03/04/2025 EC Minutes

Minutes of Bethlehem Energy Commission

March 4, 2025

 

Present:  Dan Crosby, Mary Lou Krambeer, Josh Lieberman, Scott Caisse, Marni Hoyle (remote), Bruce Caplain (Select Board Liaison)

Excused: Chuck Phillips, David Van Houten

Public:  Melissa Elander of Clean Energy NH (remote) and Jim Fitzpatrick

 

Mission The Bethlehem Energy Commission encourages and supports economically and environmentally sensible energy practices in Bethlehem, NH.

 

Minutes from past meetings may be found at:  https://bethlehemnh.org/minutes/

 

-Vote to accept February minutes moved by Dan Crosby and seconded by Josh Lieberman. Approved.

 

-Rambling Woods- Melissa reported that Horizon Engineering and Revision looked at the proposed land, unfortunately 75% of the land is considered a wetland.  Revision looked at a second location on Rambling Wood property which is also quite wet.   Next step: find some other piece of land where the array could be located.

To Do:  Bruce will talk to Harrison Kanzler at AHEAD to see if there may be some land available at Lloyd Hills.

 

Melissa Elander reported:  Clean Energy NH currently has funding (October 2022 through September 2026) from the USDA Rural Development program to provide our services to municipalities whose 2010 median household income was below 80% of the state average. Bethlehem is one of those towns.

 

In supporting Bethlehem projects, the Energy Circuit Riders can bill our time to that grant.  Note: we are able to offer our staff time to help you pursue and complete municipal energy projects (however, we do not have funding available to pass on directly to municipalities).

 

We can only bill our time to this grant if we have a signed “Assurance Agreement” from the town on file. So far, Whitefield, Stratford, and Gorham have signed Assurance Agreements.

 

Here’s some context:

 

Why does an Assurance Agreement need to be signed? The way this grant is structured, any community we provide technical assistance to under this grant is considered a “recipient” of services, and by extension, a recipient of federal funding. From a compliance perspective, USDA requires all “recipients” to sign an Assurance Agreement.

 

What are you agreeing to by signing? Our contacts at USDA explain that the assurance agreement is about three things:

1. Assuring the government that you don’t and won’t discriminate. They specifically cite anti-discrimination rules from Title VI of the Civil Rights Act  and 7 CFR Part 15.
2. Assuring the government that you are able to receive federal services (e.g. you are not delinquent on federal debt)
3. Agreeing to be available and willing to speak with USDA about the services you received from Clean Energy NH, should they ever want or need to reach out. This might happen as part of USDA’s compliance review of Clean Energy NH, for example.

 

Who will have access to your signed form?

• Your signed form will be on file at Clean Energy NH and at the Vermont / New Hampshire USDA Rural Development office, and only in a folder specifically related to the active USDA grant Clean Energy NH is operating under.
• USDA assures us your signed form will only live in that grant folder (as in, this form or the fact that you signed this form will not be shared with the federal government, it only lives in the file with our grant records)
• USDA assures us that the grant file is only active as long as the grant term, so the assurance agreement goes away when the grant is over.

 

To Do:  Bruce will send the Assurance Form to the Selectboard for discussion.  Melissa will join meeting via Zoom.

 

–Battery project  Eversource has approved underwriting 50% of the cost of battery storage for municipal building up to $200,000 (this number originally was set at $10,000).  Participants will also be able to apply for an additional 30% tax credit from the federal government.   Melissa said four (4) North Country towns have this project on their 2025 warrant articles.

–Village District Waste Water solar project solar up and running.

 

–Village District Drinking Water Plan — Dan, Josh and David went to Village District – to inquire as to their interest in moving forward with heat pumps. The operations manager, Josh Welch, will contact Dan about a tour in the future to look at the facilities.

To Do:  Dan to follow-up

 

–Main Street Solar Initiative:  winter here project has slowed down.

 

-Community Power Coalition of NH (CPNNH) new CEO is Henry Hernden.

 

-Other

-create an on-going reporting chart on our various projects to be used in annual reports (noting usage changes and rates change)

-look into selling our municipal solar RECs to Community Power Coalition of NH

-connect with local residents about selling their RECs to Community Power Coalition of NH

-Fitz mentioned CENH has a round table for members of various communities around the state to talk about their projects

-We want to nominate Bruce Caplain for Energy Commission once his term as Selectman is over

-Sustainability Committee suggests looking at One4c website for good ideas

 

Meeting adjourned at 7:10.

 

BEC Meetings in 2025 (first Tuesday of the month): 

April 1 David Van Houten will run the meeting.

May 6, June 3, July 1, Aug 5, Sept 2, Oct 7, Nov 4, Dec 2