This past week, members of the Harvard Climate Initiative Committee celebrated a win for the local community, receiving a large grant through Mass Save that will pay for a municipal energy manager to be shared across the towns of Harvard, Ayer, Groton, and Shirley.
The Municipal Energy Manager Grant, sponsored by National Grid and Eversource, awards towns up to $120,000 in yearly funding to pay the salary of a full-time energy manager for three years. The energy manager will assess current municipal energy management practices for Harvard and the other three towns, as well as develop and implement projects focused on improving “energy efficiency, building electrification and renewable energy,” according to the grant application submitted earlier this year.
One of the main priorities across all four towns is updating the school buildings to maximize energy efficiency. For Harvard, this includes retrofitting the Bromfield School with an updated heating and cooling system, a project that is currently under assessment. The town has also begun plans to build a new DPW facility and fire station; plans for each of these projects could be improved with the aid of an energy manager.
“The Town has a limited number of staff that can address energy management of the municipal buildings … A part-time energy manager would be significant in supporting the employees who have multiple responsibilities and lack the expertise in energy management,” the grant application explains. The energy manager will split their time evenly among the four towns and coordinate with the town and school administrations to negotiate priorities and carry out projects.
Groton, as the lead applicant, will hire the energy manager in consultation with the partnering towns. Once an energy manager is contracted, the intent is to start work at the end of May. The chair of Groton’s Sustainability Commission, Charlotte Weigel, co-wrote the grant application with Ellen Sachs Leicher, the chair of the Harvard Climate Initiative Committee.
“We are psyched that we won that one,” Sachs Leicher said when she announced the awarded grant at the committee meeting last Thursday.
