08/06/2025 EC Minutes

Bethlehem Energy Commission

Strategic Planning Session

Wednesday, August 6, 2025

Minutes

 

Present:  David Van Houten, Mary Lou Krambeer, Josh Lieberman, Marni Hoyle, David Van Houten, Scott Caisse

Excused:  Bruce Caplain, Chuck Phillips, and Nancy Strand, Select Board Liaison

Guests:    Melissa Elander, Clean Energy NH, Jim Fitzpatrick and Chris Dube, Franconia Energy Committee; Jennifer Childs-Roshak, Sugar Hill Conservation Committee.

 

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

 

Dan Crosby, BEC chair, opened the meeting with the reading of the mission and a vote to accept July minutes moved by Scott Caisse and seconded by Josh Lieberman.  Approved.

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

 

Having just completed an intense 5-year effort to solarize Bethlehem’s municipal buildings (Library, Town Hall, Highway garage, Elementary School, and the Village District’s Waste Water treatment system we thought it was time to step back and reflect on our work over the next few years.

 

We will continue with the efforts still in the pipeline — the possible solarization of the water treatment plant, research in EV Chargers, the creation of a Bethlehem energy metrics table (and equations) measuring power usage and savings from energy efficiency and solar installations, pursuing a grants for municipal battery storage and updated diesel vehicles.

 

Next Melissa walked us through a new resource list from Clean Energy NH which is designed to help Local Energy Committees throughout the State stay on top of grant opportunities, educational materials, shared municipal efforts and ordinances and upcoming programs.  She also presented us with a list of projects other Local Energy Committees are considering pursuing.  We used these two resources to then discuss project BEC may want to pursue in the future and began ranking their potential impact and our interest in what became a very long list of ideas.  The recap of promising projects to place on future BEC Agendas is attached.

 

We checked in on our mission and agreed it is still relevant.

TO DO:  Josh will tweak the statement for discussion at our September 2 meeting.

 

TO DO:  Continue discussing & working on project grid

 

Meeting adjourned at 8pm

BEC Planning Meeting = August 6, 2025
Projects	Green Dots	Impact	Notes
Town Buildings
Water Plant	2	H=5, M=1
Franconia Safety  Building  and Water	1		contributed by Franconia team
Battery Grant?	2		would this apply to Bethlehem Public Library?
Related to Profile School
Purchase of Profile Array	4	H=5, M=5	vote included Franconia + Sugar Hill
HVAC	5	H=10
Battery Grant?	2		would this apply to Profile?
EV Related
VW Funding	2	(missing?)	webinar on 8/13
Level 2 Charging	1	H=3, M=3
Promoting Energy Commission Work
BEC Savings Report	2	H=5.5
Newsletter, Colonial Night, other marketing	2	M=6
Education
Case studies of local homes and projects	1
Open Houses
Neighborhood energy projects	1	H=2, M=4
Town Energy Commission Collaboration	2	H=4, M=1, L=1	networking Zoom–3rd Th of mo.
BEC Development
Education on Emerging Grid Tech	1	H=1, M-3, L=2
Figure out Capital Reserve Fund and/or Budget	2	H=5
Engagement on Bethlehem Master Plan	2	?
Succession Planning	1	H=2.5, M=3
Other
Mission Rewrite?			Josh to review verbs
Digest the wealth of info provided by Melissa!!			added by Marni