 And we are recording. Okay, great. Hello, everyone. I just getting things set up here. But I know the first thing that is to review the minutes, which I believe Jesse took for us last time. So thank you, Jesse. And who is next on the list. I think it is Steve, actually. Yeah, it's Steve. Steve did it before. So it's even order. Yeah, but Jesse was off one time. So Steve took over. I think it's Stella. If she's ready. I think so. I can just do it in like a word document and then send it to Stephanie, right? Yeah. Yeah. I wish very well if you take the, the word doc that Stephanie sent for the last minutes. And use it as like a little template. That's exactly what it's going to do. Great. Thank you. I appreciate the. The obvious advice. That's what I'm great at. Okay, great. Has everybody had. A chance to. Yeah. Any comments? Any heads? So are there any comments or edits? I have a question. Under section four D. There's an acronym. I a Q. I didn't recollect what I a Q. Is that one of yours, Jesse? That's probably me in indoor air quality. Okay. Sorry about that. I can type that out. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for accepting the minutes. I just had one. Question. Before you do. Hi. Let's see. Number seven. You didn't. Have an action like who was going to. Be. Decision. I wonder if it did get. Yeah, that was. Cause I think it was. Jesse. But I can't remember if that was in the motion or just you all voted to do that. And then kind of volunteer Jesse after. I don't know that it was part of the official motion. It was done. I don't know. You could retroactively say, you could retroactively say in there that. I would do it and. FYI subsequently did do it. Okay. Great. My only thing. So now I second. Hey. So voice vote. Goldner. Hey. D. I'll abstain because I was absent last time. Bellman. Yes. Rose. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And it's approved. Okay, great. So. Next up. Is. Public comment. Do we have any public members here today? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Do you have a comment. Anna's always feel free to raise your hand if you have anything to add. But okay. Great. So we can move. Keep moving forward here. Staff updates. So Dave Zomek and I spent a couple of weeks going out to the community to talk about the fencing that's going up for the conservation restriction that's associated with the solar. Land fill development. So that's all part of it. So we met with each and every one. So the fencing, that final strip of fencing will be going in probably in the next week or so. If not by the end of this week, certainly I would think by next week. The project is all completed. So we're kind of negotiating that extension. So. The only thing is the commercial operation date. Is being a bit delayed because of ever source. So. Unfortunately it looks like that may not happen when it was supposed to. So we're kind of just negotiating. That extension. So. The commercial operation dates being a bit pushed back. Really exciting news. So. So. We're meeting for the first time as an official group on Friday. And that's been posted. So. That's exciting. And the draft contract. For the consultant is being reviewed by the town before we. The. Contract with a consultant has finally been signed. And so that's fully executed. We are officially now the valley green energy. Working group is what I called us. So. We're meeting for the first time as an official group on Friday. And that's been posted. So. So. So. We. By town legal, just to make sure that there are maybe some updates needed now that we have an MOU versus. The town of Amherst. And the other two communities working sort of together versus an official MOU. So that's going to be reviewed. And hopefully should be. Out sooner than later to move that effort forward. That's exciting. So. So. So. So. So. The town manager will be announcing those at an upcoming town council meeting. We anticipate that means those meetings will expect to convene probably. Just after July 4th. Is probably going to be the timing because they still have to be officially vetted. And. I think by the time we get the committee together, it's probably going to be realistically July 4th, because people are going to be on vacation. So. So. It would be great if you all would send me your vacation dates for the summer, like. From now to probably through September, if you take vacations in September, I actually will be taking one this year in September. So. If you can get me all your vacation dates, I'll try to get them on a calendar so we can see which dates we may not have a quorum. For summer meetings. So. So. So. So. We're going to have a project. Assessment on the, you know, specific buildings and sites for solar development, like the parking lots and a few town buildings is pretty much wrapping up. We're going to be expecting a first draft soon. That's project is supposed to be completed by June 15th. So I'm hoping that we get the draft. If not by the end of this week, then certainly the beginning of next week. I think we'll be able to see the draft before it's finalized. Yeah. But that's just, yeah, I mean, it's mostly just a solar. I mean, it's a really basic level. Analysis for a few. Town buildings and I in the parking lots. And that's going to feed into the other solar assessment. I don't think there's anything. That's going to be earth shattering coming from that particular assessment because. One of the buildings that they looked at was the police station. You know, we sort of already know where that's going to go. It's the thing that they were also looking at those battery storage. So. There may be some guidance on battery storage, like at the police station. You know, kind of isn't like a standalone. So. You will certainly, I will certainly share it with you. Yeah, I love that kind of stuff, even if it's not worth it. Yeah, sure. No, I'm more than happy to share it. I absolutely will. Yeah. You know, I don't know. You know, how much will change in the draft from the final, but yeah, I'll be happy to send you the draft. Great. Any other questions for Stephanie? Yeah. Andra. I might have just missed this. I wondered if the. There's any movement to hiring the consultant who will be. Sisting the solar. I love group. So I, right. So there's no, there's, there's a solar assessment. And there's a consultant that's being hired for a solar assessment. And the town is starting to work on. Looking at that process and developing the scope of work. I've been in contact with Dwayne earlier today. I've been in contact with Dwayne. I've been in contact with Dwayne. I've been in contact with Dwayne. I've been in contact with Dwayne. Whether we should do a formal RFP. Or if we should just do a request for quotes, which means we work off the consultants that the state has vetted. So it's a very specific list. That we would have to adhere to. So I'm asking Dwayne to take a look at the list. Happy to share it with you all as well. If you all know consultants on that list. That process would go faster. And then if we do a formal RFP, which could take at least two months from posting the proposal to, or, you know, posting the notice to actually executing a contract could easily take a couple of months. So the RFQ process would be a bit faster. So there's that. So we're discussing that. And that's kind of where that, that stands as far as the, the consultant for the solar bylaw working group. So we're discussing that. But we don't know that there is going to be one. For that process. So right now, as far as I'm aware. Cause I don't know if there was actually funding for that, but we have the funding for the consultant for the assessment. So, and sorry, I meant to include. So thanks, Sandra. Any other questions for Stephanie. All right. Our attendee has their hand up. Okay. Anna, you're unmuted. Hi, everybody. Yes, Stephanie's right. The only thing is it's in the proposed budget. It's in the proposed budget. So if it passes, there might be funding for. It's through Chris applied for it through planning. For the bylaw, but it's, there isn't money currently. It's just, it's proposed. So stand by, I guess is the, the best answer there. Cause I do remember it being in the budget in the proposed budget. That's all. And hi, everybody. Nice to see you. All right. Okay. Sorry. She knows. Okay. You can't remember updates. Well, I guess Anna, why you're on, do you have any updates from the council side that you want to share before we switch to you can't remember updates. Sure. So a couple of things that are on my radar. Stemming out of budget season that I'm hoping to work with you on that. I'm hoping to work with you on that. You know, make sure that we're getting all of this, the information we need from inventory and that we know what to do with that information. Once we get it. So when we look at our buildings and we look at our vehicles, I know that Stephanie gets gets a, I think it's a separate, is that right? Stephanie a separate inventory or something, but we want to just make sure that we're capturing everything. We need to be on track to hit some of those goals. So just as an FYI, I'm hoping to work with you on that. I'm hoping that you might choose to pick up or not. Of what else might be in an inventory. Of our capital. Assets, I guess is the term. So. Vehicles, buildings, et cetera. And where do we need to go with that? Council is looking, things that are coming up on our radar. We are looking at approving finally the flood maps. We're looking at the demolition delay by law and historic preservation by law. So keep an eye out for those there on the agendas, the next couple of agendas. So the historic demolition delay. Is one that I had flagged as potentially having some. Implications for, for climate action. I don't know, Laura, if they have worked with you all at all with on that one in particular. But it's that that's coming down the pike in terms of what are our rules for how long people need to wait before they can demolish or significantly modify historic buildings. Other than that, I know that you all have been working. I think Steven, I can't remember. I've been working with Andrew. I'm Steven Andrew have been working with Mandy. There we go. On the rental registration by law and that is, that is moving forward as well. So those are the things that I flagged as potentially having implications. And then just zooming out, I know that something I'm hoping we can keep a focus on is how you want to how you want to be consulted. And, you know, I'm always happy for feedback on what you want to hear from me in these meetings, what would be helpful. So please always feel free to reach out or go through Laura, whatever works better for you. Great. Thanks. Yeah, I don't think we've been connected. I haven't been connected with anyone about the demolition. I think it's a good idea. I think it's a good idea. Delay by law. Uh, stuff, but. Good to know and happy. Maybe on a, if you, if you know more specifics about when it's going to be on the agenda. If you could let us know, we could maybe just let people know that if they want to make a public comment about it, they can. Yeah, I believe it's on for. Um, but in addition to public comment, I mean, not for nothing, like I'm, I'm here as a liaison. So you can make public comment and that's great. But if you also have things like questions, you want me to ask or things you would like me to, to bring forward as well. Um, in addition, I'm, I'm happy to do that. So public comment, you can just say things I can actually ask questions. So if you have questions, um, funnel them, funnel them to me, or you can ask the sponsors directly, but I'm happy to. I mean, in my mind, my role as liaison is also advocates. So please, um, yeah, let me know what you want to see or what's missing or what shouldn't be there. Okay. And what was the date again? Sorry. I'm going to check, I'm going to check right now, Laura. And I can email you. I think it's either the six or the 13th. Okay. Yep. So regardless, it's not going to be, we're not going to have another UK meeting before then. Um, well, but there's two readings. Um, sorry. I should have clarified that there's two readings because it's not going to be on the agenda twice. So, um, we'll have it. It'll be on the agenda twice. Okay. So that's good. Yeah, Lori. Yeah. So if it's six and 13th, we won't have another. Um, Or is it every other? How often are council meetings? The first and last, uh, Monday of the month. Okay. So we will have, we will have one then, but I do think that first and third. I'm sorry, Lori. First and third. I swear I know what I'm doing. All right. I think the thing to communicate is just that, that. You know, they, the council should be considering. Energy transition considerations in making these rules. I don't know if there are specific things we could ask for, but certainly. Yeah. So I agree with you, Lori. I think the thing is that we don't know what we don't know. Right. And so often we can say we want to consider all of the climate and climate goals, but we don't know how. We don't know. We don't know. We don't know. I think that's where, um, I guess my, my approach is kind of, I'm going to try to flag things and, and. Tell you, and then whether it's individually using your expertise or as a group responding, um, getting your input on that because. I can look at this. And with my, you know, my bachelor's in environmental science from too many years ago, I can try, but it's not going to be quite as good. So, um, I'm just going to give you the heads up and, um, and you can decide from that point. If that sounds good. I mean, I also can work differently if that's what you all decide, but I just want to make sure your input is, is in here at some point. Okay. Thank you. I'm just trying to. No, of course. I'll try to get these two further in advance. You actually can look at them. Um, as a group, if that's what you want to do, but truly, I mean, I think it's up to you how you want to engage. I'm just going to give you the heads up and, um, I'm just going to give you the heads up. I'm just going to give you the heads up. No, of course, of course. And I think, yeah, definitely try to get it to you all sooner. Um, I think it's the problem lawyer is that it's not an automatic consideration right now. And we want it to be, but it's too easy of a box to check if it's, okay, we thought about it for two seconds, right? Like that's not actually doing it. So, um, I think it's, it's really a matter of what does it mean to check that box to say we've considered, uh, you know, More than one, less of a broad way, right? Right. No. Okay. I'm done talking. Thanks, Anna. Um, so yeah, if you want to send us the bylaw. And that a date of the first read, then maybe we can talk about it at our next meeting. Um, if there's anything we want to put together. Um, Okay. Uh, you can remember updates. I think Steve, you were raising your hand before I. Diverted per second. Yeah, that's fine. I do have two updates. The first is that the last couple of nights we've seen fireflies out in our backyard, which is marks the beginning of summer or one of the marks of the beginning of summer. It does seem a little bit early. We all decided last night. Usually see them until a little bit later in June. The second update is that last week the council CRC met and discussed the suggestions that we the ECAC provided concerning the rental permit registration system. Unfortunately I was not able to attend the meeting until the very end just as they were finishing. I did watch a recording of the meeting and Mandy Joe sent some questions that they all had concerning our suggestions. And so I have since worked up some answers to those questions. What I what I realized was we kind of went in with our suggestions being quite specific, without a broader context as to why do we want to know about the age of a building or its kind of insulation or the heating system. And while we all know it, we didn't convey to them that we are looking at various ways to try to improve the energy efficiency of rental units in town and that we actually have a pretty in depth plan that's been developed over the past year or so. So what I've done is taken the questions that Mandy has presented and use that as a format to provide more context. And so I've got a document that I've written up that's about a page and a half answering those questions that I'll just read the questions and then if you guys want to know more about my responses now I can share that. What I'm going to do is share this draft individually with members for feedback, and the next CRC meeting is June 9 next week. And I'd like to get a document to them, maybe by Monday of next week so that it can go into the packet don't have a chance to look at it before their meeting, and then I will be able to attend the meeting to answer any additional questions that come up. And so that Mandy Joe relayed were to one elaborate on the purpose for gathering the information requested, including what is hoped to be gained from gathering the information and how the information would be used. The second question is which are the items on the list are intended to be gathered for gathered for use by the public versus use by town staff and committees only. And third, what are best practices or just any practices that municipalities use for promoting and managing energy efficiency and rentals. And so in responding to that, I have just written out what we have done and mentioned relied a fair bit on two reports that we have used one is the American Council on Energy Efficient Efficient Economy or ACEE. And the other is the RMI report, better rentals better cities, both of those reports outline and great details they provide roadmaps for how communities can increase energy efficiency and rental units. The ACEE goes more into social equity and justice issues in the Rocky Mountain RMI report is a little bit more on a technical side but both provide really good information. We provided those reports to Mandy and she's put them in the packet for the CRC to review. And what I've done is try to summarize the reasons for increasing energy efficiency and rental units the concept of the split incentives that building owners don't have an incentive to increase the efficiency when tenants are paying the energy bills. And then a little bit of background about what we've done, including the Empower grant. And Stephanie you can tell me whether we can say anything about it, or if that's still under quarantine. And some of the ideas that we've developed in our committee. So for the sake of time I think I'll leave it at that unless people have people here and now have questions, but I will send a document around for your comments. Just a quick note Steve just call it the Mass CEC grant. And then you're fine. So just don't reference Empower at all just say Mass CEC grant and you're okay. Okay. Yeah I mean I think Steve the only comment I would have is that in terms of like what's public or not. I mean I think anything we would want to, I would say that anything we would want to analyze could potentially be public because if we share it with each other in a way it's going to be shared, you know so that was my only thought on that point. Yeah my answer on that one is fairly short and I wrote that ECAC endorses the concept that energy efficiency ratings of rental unit should be public information. And the other items on our list are already public information available on rental permits and property cards. However, deciding which information is public versus private is up to town officials. Any other questions for Steve. Okay. Any other ECAC member updates. I can update on two things. I'm going to draw Stephanie and I met with Paul on Friday. To kind of get an update from him on the implementation of the climate plan of goals and talk a bit about, you know, ECAC's role and how we can be most effective in supporting the town in helping to meet their goals. We had a really good and frank discussion. You know I think one of the things that came across clearly is that, you know, I sort of spoke about the fact that we've been we have been making progress just by the fact of having the carp and Stephanie doing so much great work to involve her colleagues in both the development of the carp and using the carp to help prioritize. But there's not really any concrete processes in place to, to make that happen and so it's, you know, it's happening in spite of having a process that really forces forces that to happen, for lack of a better word. And so we talked a bit about that and and you know what changes we could make quote unquote for free that would just build in some processes for review to make sure when we talk about applying the climate injustice lens to everything we do which are goals of the town that we actually have processes in place that do that provide that check and balance so we had a good discussion about that. And so we talked a bit about, you know, the role of the cat, you know, and he had to his credit, you know, looked at some of our result like our outputs from our retreats and, you know, had had thought kind of been following what we've been doing and you know, our focus on education and outreach to residents, you know, is particularly of interest, given that, as we know, most of the emissions occur in, in our resident residential and commercial buildings and not in the town and about that but also, you know, what are the where are the processes within both the town government and the council where we can have other sort of touch points there so we can provide educational outreach or partner with folks to provide educational outreach to residents. And the town could potentially add some step in the process of reviewing permitting for new heating systems and that kind of provides an opportunity for input into the process and you know, obviously the long game is to have a policy whether either at the state or the local level ideally state but that, you know, bands fossil fuels and new construction and, you know, helps to push for renovation of buildings over time so he, you know, he also agreed that it would be helpful for ecac to go through the carp and really kind of identify some policies that we think the council should be acting on. So I think that's an action item that we should we should think about who might want to take that up. And we can, we can figure out how to move that forward because we do have quite a few counselors who ran on a platform of climate action and so I think to the extent that we hold them to that and you know, identify things they should be acting on. I think that could be could be helpful as well. Um, I'll pause before I get my second thing I'll pause there to see first if Andre and Stephanie have anything to add and then if anybody has questions. Can we just add that we talked not just about the the role of ecac in developing or suggesting policies for the council to adopt, but also to track and put forward resolutions about state policy that is needed. And in order for us to meet our goals in town. And to have that be expected and, and you know something that the town manager could then sign on to letters as they come up based on council approval of support for various things. Great. So I think that and then my other update is just that we are nearing the end of the governmental calendar year, which means that we are due to vote for chair and vice chair. So I think assuming everyone will be joining our next meeting I think we'll put that on the agenda for the next meeting. I've very much enjoyed being chair of ecac for three years but I think it's time for some fresh blood to jump in and take the reins I will still be on ecac, but so that position is open and if anybody has questions for me about chairing. Please don't hesitate to reach out happy to answer them. My final point is that I do have to leave a bit early today so I'm on dribble jump in and take over for me when I when I have to step away. Any other ecac member updates before we move on to our agenda. Great. Um, so let's see here. So we're playing an Amherst so Dwayne I think I'll turn it over to you. All right. Thanks. A bit of time. Not with any great outcomes but some analysis that I thought would be useful to bring to the committee for discussion and sort of to sort of with the objective of starting to think about how we might want to frame both for ourselves in the community in terms of what what amount of solar hosting would make sense for the town of Amherst, and then also to eventually incorporate that into the solar assessment work to use that consultant to help us identify or sort of establish sort of how certain amounts of solar, solar megawatts solar capacity might be hosted in the town. So I did send around or at least I sent to Stephanie and Lauren and then they sent around a short presentation that that sort of summarizes the analysis that I went through and would be keen on going through that quickly and getting some feedback and in terms of where we whether this makes sense to you all and where we might take it from there. So I see that's up and going. And so yeah basically I looked at three things. One is I just wanted to get a handle of how much solar do we have currently in Amherst, which is this slide. So what I did was went back to the you know do we are has a database of that that anybody can get off their website of all the projects that they've qualified through SRAC program SRAC to program, and now the smart program and just sorted that for the systems that were projects that were installed in Amherst, and then divided that into three categories residential. Non residential seat, which I called CNI and ag, not to suggest it is necessarily ag but it's basically not per day we are classifications it's non residential. And then parsed out the what the projects that were hosted by the university and the colleges. And so these are the, these are the outcomes. What it does show is that there's been steady, as one would imagine, for small residential projects, the cumulative capacity just grows sort of slowly over time I would say similar to the state it's still going up but it's going up less quickly than it was sort of in the SRAC to program. But we do have a total of seven seven megawatts installed in residential projects in Amherst. I apologize I have a cold. I've gotten three at home tests that have all been negative for COVID. So I think I'm good but I do have, I think, the old fashioned cold. We'll first focusing on the universities and colleges. And as you get to larger projects, these these cumulative lines tend to be a little bit bumpier as megawatts at a time are installed as opposed to small kilowatts. And so there's been this increase over time with the Amherst college Hampshire college project is one of these big bumps, and then the solar canopies and other projects that you master also these bumps here but in total we have about 12 megawatts installed across the university and the two colleges. Some non residential projects in Amherst are also amassing to the most 21 megawatts with some caveats there. One is that again, again, these are large scale systems so there's some, some, you know, some growth of and non incremental small increments for smaller scale CNI projects, but then you get these big jumps every once in a while. The megawatts scale projects are installed. I will say that the two town projects that we're familiar with the landfill project which is is in this database but almost commercially operating. And that's, and I'm not sure I'm not sharing the screen so you can see my cursor but that's the, the, the ramp up in January 22 is the is the landfill project, and then the yet to be built, but, but is approved by do we are for the smart program is the last bump up there which is substantial about, what is that about seven megawatts for the project at the, at the golf course the Hickory Ridge golf course. The two other, the two other large projects which occurred in 2019. I'm, I'm still working with Stephanie to. There's two projects that have two different names. I believe they're, I believe they're both in North Amherst. One is the one that I know is built in in on cowsland in North Amherst there. But then there's a second project, which I'm still trying to definitively figure out whether that project was built or not. But, but nonetheless those are the two bumps, two large bumps in 2019. So that amasses you know assuming that with after the Hickory Ridge project. We're about 21 megawatts on the CNI the pie chart here just shows the cumulative amounts of the of these three types of solar. But if you go to the next slide. Unless there's any questions on that one. This one I decided, and I think we sort of decided as a committee that we're really going to really focus this assessment analysis on the town of Amherst separate from the colleges and the university, given that the two colleges and the university, each have their own carbon plans going forward. And somewhat, obviously, hopefully with some connections but but really on separate tracks than that, the town itself. So I think when we, my thought is that when we set the goals or scenarios for the town in terms of how much hosting. I think it's best to do that separate and independent of what the university and the colleges are doing. So I basically just took that same data, took out the universities and in the colleges. And this is the same data but in two different forms when it's now, you know, first of all to note that these projects there's 850 solar projects that have been qualified in Amherst. So the large huge majority of that are residential, but three quarters of them are projects that are large. And we see that in the left hand which is the residential from the previous graph, the amounts that it's residential per do we are qualification on their database and the three, three quarters that are CNI and ag per do we ours database. But then I also each of the projects also had how many kilowatts DC was installed. And so I just separated those out by size as well. Obviously the residential ones are primarily this group that's zero to 25 kw. There's some relatively few but there's probably a few residential ones that are a little bit larger but essentially that's all residential. Surprisingly to me, there were very few projects amounting to minimal capacity that were in these intermediate sort of commercials ranges of, you know, larger than residential but up to 100 kw, or even up to 500 kw. Very small projects I think to some extent that somewhat mirrored in the state itself, but I think more so at Amherst, because we probably have less large roof spaces commercial scale commercial scale roof spaces to put up solar. There may change, for example, the high school type of building. Those are, you know, one of the relatively few scale buildings that we have in Amherst that might accommodate these larger scale systems on on roofs. But nonetheless, again, the, you know, three quarters of the capacity is coming from projects that are over 500 kw. My guess is that you could count those all on, maybe not one hand but two hand hands in terms of the number of projects. All right, so that's where we stand in terms of installed capacity as of now, basically in Amherst. What I then wanted to look at is how much try to get a sense of how much energy we use as a town to give us at least some grounding for how much solar we might want to host in Amherst. And so these were the two, these were the databases I had. And we previously looked at this some, some of you who are newer to ecac may not have gone through this as much as we did at the beginning by looking at the two prior greenhouse gas inventories there was one for 2011 one more updated to 2017 that's the latest data we had. There was data with regard to electricity use scope to based on scope to emissions and it had had a some good tables in the spreadsheets behind the report that laid out how much electricity was being used broken down by the municipality itself. The community, which I well residential, and then there's this category of community, which I think we decided was basically everything in the community except for residential and except for the municipal buildings. And then it listed separately also the university and the two colleges. And so I looked at the data from 2011 I looked at the data from 2017. And the, the big discrepancy here I think it's really on the, we see a little bit of, you know, pretty steady on the municipal level maybe a little bit reduction which is good and part of Stephanie's work. I think the municipal services probably grown over this time as well. Community the community that the CNI if you will, in the town has seemed to gone up a bit. This was all before cobit obviously. And the residential has fallen off quite a bit. I don't know if that's just due to data issues with these two studies, which are not precise and used some some methods that Stephanie might be able to help us with. But there was some significant reduction the electricity use and residential I'm not sure if that's because of energy efficiency, because we've lost people I don't know. Or because of some data issues, but nonetheless, we do we do see that humanatively between keeping the universities out of it. That you know we roughly about 100,000 100,000 megawatt hours per year that we use in electricity. I don't think this analysis needs to be overly precise. And so then I sort of said okay let's to make assumptions for what we use as a as a town. Currently, I said okay well look into that I'll go somewhere in between but closer to 2017 I said okay, let's let's assume 95,000 megawatt hours. And then we also wanted to look at, okay for 2050, which is sort of the benchmark for the, you know, where we're, we're trying to get to as a Commonwealth for carbon neutrality is essentially, as well as for the town. So looking at the decarbon, the state decarbonization 2050 decarbonization roadmap. They, and some of the detailed reports that they have associated with that. They indicate that with the electrification expected in the heating sector in the transportation sector that there will be a doubling. We don't find any precise numbers on this, but looking at the charts and reading the text, they said, a bit more than doubling of electricity demand for the Commonwealth between now and 2050. So I said okay, if if Amherst is similar to the Commonwealth, in terms of electrifying our heating, electrifying a good part of our transportation, then we might expect doubling our electricity use to 190,000 megawatt hours by 2050. All right, yeah. I just have some questions. It's a little bit technical and units in the light but I also don't understand the columns here the, the top here says electricity load and Amherst but then these are from greenhouse gas inventories. So the numbers in those 2011 and 2017 columns is that the total energy use or the total electricity use. So those are the, yeah, the data source is from the 2011 and 2017 greenhouse gas inventory study. But the data from those studies is actual data on on direct use of electricity. Yeah, these are these are not greenhouse gas emissions. These are electric electricity consumption. Interesting so I would have expected electricity consumption to that's why you were puzzled about why would residential go down if people were converting it should be going electricity usage should be going up. Yeah, I don't think there's been a lot of conversion between through 2017. I feel but I wouldn't, it would be noise. So I don't know. And I'm open to any other ideas. Unfortunately, that that would have been a time period where people were adding gas. Of course, right. Yeah. Yes is not included in here the usage of gas and oil and stuff like that is not in here. Just correct. This is not household energy use this is this is well for residential it's how much they electricity. They're consuming not not not gas or oil or not for heating and so forth. Okay, and the only other question I have is I'm trying to compare in my head the megawatts of power produced by these different solar installations in the previous slide with megawatt hour per year and I'm getting a big headache. Yeah, we'll get to that in a moment. Well, the headache might come or go but we sort of translate that a little bit in the net and maybe the next slide and next one. Alright, thanks. Okay, so this one is basically just to, you know, we can refer back to this but just some but but importantly some basic assumptions that I made in getting to the next slide which is sort of answering the question of, you know how much solar we might need or or care to just a couple assumptions, I assume the solar capacity factor, which means how much so how much how many megawatt hours you get from a megawatt of solar in Massachusetts climate is about 13%. The, the, the total, just because some of these numbers come into play in the next slide, the total solar capacity installed in Massachusetts as of now is about 30 is about 3200 megawatts. That's between the three. The 20 now looking, digging into the 2050 decarbonization roadmap for the state. They are. And again, as Steve knows and others who may have looked at the roadmap. It's, you know, the roadmap is not a single road. There's various different roads to get to the same destination. Basically decarbonization is particularly a very electricity grid by 2050, but and they have a number, maybe about five or seven different scenarios that they cover, but the, I'm not sure they would even refer to as the base scenario but the prime scenario that they're looking at assumes that by 2050, the solar, the solar capacity that we would need in Massachusetts is about 2300 megawatts 23 gigawatts as they say 2300 megawatts. So that's, we use that later. And they also indicate that, you know, across the Commonwealth, amongst the other renewables that we're going to need offshore wind being the dominant one but also large geohydro and and and some smaller renewables that solar in 2050 would contribute about 27% 27 and a half percent of the renewable contribution. They had another analysis which I thought was helpful to keep in mind here that because they did do some a deeper dive into land use issues associated with solar. And again, in their, and this is not in the roadmap but in this energy pathways, which is a more detailed report on, particularly on the electricity sector of this roadmap. They did some analysis and looked at okay for with there's a bunch of residential solar and rooftop solar solar but the for the amount that would be expected to be land, land based that there would be an expectation that it would require in 2050 for this installation would require about 66,000 acres of land in Massachusetts. Now that comes with a decent airbar. And it's also just for this one pathway. Other pathways for example, if offshore wind does not is more constrained than what they assume. The amount of solar we need goes quite a bit up, as well as the land use quite a bit more than this, but, and we can look at all those sensitivities if we want to but at least the, the road that seems to be the one they're trying to aim for most would suggest and they sort of suggest I think is more optimal would suggest we need about 66,000 acres of land dedicated to ground mounted solar. So, if I can just add something just doing a quick Google search it looks like that's about 1% of Massachusetts land. Well could be the Well, the land area is next I also looked at, you know, just from census that and not nothing to do with carbon or climate, but just to put in perspective Massachusetts is 7800 square miles is our land area. I think I'm pretty sure that does not include water. But is 7800 square miles, the town of Amherst, and I did subtract out. I think about two or three square miles which incorporates encompasses the university in the colleges. The town is 22 and a half square miles, or about 0.29% of the Commonwealth's land area. Just a quick actually I think I think that means we're almost an average size town. Because we're there's 351 if you divide one over 351 it comes to be about that amount. And then looking at our population. And again, the town of Amherst population is always hard to define a bit but this is the census data, which is about 39,000 people out of 7 million for the state that's that's about a half a percent of the of the Commonwealth population. So those are just different useful assumptions or data that I used in the next slide, which then laid out. How we might put our heads around suggesting to to constituents as well as our solar assessment consultant of what we might ask them to do in terms of how much solar we want to find be able to see what it looks like to host different amounts of solar and in the in the town. So, the first thing here is, if we wanted to host enough solar in in in the town to meet our own electricity loads and all of our electricity load. Again, this is does not include the university in the colleges. Then we would need to have 83 megawatts installed in in in the town as of now to meet our load are 95,000 megawatt hours load currently. And to meet our entire load. Once we double our electricity load in in 2050, we would need to host about 166 megawatts of solar. And that's that's one way to look at it. And to put puts things in perspective a bit and Lori gets maybe to your earlier question about how many conversion of megawatt megawatt hours and megawatts. You know, as I mentioned before, I think last week as well as in the last slide. We don't necessarily need need, you know, if we wanted to pretend we're not or want to suggest we're an island and we want to be self sufficient. And we don't really have any other renewable energy resources to draw from, then this would be perhaps an appropriate scenario to look at, and maybe it is one we want to look at. But again, we're going to as a Commonwealth we're moving forward with both offshore wind, which doesn't take up anybody's land, except for small amounts when the cables come to shore, or large scale hydro, which doesn't take up any appreciable or any land in Massachusetts. Most of this is in far North Canada. So, and that's, you know, that we're we're sort of anticipating tapping into those resources because they make economic sense and climate sense. And they're good for the for the Commonwealth as a whole. And, and what suggests that that could suggest that we don't need to host and generate all the electricity. We need ourselves within our with that within our own geography. So other ways to look at it is looking at our, you know, quote unquote fair share of solar by either by land area, or by population. So from the previous slide which you don't have to go back back back to but you know currently there's what I say there's like 3200 megawatts of solar installed in Massachusetts. If you were to say okay, we should be hosting at least our fair share of that by land area. That would suggest we only needed seven nine megawatts. And to that to that extent, I think we can and if it's by population we need 18 megawatts. We currently have 28 megawatts installed in Massachusetts so I think we can suggest this would suggest that we are doing. I'm not sure about more than our fair share but we're doing our fair share and some with regard to currently hosting more solar than than our fair share in Amherst at this point in time. Can I, can I jump in there. Is that, is that right though, because I thought you said the capacity factor was 13%. And so by my calculation are 28 make our current 28 megawatts is only contributing 3.6 megawatts per hour, right, or megawatt per year. Yet when I had a similar question to you know the first line you talk about doubling from 83 to 166 megawatts, but can you go back one slide. So you talk about 2022 solar capacity is 3100 and 2050. That's more than doubling you're doubling every more than doubling every 10 years. Oh, well the solar capacity. Yeah, our electricity yet. Yeah, go ahead and finish your question for suicide. You know, here it says you're more than doubling every 10 years and then on the next slide. You just double the 2022 number to 2050 when it should be doubling every 10 years so it should be rough math 700 megawatts in 2050. Yeah, keep in mind we're the number that the we the Commonwealth needs a lot more solar and all the renewables I mean right now. The renewables only account for maybe 20% 1520% of our electricity need of our electricity consumption, but that needs to go to 100% by 2050. So, in this slide that we're looking at now for the 2022 category column for current. I'm saying that of the current 3200 the current 3200 megawatts of solar that is installed in that in across Massachusetts. If we were to install our fair share of that, based on our land area of that 3200 that's currently installed, we would only be responsible or need to host 9 megawatts in our town by 2020 50 that much more than doubles. Because by 2050, we're still need to host, you know, a small person are percentage by land area which is, you know, 0.29% or whatever, but it's of a much larger number of of installed solar in Massachusetts of 2323,000 megawatts of solar in Massachusetts that needs to find sites in Massachusetts by 2050. It seems like a really low number. A really low number. Yeah. Well, it's basically just 20 the solar capacity in the Commonwealth is 23,000 megawatts times our fair share of land area, which is 0.29% gets you to the 66 or by population which is 0.56% gets you to 128. One thing that's a little confusing is the 2022 numbers are not targets. It's not what we need. It's what we have. Yeah, it just, you know, are we carrying our weight up to this point. Right. Yeah, keep in mind that the renewable energy I forget what fraction of our renewable energy in 2050 is supposed to come from solar versus other renewable resources. By 2050, by 2050, yeah, isn't the Commonwealth. Yeah, it was about 20, 20, 27 and a half percent was anticipated from solar from solar versus the others under the under the primary pathway. Yeah, Jesse. Both the 2022 and the 2050 columns are theoretical, neither of them reflect actual installment, and you've got three scenarios shown. But, but they're all theoretical none of the nothing on this these are all if then numbers is it. But we're already above the 2022 numbers for fair share right. Well, depending on how we look at what's our number. That was the first line. Well, we're at about 28 megawatts installed in Amherst, not including the university and colleges. That being said, I'm still waiting to confirm there is about a probably a five megawatt project that I still need to confirm whether that was actually built or not. I guess can you wait and can you speak briefly to why, why are. And maybe you just explained why why you think the fair share share scenarios are so much less than the cover our own load scenario. Yes. Well, I am not suggesting one's more fair or or or not but these are just the terms I put in here but the. Yeah, the issue with the first one is, you know, if we were to install enough solar to meet our own needs. Then the question would come up well. Is that is that a right goal? Is that the correct goal? And maybe it is these are value questions not science questions. Maybe that is that is what we want to shoot for that being said, we are Commonwealth, and we have great offshore wind resources for example. And if every town said we're going to generate our own electricity within our own confines, then nobody would need offshore wind. And it's not in anybody's town. And so, you know, but but maybe there's an argument to be said okay well that offshore wind is really going to serve the population centers of Boston and south shore and stuff like that and we really need to generate most, not all of our electricity ourselves, and there's economic reasons why we might want to do that as well. And, you know, so that's these are different scenarios we can look at not necessarily value as once once the right answer or not. But yeah, that would assume that you know that we were generating all of our electricity and not participating in any of the offshore wind or large scale hydro that would be available to the Commonwealth as well. I see Stella and then Laurie. Yeah, can I try answering Jesse's question and you let me know if it doesn't make sense. I think so this sufficient solar installed me own electricity needs that's not theoretical as I understand it that's based on current electricity needs in the town, and the fair share numbers are not based off. The total electric needs of the state they're based off what the state, the state's current solar capacity is, and then what like the towns. The town's contribution to that current solar capacity which is nowhere near what would be necessary to meet the state's electrical needs. Does that answer your question, is that your question. Yeah, if is that right if that's right, then that certainly makes sense. The first part was state the second part again about the fair share. So the fair share numbers are based off what currently exists as far as solar capacity at the state level, which isn't anywhere close to what the solar capacity that would be necessary to meet the states actual electric needs. Yeah. Yeah, for 2020 numbers are derived from current state solar capacity. Yeah, for 2022 it's based on what's the current total capacity which is not theoretical it's it's it's known data of what's currently installed in across Massachusetts now. 2050 is the portion of what the state anticipates it will need by 2050 to meet its carbonization decarbonization roadmap. And specifically if I can add that was from your previous slide 27 taken on a projection of needing 27.5% of the energy coming from solar. Yeah, actually, actually it's, I didn't actually use that data per se, because what I used was, I just thought that was a useful figure to have we might use it later, but it was basically, and I, they're probably connected. And basically just drew out the data from the decarbonization report that stated that the expectation was that there was a need for 23 gigawatts 23,000 megawatts of solar in stones. So doing. So what this says right right now is that we're a third of the with our 28 megawatts were a third of the way there in terms of sufficient solar installed to meet our own electricity needs like that's kind of blows my mind, it seems. Well, again, there's a caveat I'm not sure about one fairly substantial project so it could be anywhere between 20 and 28 but yes. Yeah, I mean we have. And also the caveat that you know we're still waiting for the Hickory Ridge project which I think will be the largest project in Amherst, when it's built. We're waiting that one to be built, which is you know seven megawatts out of this 28 as well. So, with those caveats. Yes, that's correct. You know we're 28 megawatts installed. And I'm not sure you know, go going towards you know either 66 or 128 I guess depending on whether it's by land area or population, if that's clean. I have a clarifying point so we're looking at just solar development in town but not necessarily because you were talking about the town meeting the towns. Electricity needs, but the Hickory Ridge project the town isn't the off taker for that so it will be solar installed in Amherst but it's not going to be directly benefiting the town's energy use. I think I mean that's something we can talk about. I think, you know, generally for solar all over Massachusetts. It's, you know, it's feeding the grid. It's going into the grid. And, you know, to meet our climate goals, we need, you know, the Commonwealth is looking for 23 gigawatts of solar to feed into the grid. And it doesn't necessarily, you know, need that to be matched up to the ratepayers individual ratepayers some of it. It's financed different ways and design different ways in terms of net metering virtual net metering off takers and so forth but, you know, we can get to that I mean if we want to make more of a of an economic argument in terms of making use of this energy ourselves. And that's a bit of a different different issue but, you know, right more. This this looks at it more in terms of the, the, the, either the opportunity or the burden to host solar in your town, just physically hosting it. Regardless of where the, you know, energy, whether it goes to any individual people. It's just the clarification. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, a good point. Okay. Okay, everybody, I see Jesse and Lori have their hand up I have to run so I'm going to hand it over to Andra to chair us for the rest of the meeting. So I'll see you all later. Thanks, Laura. Just so you know, I'm on my phone so I cannot see people's hands so I can just call on people if you want. So, I think. I think it was first I believe. And then Lori. Sure. Quick, just first, I know we just jumped in and started saying what about this number what about that number. I just want to thank Dwayne for putting this all together it's fantastic and it is, and it's sort of the answer to the first question that Steve was asked before why do you need, why are you doing this and we really do any of this work without understanding the existing conditions without putting something on paper to react to so I think this is a great example of why we gather data and put data in front of ourselves so thank you for doing that so we can have this conversation Dwayne it's awesome. Second, I guess the thing I'm told still don't totally understand is why isn't the 83 kind of roughly three times the other numbers but that might not be important and then the final comment would be just want to plant the seed into all of our thoughts of how we might digest this information and make it user friendly. In some way, how we might tell this story slightly differently that that's that's more that might land with a broader audience than this group so yeah and thank you, Dwayne. And I'm very keen on working together on that messaging I think there's two outcomes that we need to think about one is, to the extent that we are able to define a number of different scenarios that we might ask the solar systems to look at with regard to how much solar hosting, we would want to be able to accomplish and what would that look like, or various ways that that might look like in Amherst. And the second is is a more public facing messaging of what we've learned from this data collection. Yeah, I just wanted to say I also want to thank Dwayne this is fantastic. And I, I just wanted to say that in the constant drum beat of horrible climate and planetary news on a daily basis on an hourly basis. This sort of thing actually gives me a little bit of hope I mean we're actually, I'm surprised we're doing as well as we are, and I'm glad I'm surprised. It's a good thing right it's it's, there's work to be done but we're on our way, and it seems to me that the bigger issue that we have to deal with and the harder one is that transition away from greenhouse gases. And perhaps that's maybe, you know something to keep in mind that we seem to be on our way on the solar front here. And I really think that's great we're, we're making progress. That's a good thing. Dwayne, do we know what of the solar that's installed in Amherst. Do we know the acreage of that. Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, I mean obviously the residential all the residential and small scale it probably doesn't really have acreage associated with it. The other ones, you know, as I mentioned before the three quarters of the capacity is probably made up of a handful or maybe two handfuls of actual projects. And those, I don't know, I mean that's not part of the deal we are database of solar projects, but I suspect there may be that data on that from the, that the town might have access to the town would have that data Steve. Yeah, the larger ones I don't again not the residential probably but definitely the large, larger ones. That would be awesome. I've heard issues raised with those sort of land used by solar farms estimates and there's different ways of measuring the land used. One is the area covered by panels, which is a smaller area. The other another number is the area inside of the fence. That's a bigger area than just the solar panels. And a third measure sometimes people point to is the area sort of cleared for the solar farm which could be even larger than the fence, the fence line. So there's different ways of counting the area. The pressure college our array that's an Amherst the one that's across from Atkins farm off of Bay Road there that's 2.3 megawatts, and it's just under 10 acres inside the fence. The fence encompasses just under 10 acres so it's point to three megawatts of capacity per acre. Use that same ratio for 66 megawatts the, the value that you've got there for Amherst fair share by land area for 2050 66 that translates into about 290 acres needed of that sort of that sort of density of the solar panels. Yeah. Okay, that's good. And that's right in the between your two numbers are the last two rows the one that we didn't really get to that but that was, you know, that was not so much looking at the solar capacity, but the land use that Massachusetts was suggesting and our quote unquote fair share of that. Now, the difference between the two numbers, which may accommodate account for some of the difference is that some of that capacity of the 66 would be on rooftops and residential. Whereas the land, the bottom two rows are strictly the ground mounted arrays, expected in Massachusetts. That's true but that 66,000 acres that you cited that's in addition to maximizing rooftops. Correct. Correct. That's specifically that's a value for ground out solar needed by 2050. Yes. I can interject again that the total land area of Amherst looks to be about 17,000 acres if I just Google that correctly so again, these are 1% or smaller sort of numbers smaller than 1% right which is that right or maybe about 1% 2% when I calculated it. Sorry, yeah, you're probably right I'm sorry I'm thinking wrong. But it's, it's not an enormous, not an enormous thing. Anyway, worth keeping in mind. And that's who has to stand up. Your audio is almost up again. So it happens, like an hour and a half in. Can you hear me okay now. Okay, perfect. I don't know why it happens but thanks for doing it so if we want to be self sufficient. Are we saying in 2050, 166 megawatts is our need. I think it's kind of the question that Jesse had as well I'm kind of confused here. The fair share by land area from 2022 to 2050. That's a seven fold increase fair share by population 18 to 28 that's a seven fold increase. So shouldn't the sufficient solar installed to meet our needs in order to be fully self sufficient via seven fold increase. No, because the first line there are electricity is sufficient to meet our electricity needs that's based on our electricity needs that the row above the 95,000 and the 190,000. The other rows are based on, you know, current solar installed now in Massachusetts which is not anything close to meeting the Commonwealth's needs. And, and, and that the build out of solar is just, you know, needs to be built out about, I think it's about six times more solar that we need between where we are now and 2050. Yeah, if I can add one more thing remember the electricity needs were projected to double which is what you're seeing in that first line. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a doubling. Yeah, exactly. So other things are not related to that there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're not related. Correct on the, the previous slide to 2022 solar capacity and 2050 solar capacity that's, that's just the capacity that's not a low requirement is that what I'm reading. That's correct. That's just on solar capacity. Okay, makes sense. Thank you. Yeah. Stella has her hand up. I was just thinking about how there's also, there's also additional uncertainty in the acreage needs for 2050 because we can't necessarily anticipate like the technical advances in efficiency with respect to the the panels themselves with respect to Steve's point right like there's a certain degree of uncertainty there. In terms of if panel efficiency goes up. Yeah, then acreage needs might potentially go down. Nothing said I don't know whether ea considered that in their roadmap report. I mean it seems better to err on the side of more anyways, but there is like just additional uncertainty. And that's a good point that I think will come up in future conversations for the solar bylaw committee. And that would be that a bylaw and Amherst specifies a certain ratio of megawatt production per acre as a as a standard. And that would mean that manufacturers or companies installing the solar farms would have to figure out ways to either use higher efficiency panels which do exist. And that would be more effective, but you can pack more of them into a given area, or just to simply be a bit more efficient in the way they pack in the rows of panels, or possibly use tracking panels tracking panels are being used more widely and lower you get a bigger benefit for tracking panels in areas in lower latitudes and in northern latitudes especially with Massachusetts climate but but that's an option that adds cost, but it does allow you to produce more in a smaller amount of area. So those are things that are on my list of recommendations to our ideas for the solar bylaw committee to suggest as things to consider when they're drafting standards for solar farms in town. I want to say that just taking the land area of Amherst in the land area of Massachusetts does not give us the correct capacity for citing solar. What I really want in our analysis is to know what's the capacity on roots and disturbed land and what's that capacity statewide. And so what's our fair share of that. And then take land that is, you know, potentially, disturbable statewide and compare that to our disturbable as a terrible word. But otherwise, we don't have the right comparison to Boston, for instance, which has, you know, only rooftops and disturbed land in or built environments. But our fair share, we have to think about, you know, we do enjoy the privilege of extra space. Not that we want to fill it with solar, but in terms of fair share, that's the calculation we need. Yeah, I don't want to overuse the word fair because there's so many different ways to slice that and maybe I should have. Just in terms of land use land area. Well, I think we do want to work with the solar consultant to get a better handle on how much we, for the town of Amherst, we can't do this for the whole Commonwealth but for the town of Amherst. How much can we reasonably assume we could accommodate on our rooftops and previously disturbed lands like the landfill and so forth. And that's a fixed that'll be somewhat of a fixed number. And then and then we can say okay, well and that's going to you know and recognizing that's going to cost more, but probably we can make an argument that it's that it's worth it, but that's for others to sort of think about, or at least that it's be transparent. So we could accommodate on rooftop but it's going to cost us and the Commonwealth ratepayers more to do it this way. And then see how much of these numbers that can accommodate that can cannot that can can be done in that way. So we, we, you know, we have six megawatts was it already installed on in seven megawatts installed residential, which is, you know, and you know we see a lot of solar in Amherst. But there's a lot more a lot more homes that could have solar, probably well more than twice or three times as much as already have solar so we can probably get get to a couple 10s of megawatts that way potentially. But it does come at a higher cost. And so we don't want to leave that leave that unstated. So, I'd like to move on to our outreach and education topic. And are there any other next steps. I think the purpose of that presentation was for us to contribute ideas for the solar assessment. What information we want to have from it. Any other next steps. Well, let me just say I do want to the next step is to do that is you know what do we want to take from from this analysis and and and translate that into some to the solar, the solar assessment consultants on on what to to look at so maybe I can come back based on this conversation with some straw proposal of what we might do what we might relate to the solar consultant. I don't know what the next time we meet, but Stephanie has something to say about that. I just want to clarify that this would be a recommendation to the town manager on what to include. So wouldn't be directly I just want to clarify. No, absolutely, absolutely. You're not talking directly to the consultant. You're making a recommendation to the town manager. Yeah. So that's through the mechanism of the solar bylaw committee. There's a similar assessment is separate from the bylaw working group that's the solar assessment is happening separately. Okay. They'll look at it. They'll get some of the information as they go along. I, the way I'm envisioning it is that the information from the assessment will maybe some of this will help them and some of this information that Dwayne is bringing up as kind of relevant. There's this more process for siting solar. This is more the sort of some of this has to do with some of the more philosophical questions the town is asking. A little bit different. If I might just suggest Dwayne, if you have the energy to develop a couple of different scenarios, a high and a low estimate. Yeah, and I'm happy to help check numbers or share spreadsheets and confer with you on that. Okay, I appreciate that. And I don't think they we, this doesn't need to be precise. I mean, it doesn't, you know, whether it's, you know, 50 or 53, it doesn't really matter. It just needs to be a couple and I like the idea of, you know, low, medium, high or something like that. And I, I commend the air quotes on fair share or the quote quotes rather fair share quotes I think that does the job. It's great. Yeah. So thank you. Let's turn to Vasu, who's had an assignment from last meeting on outreach and education. Did you get any feedback from any of us? Yeah, can you hear me okay. Yes. Okay. Alright, so I did receive feedback from Jesse, Steve yesterday and Lori today so I didn't really get a lot of time to put this together but I tried to consolidate the ideas and I'll go over it so. Each slide is a potential idea for how we can improve outreach. So, and it's in sequential order in terms of you know what we want to do first so first one is around carbon literacy. And the way I've divided this is, well, how do we want to do it what is going to be our approach so is it going to be via zoom or a different mechanism that we can talk about. Is it going to be a series of, you know, conversations with the community, or one time only. And then the second column is, you know, what resources do we need to use or work with, and then what topics do we need to cover so on carbon literacy, you know, figured maybe an educational series delivered either to zoom or use the library where they have events to really start broadening understanding of complex climate terminology, starting off with that and getting the community to understand the different complexities different emitters. And, you know, I figured maybe this is where we can use experts from colleges or local advocacy groups and our library and the Hitchcock Center for some support to cover topics that focus on top contributors in Amherst and low premium alternatives. And maybe around transportation buildings, you know, okay, if you have feedback on what needs to be covered we can we can talk about that. But that was the first topic. The second topic that I have is the Massachusetts 2050 decarbonization plan so you know they understand the complexities first and then they get in, you know, further down to what the state is looking for. What their plan is and again an educational series as well here. Similar resources. I also wonder, I'm thinking out loud now, maybe get the state involved in some shape or form have them come in and deliver a lecture to the community. And then our topics will be around why do we need to be carbonized and how we will be carbonized. So carbon is is our town so going through our car. Similar structure around the educational series. You know resources, whether it's us or using library resources and Hitchcock Center, and their topics will be around, you know, what are our key initiatives and how can the community support in meeting our key initiatives. We have a discussion on public forums so maybe to continue to keep the community engaged have a quarterly zoom series and a revolving topic around any topic that we think is important at the time. I have a, the next one is around the reduction toolkit so you know Lori you and Laura also mentioned how difficult was it to, you know, get heat pumps. So whether it makes sense to publish a toolkit. I one document that has all the information that somebody would need whether it's a residential property or a commercial property. They can find information or mass save heat pumps, even you have all the information in that toolkit and maybe we can publish that toolkit. So, you know, the Amherst website for people to look at just makes it easier, you know, step by step approach to get, or to meet a certain objective for that person. This is a sustainability festival so I'm meeting with Billy, who's the director at the Hitchcock Center next Tuesday. We're going to talk about programs that, you know, we might benefit as well. This is around planning for an event at the comments and I've mentioned this before, but starting to use some of our resources including the bid and our local businesses. So talking about, you know, the carbons have it, you know, turn off electricity for half a day, for example, during that festival play movies at the Amherst Cinema to engage the community. Bring vendors in have food stalls and bring the farmers market will be some of the topics here during that festival. And the next one is on volunteer drive so different volunteer drives to engage the community. And I talked last time about the UMass alumni network that I belong to. We're going to try to have an event at the Hitchcock Center but what other events that we can have partnering with these different resources, covering similar topics including river cleanup and food co-op and farmers market. The next topic is on the greenhouse gas emissions dashboard so creating some sort of a data display that either is either posted on the website or on in the town hall right in front of the building solar powered of course. So it's really starting for the community to see data and to look at what our current emissions are. What is the percent left to meet the goal and maybe add other information that could help, you know, pass or people passing by to see what they need to do and continue to engage them that way by showing them some data that can be displayed either on the website or physically somewhere. And then I put a timeline. So, again, walking through the process right so we start with the carbon literacy campaign. Get them to understand the complex complexities around, you know, different types of, you know, carbon emitters and how we can reduce them. And then I talk about the overarching state plan and then talk about our plan, but also work on the dashboard that we can publish and then have the toolkit before the sustainability festival. So we can talk about the toolkit and its availability during the festival and then continue having conversations during our public forums and then also, you know, this frequency of volunteer drives could be whatever but I just put in, you know, a quarter now that we can have volunteer drives with engaging different community groups and several groups in the community. So that's all I had. It's all the ideas that I received and I put in my own any comments or thoughts on this. Thank you so much. It's really great to have it laid out general comments. I do actually have a couple of things. Chris buzz through this is really great. Can you get me this slide presentation so I concluded in the packet. Yes. So a couple of things. Two things that you have listed here are have are going to happen. One is that I requested funding through the ARPA funds for putting together a dashboard. So there is going to be funding for that happening. I don't know the timing may not align exactly with what you have here. But there is funding for. I've had discussions with the communications director about doing just this and the time could do sort of, I mean we could do one early but we can also work with a firm that actually does exactly this specifically for greenhouse gas emissions. So, and that would be Kim Lundgren associates, and they're the ones who have worked with a lot of municipalities and creating their dashboards, for instance, conquered, which I know Darcy is very fond of so they, they enlisted the help of the LA associates to get their dashboard so anyway that's one thing. The second thing is the sustainability festival happens already. It was on hiatus because of COVID but it's already scheduled for next year for April 22, which is actually on Earth Day. So instead of creating a whole other festival we have one you are the community that works that I work with and you know I think if we're going to do that it should be around the existing festival. And that's what I was thinking, Stephanie, I agree, I don't know what was called. Yeah, it's called the sustainability festival. So it's and it's on April 22. So you're, you're only a week off, which is great. So that's great and I love the idea, as I think I told you before, you know, earlier on we did have workshops participation was always a bit spotty. We just like had events at the library or a town hall at the same time that the festival was going on and it's tricky. You know the weather always plays a role it's really inconsistent but I think where we are at this point in time. Building things around it actually would probably work really well. Sometimes it's hard to have them at the same time but like having things like the night before the day after. Depending what the thing is, you know, on the day of the event could work well. So I really love this and I'm excited about, you know, enhancing that event. Stephanie, is there resources here that I'm missing that I should connect with. No, I mean we can talk offline about about this around the festival stuff I'm happy to talk offline because we've engaged. Maybe I don't see the chamber here. But we've worked with the local chamber we've worked with the universities and the colleges have had some involvement over the years and again it waxes and wanes in terms of their participation but I'd love to see more involvement. It's hard because, especially that this is going to occur on Earth Day next year. A lot of organizations and institutions will want to do their own thing. But we did have a climate march one year that was organized with the University of Massachusetts and that was wonderful. At least 300 people showed up and I had friends from Franklin County who actually showed up at our little local Amherst March that day from Kendrick Park to the Commons so if we could get something like that organized again that would be great. Yeah, that was a moment in time it was 2017 and it was the Science March. So, it was planned for that. Yes, well yes. But I think, you know, but we have a year with which to plan something and I think it's the time again, you know, I think we're at a time again, where lots of things are happening. And I think that the key is that there are already groups working on things. And, you know, we need to kind of build these native groups that already get together, talk, have their own sessions and pool those resources. I'd like your approach. I think that will make it possible. Yeah, so how do I guess is if I mean the first question is, is everyone's okay with the sequence of activities at least talking about the literacy campaign and you know state decarbonization plan and the carp education. If we were to go do this first. What are the resources that I need to connect with. And Andrew I think you, you're more familiar with this than I am I mean do I have the right people. And this is the right forum and we can have discussions with the resources to figure out what the right forum for that communication should look like. But are these the right people, or am I missing anybody. I mean, the, the resources at the colleges and the university are vast. So, it would, and there's, you know, probably 1015 advocacy groups that would be interested that are actively organizing. I have four members with their hands up. Okay, go ahead. So I'm just going to go in order I don't know who raised their hand first so Steve. These are great this is wonderful that soup for additional local advocacy groups. There's the school of the K 12 schools, teachers and then also the Amherst sunrise group. And I think we're going to be sponsoring an event at the Hitchcock Center this coming Saturday I believe had 45 to 530 workshops all day long and then on Sunday, one to three on the common rally and come and support our youth. I think yeah I think that's great when I looked at their schedule as a little disappointed that I didn't see anything really in the carbon literacy, at least like that I could tell by the titles made maybe it's in there. So for efficiency on some of these topics I think it'd be wonderful if we could create tool kits or packets or videos something like Ted talk sort of things that groups could use at their own time and place, so that we ourselves don't have to go out and do every single event. So that could be a way to increase our, our leverage in our exposure and one other resource or strategy could be through local newspapers. It could be that we write columns first. I think was it the daily hamster gazette is it earth matters to have an occasional column that's written by local folks about earth and environmental things. It's different than writing an editorial or a letter to the editor, but working with the reporters to help make sure they understand the carbon literacy and the climate and the 2050 plan make sure they have a good understanding of it. Then when they write other articles they can make sure they can get that that that information gets in there. And then the other source in terms of expertise is not necessarily people but reports. And besides the Massachusetts 2050 report. There's four or five other similar reports that sort of dictate what we need to do in this country, both state level and national to reach those sort of 2050 carbon neutrality goals. There's the Academy of Sciences US Academy of Sciences report there's a Princeton University report, there's others, I can send those to you. They're wonderful, if very dense sources of information but very thorough. Thank you. Stella has her hand up. Oh, I was also just going to mention mentioned sunrise and the importance of kind of just really having having a youthful voice, because I think they're I think they're actually from. I think that there is a lot of literacy. In many ways, and it's people often just like don't know what to do and are sad and mad. So, like, I don't even know if I would call it literacy although I do really appreciate like the timeline you've laid out because that then people are if people are like, feel like oh like but I'm literate I'm just like really sad and mad, you know, but I don't really have an I don't really have an answer here but I think like bringing the youth in and giving people like, like clear resources and clear community that's not like recycle you know like drive less because everybody knows that you know. But I think I think it's like really it's it's really good I just think that that that may be some of the framing. I would ask, I would ask the teens. Yeah, and Stella, good points I think that's one of the reasons why I have this is this one will tell you what somebody needs to do right is you have information whether you're installing solar at home. Or you're buying led bulbs from assay right I, I thought this might be a powerful tool that the community could use because that we could capture the variety of information where the community could do something could take an action based on the different resources that we have but it's complex. Yeah, so maybe maybe those two things go together and it's instead of a like a carbon literacy event it's like a community planning event where here's the toolkit and people can come and like plan together. Like what makes sense for them and kind of like talk talk. And maybe some of the college experts for example our position there to kind of help support people in kind of creating creating plans to maybe instead of like two separate things in the timeline those are like one. Yeah, except we don't have this ready yet right and this is going to take time to build versus this maybe it's just getting resources to help big topics, but yeah I see what you're saying. And Laurie has her hand up to. Um, yeah I wanted to agree with the idea that we should be focusing on, you know, the block power said there are lots of people who want to make change and just don't know what to do and don't know how to get started and are frustrated and used by it and and that's the folks we should be focusing on because those are the ones that are the low hanging fruit that are going to make the biggest difference the fastest. So I would love to be involved in putting together that toolkit one other thing though that I can't help but mention I think I mentioned this once before maybe somebody else did. I have a website that talks a little bit about some of this stuff on Amherst town website but it's in a sort of ridiculous place it's hard to find and when you do find it, it's called sustaining Amherst which sounds like a capital campaign. I really need a different name somebody please Stephanie can we please change that to something with greenhouse gas reduction or clean energy Amherst or energy transition Amherst or something like that. That tells the user what where you know if they're looking for this page, they're more likely to be able to find it because right now it's completely invisible. I'm really hoping that might be a start anyway. Also I'd like to suggest that you know if we do figure out how to, how to bring this to the public how to have talks on how to make this transition happen on maybe something even aimed at at rental property owners who might want to do this and don't think that we do it instead of doing it on the campuses do it downtown do it in the new performance space or an Amherst theater or something, something like that you know where a more central downtown space. If we are going to do talks or something along those lines, just a thought. Sometimes the colleges I think feel a little inaccessible with people who live here. Anyone else. We're almost out of time. So, um, I think that this is a great beginning. I love having a lot of space in the timeline for the what's now called the literacy campaign, because I do think that what we really want to do is target different populations who have different kinds of questions and different kinds of actions that they could do in the context of, you know, reduce your transportation. You know what what's your next car going to be or you know could you get an electric scooter it very very limited topics where the literacy happens. We need to really take steps though I think that buses carried this for a while and that it might be time for us to have a working group that has posted meetings and to actually get this, you know, some concrete things planned and, you know, planning over the summers, a good way to do it, let it take time. So maybe people could let Stephanie know if they're interested in being a part of that. Does that make sense to people. But then there's another question around is this going to be another open meeting thing where for trying. Yeah, it has to be an open meeting. Yeah. If we get any work done, we really need to have a couple of these. Yeah, you know, unless it's just people who want to consult with Vasu on it, but my experience is it's too hard to get maybe you want to put this on the next agenda for a little more discussion about how you want to do that, because you're running out of time now and I don't think people are ready to make a decision. So for the next agenda, Dwayne might have time to come back with some particular list of things that he thinks come came up in our discussion, and that are implied in his presentation. And yeah, the next step for actually focusing on our outreach and education, how and who. And what else is on the on deck that we didn't have on the agenda this week that needs to come back. So I would like to hear from Don. And, you know, maybe, I don't know if it did anybody want to also work on the outreach to the chamber of the businesses. I'm interested in that. I'm just not without getting down and sitting in a room and talking with people it's hard to know how to fit in so that's what I'm struggling with right now is doing this satisfy the open meeting law at the same time. So maybe that's, that's a topic for next agenda as well so we can give that some shape. What's the topic exactly. How am I listing that reaching out to the business committee working with the business committee. Business. I'm actually more interested in getting landowners involved rental unit developers. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, great. And you have a member of the public so you. Oh, yes. Would our member of the public like to speak and just raise your hand electronically. Okay. Thank you everyone. We'll see you in two weeks. Thank you very much. Andra and Stephanie and everyone. Yeah, thank you all. Thanks everyone for a great work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.