On July 26th, nearly 60 people gathered at the Saint Paul Central Library for Metro CERT’s Local Government Resource and Networking Event. The goal for the morning was for Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant recipients to come together to share stories, best practices and lessons learned from their projects. The event also featured a number of tools and resources for planning and financing local government energy efficiency projects going forward, since the EECBG funding is no longer available. Click here to see the full agenda.
The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Program was funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Stimulus Act) of 2009, with the intention of assisting cities, counties, states, territories and Indian tribes to develop and implement energy efficiency and conservation projects. The goals of the EECBG projects were to reduce fossil fuel emissions, reduce the total energy use of participating entities, and to create and retain jobs. A total of $26,806,718 of EECBG funding was awarded to 61 entities in the 11-county Metro region.
Work in Saint Paul: Jim Giebel, Energy Coordinator for the City of Saint Paul, welcomed attendees and shared some highlights from the city’s EECBG projects. The City of Saint Paul received $2.8 million in EECBG funding, which they used for a variety of projects, including energy efficiency improvements and lighting retrofits in municipal buildings, an LED street lighting retrofit, the Saint Paul Port Authority’s Trillion BTU program, electric vehicles and charging stations, including 3 solar-powered charging stations, and the Climate Change Challenge Grants for community-based organizations in the city to reduce their carbon footprints. Jim also highlighted the work of the Solar America Cities grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, a partnership between Minneapolis and Saint Paul to address barriers and identify solutions to accelerate the wide-spread adoption of solar technologies in both cities. The grant helped to kick start a number of solar installations in the City of Saint Paul, including the District Energy solar thermal array on the RiverCentre, and a number of solar photovoltaic installations along the Energy Innovation Corridor.
Welcome from Franken: Senator Al Franken shared a brief video welcome, and congratulated attendees on their work supporting energy efficiency and renewable energy projects across the region. “You’re demonstrating that sustainability isn’t just good for the environment, it’s good for balancing city and county budgets, creating jobs and putting dollars back into the pockets of families and businesses all over the state” remarked Senator Franken. “I’ve been proud to partner with CERTs on my Back to Work Minnesota initiative, which aims to promote energy efficiency retrofits and create jobs in the state” explained Franken. CERTs worked with Senator Franken’s office, as well as a number of other partners, to host a Forum on Energy Savings event back in February to promote his initiative and the various resources available for retrofitting programs for cities, counties and businesses. Read about the event and see all the presentations here
Support from CERTs: Metro CERT staff Diana McKeown and Julia Eagles then presented on the resources and support CERTs offers for local government energy efficiency projects. CERTs has been working since February to support EECBG recipients around the state to document and communicate success stories of EECBG projects and to connect local governments with resources for future clean energy projects. McKeown and Eagles gave an overview of the resources CERTs offers for local government energy efficiency projects, including: the GreenStep Cities program, the CERTs seed grants, the Metro CERT affiliate program, the CERTified campaigns, the CERTs website and project planning tools, Clean Energy Project Builder, the Minnesota Solar Challenge and the Solar Works in Minnesota campaign. View the full presentation here
Building Benchmarking: Sarah Steinman, MN GreenCorps member serving with the Clean Energy Resource Teams gave an overview of the B3 Benchmarking system, and the importance of benchmarking to help manage your energy usage, improve the efficiency of buildings, and to monitor energy improvements in those buildings. Sarah particularly highlighted some of the new features in B3, including a peer comparison to other similar public buildings in MN, based on actual comparison with buildings in the database. Sarah can provide technical assistance to cities who are interested in benchmarking their buildings in B3. Click here for more information.
Learning from Others: A panel of EECBG recipients from around the Metro region then shared stories of their projects. The panel was moderated by Abby Finis of the Division of Energy Resources at the Minnesota Department of Commerce, who administered the EECBG funding. She gave an overview of the EECBG program in Minnesota, which consisted of $9.62 million awarded to Minnesota local governments, through 160 grants for energy efficiency projects and programs. The estimated energy savings from all the projects is 142,172 MMBtu and the estimated CO2 emissions reduction is 14,548 metric tons.
Mitchell Hoeft, Graduate Engineer with the City of Golden Valley spoke first, about the lighting projects they undertook with $53,000 of non-formula EECBG funding. Through combined efforts of the state of Minnesota, Hennepin County and the city of Golden Valley, all of the traffic signals in town have been retrofitted to LEDs. Mitchell coordinated the use of EECBG funds to install LED lights in 17 traffic signals at city street intersections. This resulted in total annual savings of $14,400 in lighting costs, and nearly 80% reductions in energy usage for some of the signals. Golden Valley also completed lighting retrofits in their vehicle and park maintenance buildings, resulting not only in energy and cost savings, but also in improved working conditions for maintenance staff.
Leah Hiniker, Energy Manager with Hennepin County, shared about the projects Hennepin County was able to move forward with their $2.6 million of formula EECBG funding. These included lighting retrofits and recommissioning in a number of county-owned public buildings, as well as traffic signal retrofits at 74 intersections in Hennepin County. A recommissioning project in the Central Library was especially successful, resulting in approximately $500,000 in savings just by analyzing and adjusting the building’s operating systems. The EECBG funding not only allowed Hennepin County to achieve significant energy and cost savings, it helped to raise the profile of energy efficiency among county staff and elected officials.
Next up was Rebecca Haug, Environmental Administrator with the city of Elk River, who received both project and program EECBG funding. The $87,065 EECBG project grant allowed to city to retrofit its ice arena with energy improvements such as new lighting, low-emissivity ceiling and a new efficient boiler. Payback for the various energy improvements is estimated to be between 5 and 6 years. Read a full report on the project here. Elk River’s program funding of $50,000 went to support the city’s Project Conserve initiative that has been going on since 2008. The goal of the project is to help resident save energy in their own homes, through energy efficiency and waste reduction. Over the course of the project, they had over 230 participants, with a top household savings over $600/year.
The final EECBG panelist was Joe Steffel, Utilities Director for the City of Buffalo, who spoke about the commercial conservation program piloted by the municipal electric utility in Buffalo. The program was intended to develop a network of energy experts and leaders among the business community in Buffalo. “There’s no substitute for knowledge,” explained Steffel. “The goal of the program was to engagement people to gain the knowledge to act on energy improvements.” He enrolled 25 local businesses in the program, ranging from restaurants to churches to manufacturing facilities. Those who signed up got energy audits of their businesses, with recommendations for improvements, and were connected with rebates and incentives through Buffalo Municipal Utilities. Steffel shared examples of a few of the participants- a gas station and convenience store that de-lamped and replaced T12 fluorescents with T8s to achieve 27% energy use reduction.
Financing Tools: After a break for networking and snacks, the program resumed with an energy efficiency financing tools panel, including Division of Energy Resources financing programs, utility rebates and programs, and energy savings performance contracting. MN Department of Commerce staff Peter Berger and Eric Rehm shared information about the Public Buildings Enhanced Energy Efficiency Program (PBEEEP) as well as the Guaranteed Energy Savings Program (GESP), both aimed at offering technical, financial and contractual assistance to local units of government pursuing energy efficiency projects in their buildings.
Utility Programs: Representatives from three different utilities—an investor-owned utility, a municipal utilities association and a cooperative utility—all shared examples of the types of programs offered and the process for working with your utility on an energy project.
Ryan Bruers from Xcel Energy gave an overview of the types of rebates- prescriptive and custom- and encouraged attendees when considering purchasing new equipment to always check and see if there’s a rebate available. Bob Jagusch spoke on behalf of the Minnesota Municipal Utilities Association, which represents 125 municipal electric and 31 municipal gas utilities around the state. Many of the municipal utilities have very few resources in terms of staff capacity and programs, but MMUA’s role is to provide support and models for energy conservation with its member utilities. “When in doubt, get in touch with your utility” encouraged Jagusch. “If they don’t know the answer, they’ll come to us [MMUA] and we may have ideas about other municipal programs around the state.” Timothy Doherty, Business Account Executive with Dakota Electric, explained how cooperative utilities approach energy savings programs. “As a member-owned cooperative, we are always seeking ways to help our members reduce their electric use, to save electricity and money,” said Doherty. Dakota Electric Association is a member-owned, not-for-profit electric utility founded with more than 100,000 members. They purchase wholesale electricity from Great River Energy, a generation and transmission cooperative in Maple Grove.
Success! The event brought together local government staff with representatives from resource organizations, state agencies, utilities and energy service companies hoping to equip more cities, counties, school districts and municipal utilities to take on energy projects in their communities. Recipients of EECBG funding had the opportunity to share stories and experiences and to relate the benefits of the program as well as the lessons learned. CERTs hopes to continue working to support local governments in their energy efficiency endeavors by showcasing the best practices and resources used by other successful projects. Be sure to contact Metro CERT if your community has an idea for a project and would like our support!
The workshop was organized by Metro CERT in partnership with the Minnesota Department of Commerce Division of Energy Resources, and hosted by the City of Saint Paul. It was followed by a tour of solar and energy efficiency projects in downtown Saint Paul. Read about that event here.
Download presentations from the event:
• City of Saint Paul Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) projects by Jim Giebel, City of Saint Paul
• Metro CERT: Tools and Opportunities for Local Government Energy Saving Projects by Julia Eagles and Diana McKeown, Metro CERT
• B3 Benchmarking by Sarah Steinman, MN GreenCorps member with CERTs
• Minnesota Energy Efficiency & Conservation Block Grants- Division of Energy Resources by Abby Finis, MN Department of Commerce
• Metro Energy Efficiency & Conservation Block Grant Project Panel by Mitchell Hoeft, Leah Hiniker, Joe Steffel and Rebecca Haug
• Division of Energy Resources- Energy Financing Programs by Pete Berger, MN Department of Commerce
• Xcel Energy- Rebates and Resources by Ryan Bruers, Xcel Energy
• Energy Savings Performance Contracting- MN Energy Services Coalition by Madonna Rykken and Keela Bakken, MN Energy Services Coalition
Links to more resources:
• CERTs Resources and Tools for Local Government Energy Efficiency Projects
• MN Energy Stories blog
• Minnesota GreenStep Cities program
• B3 Benchmarking
• Retiree Environmental Technical Assistance Program
• ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager
• Energy Smart
See more photos from the event:
