Harvard’s participation in the state’s Green Communities Designation and Grant program has born fruit once again this year.
On Monday, town officials learned that Harvard has been awarded $249,972 to pay for five projects to reduce energy use and improve energy monitoring at the Bromfield School. The competitive grant is one of 72 awarded this year to cities and towns that have been designated Green Communities by the Department of Energy Resources.
The effort to secure the award was the work of Harvard’s seven-member Energy Advisory Committee, which has worked behind the scenes since 2008 to lower the town’s energy consumption and cost while preparing the quarterly and annual reports required to maintain the town’s designation as a Green Community.
According to Chairman Brian Smith, the bulk of this year’s grant ($204,740) will be used to upgrade the lighting in Bromfield classrooms and other areas of the school. The balance will be used to pay for four more projects to improve HVAC control systems and energy monitoring at Bromfield as well as additional weatherization. The grant also includes money ($13,500) to cover the costs of administering and reporting progress on the projects, tasks committee volunteers have had to handle in the past. Although the cost of the five projects totals $301,042, Smith said the town expects an additional $51,000 in “incentive money” from National Grid to make up the difference.
Why the focus on Bromfield? Lowering energy use there is where investments in improved efficiency can have the greatest impact on the town’s consumption over the next two years, Smith told the Press. “If you want to make a big dent in the town’s use of energy, you have to address Bromfield,” he said. For now, Hildreth Elementary School is off the table as the School Building Committee readies a proposal for a brand-new building.
Harvard state Sen. Jamie Eldridge said in an email to the Press that he was pleased to hear of Harvard’s grant, and he thanked the Baker-Polito administration for its support of the Green Communities grants. “I’m impressed with what communities in my district have done with these grants to support clean energy, reduce energy use, do their part to combat climate change. Harvard continues to be a leader in embracing clean energy policies,” he wrote.
This is the third grant Harvard has received since gaining designation as a Green Community in 2010. The town was awarded $141,000 in 2010 on joining the program and another $176,000 in 2015 to pay for a variety of projects, all of which have been completed. Money for the grants comes from the proceeds of the carbon allowance auctions held under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, of which Massachusetts is a member, as well as payments made by electricity suppliers that do not meet their statutory obligation to purchase a sufficient percentage of renewable energy. Grants to towns this year totaled $14 million, according to a statement released by the state on Monday.
Going green
To become a Green Community, Harvard had to meet five criteria, including adoption of a stretch building code for new buildings and a plan to reduce municipal energy consumption by 20 percent over five years. In its report to the town this year, HEAC said that Harvard’s municipal energy use had declined 12 percent between 2009 and 2016, when adjusted for year-to-year variations in the weather. As of October 2015, the latest date for which state data is available, only seven of the state’s 185 Green Communities had met the 20 percent goal.
Smith said that 2017 was the first year the state had asked for detailed information on the energy efficiency of newly built homes in Harvard. This is information “that we have not provided before and when we received the request we did not have much time to obtain the HERS (energy efficiency) ratings,” Smith said. “We have had challenges every year obtaining the basic information about building and occupancy permits even without the challenge of getting the HERS ratings. Now that we know we need the HERS ratings, we will work with [Town Administrator] Tim Bragan and the staff to ensure that we provide advance notice and we have all the information in advance of the annual deadline.”
