy efficient by tapping low-cost and no-cost state programs, increasing energy efficiency in town lighting, optimizing town and schools' energy purchasing, and using the schools to increase knowledge of green strategies for reducing energy use.
Ehlert explained that state programs funded by electric rate-payers like the Connecticut Energy Efficiency Fund subsidize or, for low-income homeowners, pay for home energy audits.
In a typical home audit, a professional team dispatched by the electric utility spends one to several hours at a home on various tasks. First the team determines the location of any air leaks through which heat can be lost; the team then installs an insulating material to plug the air leaks wherever possible. The team also will provide and install at no extra cost (beyond the $75 co-pay for the audit) low-flow shower heads that reduce the amount of water the homeowner needs to pay to heat. And at the end of the visit, the team also leaves the homeowner with a large box of efficient fluorescent light bulbs and rebate forms to use to offset the cost to replace older appliances with EnergyStar-rated ones.
Another similar program of the Connecticut Energy Efficiency Fund pays for lower-income residents who qualify to replace their home's older appliances with EnergyStar versions at no cost to the homeowner.
For small businesses, a program of the Connecticut Energy Efficiency Fund provides rebates for businesses as an incentive to replace and upgrade equipment with more energy efficient models; the program also provides businesses with zero percent financing to make these upgrades.
"The Plan's Tier I priorities [when implemented] will bring value quickly to town businesses and homeowners," said Ehlert.
The plan's Tier II priorities focus on developing a town plan and schedule to identify projects that will make town buildings more energy efficient. The Tier III priorities, Ehlert said, would be tackled last and focus on tapping new energy efficient technologies like using solar panels to generate electricity or substituting older street lights with new, low-energy use LED lights.
"It's really been a team and group effort by the members of the Energy Committee team. They've done great work over the past two or three months to develop this plan," said Ehlert.
Ehlert said the Energy Committee also is working with the grant-funded regional energy effort that is currently ongoing to identify a specific energy project for that effort's contractor, SourceOne, to work on in Westbrook.