HomeMy WebLinkAboutMarch 15Environmental Initiatives Committee
Minutes
DATE: Monday, March 15, 2009
TIME: 7:30pm
LOCATION: Parks & Recreation Building
26379 Fremont Road
Los Altos Hills
Roll Call: The following were present: Peter Evans, John Harpootlian, Breene Kerr,
Rich Larsen, Raj Reddy, Steve Schmidt, Jay Shideler & Walt Wilson.
Guests: Representing PG&E – Adam Byrnes; Representing SolarPower and Cobalt
Power Systems, Inc. are Alex Garwood, Dave Depuy and Mark Byington respectively.
Committee acceptance of the minutes: All present accepted the February 19, 2009
Minutes as-is (with corrections for typo’s).
EIC Mission Statement, Goals and Milestone discussion:
1.Mission Statement , Goals and Milestones for 2009 – No update (M-M) - Jay
Energy Conservation and Management:
1.GHG reduction Home Audits: Subject continued to a later date. – (H-H) – Steve,
Peter
2.Foothill College Interaction: Some progress being made in getting a Foothill
College class initiated to help LAH with home audits and to set-up related class
courses, etc.; continue to interact with Judy Miner (H-H) – Breene
3.PG&E presentation by Adam Byrnes: Adam will help LAH navigate through the
bureaucracy of PG&E to help initiate programs in the interest of LAH, such as
Smart Meters, Climate Smart, grants, and access to customer energy statistics
(maybe) - (H-H) – Adam, Peter, Steve
4.Walt demonstrated a working “beta” phase of a modified “KiloWatt Meter”to
give readouts of instantaneous power consumption using wireless technology.
Wireless range is about 300 feet outside and can be “daisy chained” with another
transmitter for longer distances or to boost signal through walls. Continue
development– (H-H) – Walt
5.Smart Meter Rollout –Talk to a neighbor about Google’s Power Meter – (H-M) –
Raj.
Any writings or documents provided to a majority of the Environmental Initiatives Committee regarding any item of the open
session portion of this agenda will be made available for public inspection in the City Clerk’s office located at 26379 Fremont
Road, Los Altos Hills, California
during normal business hours.
6. Establish home audit game-plan (with milestones) for education and training –
(H-H) Lew.
7. Town Hall energy monitoring- FSI has given Town staff 4 specific bids for
improving energy efficiency of the Town hall. Data room outside cooling bid
appears to be high, short on detail and over-kill. Work with Town to evaluate
bids and to consider going out for more bids - (H-H) - Jay, Peter.
8. Solar Energy Generation:
• AB811 Government funding of solar systems for residential homes – Sun
Power & Cobalt Power Systems gave a presentation about their companies
and how they may be able to assist LAH with a package deal, al la AB811 to
finance roughly $4 million for PV installations. SunPower & Colbalt will
research and get back to EIC about a proposal. Contact Tom Werner,
President of SunPower to discuss proposal – (H-H) – Breene.
• A meeting of Alex Robinson (a student of Stanford), and EIC members, Steve
and Jay, met to discuss Alex’s take on AB811. Alex’s work emphasizes a
potential pooling of bond-money resources and the infrastructure that small
communities such as LAH could tap into. Alex needs to refine his work,
determine how and if existing mortgages would (could) be subordinated to the
AB811 assessment, and to arrange for financing of the bond. Continue to
monitor his progress – (H-M) – Jay, Steve.
• LAH solar tracker’s performance based payback appears to be about $750 per
month for the past 12 months – obtain specific data – (M-M) - Jay
Green Construction and Demolition:
1. Build-it-Green requirement – First permit application has been received that
meets this requirement. Application went smoothly. Continue to monitor – (M-
M) – Raj & John.
2. Consider adapting build-it-green procedure for remodels – (H-L) - Raj
Recycling:
1. GreenWaste Recovery’s service – LAH received a complaint about the weight of
GreenWaste’s trucks cracking a resident’s driveway (5-1/2 months after the
fact). Send complaint letter to GreenWaste - (H-M) – Jay.
2. GreenWaste recycling monthly spreadsheet: A detailed analysis of recycling
specifics has been received from GreenWaste. Data shows that recycling
efficiency for curbside commingled recycles is about 95% and for the mix
garbage and yard waste is about 85%. Method of calculation is being refined by
GreenWaste. Continue to monitor - (H-M) – Jay.
Water Consumption:
1. Water Conservation – Peter Evans will be joining John’s water conservation
committee.
2. “Gray water” utilization in LAH – analysis ongoing. Make recommendation to the
EIC – (M-M) – Margie.
3. Pools, pool pumps, fountains, waterfall brochure discussion – Peter has completed
his flier (subject to review by at least one pool contractor) and will release it to be
published as a flier at his own discretion. – (H-H) – Peter
4. Consider adding select pool specifications and questions, al la Peter’s pool flier,
to the permit application for pools – (H-H) - Peter, John.
Miscellaneous:
1. Status of official web-site for EIC – (H-H) – Jay, Lew.
2. Education Sub-committee – The EIC voted to establish a sub-committee to direct
efforts of education of all aspects of the EIC. Sub-committee needs to be formed
and staffed with EIC members. Add detail bullets to outline developed by Lew
earlier – (H-H) – Lew.
3. The Town Hall solar website is currently being updated – the two companies
involved in updating the website are now working out the details on how the
information will be gathered and how it will displayed. Continue to monitor
progress – (M-H) - Jay.
4. EIC publications – Any and all publications by an EIC member representing
activity in the EIC shall be submitted only after approved by a quorum by the
EIC.
Next Meeting: Monday, April 20, 2009 at 7:30PM in the Parks and Recreation Building.
Concept for establishing Goals and setting Priority: These minutes, henceforth, shall
follow the format of denoting priority as (Value-Time) until further notice. “Value” and
“Time” are expressed as one of three letters: “H” – high, “M”- medium or “L” – low.
JAS 3-17-2009