Chapel Hill Solar Roofs Committee

Annual Report – 2002-03

Presented to the Chapel Hill Town Council

October 8, 2003

Introduction

In April 2000 the Town Council adopted a resolution establishing the Town's goal of 500 solar energy systems to be installed locally by 2010, and to organize a steering committee to encourage, accelerate, and advise in fulfilling that goal. In November 2000, the Town Council appointed a 20-member Steering Committee, which began meeting the following month. Committee members include experts in the solar field, architects, elected officials, representatives from the schools and local government agencies, and area residents with an interest in solar power.

Using $6,000 provided by the Council, the Town hired a consultant who provided staff support for the Committee meetings and for the development of a Million Solar Roofs Action Plan. The Steering Committee developed the Action Plan and presented it to Council on June 25, 2001. The Council approved implementation of the Action Plan on September 10, 2001, including the allocation of $5,000 in Town funds (later reduced to $3,000) and authorization for the limited involvement of Town staff in carrying out the recommendations over one year. The Committee and staff support were re-authorized in Sept. 2002 for one year. The Committee’s August 28, 2003 bimonthly meeting marked the end of that one-year period. 

Progress

From October 2002 to August 2003, the Committee met on a bimonthly basis and made significant progress on four projects continued from 2002:

1. Installing an informational display board explaining the Hargraves Center photovoltaic electric generating system;
2. Installing a solar water heating system for the Community Center using $3,000 in Town funds for purchasing hardware and equipment and donated labor for the installation (note: the Committee is requesting $600 in Town funds to cover the cost of a welder needed to build a support frame for the solar panels);
3. Writing a series of articles for newspapers and other publications highlighting local solar installations; and,
4. Maintaining our database of solar installations.

In addition, the committee initiated projects as part of this years work, including:

1. Organizing and running the Chapel Hill/Orange County Green Building Tour on October 3 and 4, 2003. This was accomplished in coordination with Smith Middle School, the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association and Durham’s Million Solar Roofs Initiative group (DIRECT). The Oct. 3^rd workshop, “Introduction to Green Building”, was presented by committee member Alicia Ravetto;
2. Developing our website including virtual tours of selected solar properties, including Smith Middle School (please see: http://www.chapelhillsolar.org);
3. Teaching middle school science classes about daylighting, solar water heating, energy efficiency and other aspects of green building;
4. Designing Chapel Hill Solar logo and incorporated it into the design of informational cards and bumper stickers, distributed at all our public events (copy attached for Council members);
5. Providing workshops on green building practices; Committee member Alicia Ravetto taught two local green building workshops, April 27 and May 17;
6. Participating in statewide MSRI seminar in Salisbury;
7. Naming a liaison to Council’s Energy, Environment, and Sustainability Committee;
8. Serving as resource for three groups, one of which was the Town of Chapel Hill, submitting grant proposals for the NC Energy Office “Sustainable Communities” grants; and,
9. Organizing a workshop that brought together Orange County builders, building inspectors, solar installers, and other parties in the building trades to discuss opportunities and barriers to advancing solar installations in our area.

Funding Opportunities

The Committee plans to respond to requests for proposals to be issued this fall by the NC Energy Office and the U.S. Department of Energy. The State Energy Office will be making available $600,000 in grant awards that could be spent on a variety of solar projects, including covering equipment costs. The Solar Center will host a round of grants in the range of $4,000 – $12,000 this month (Oct. 2003) as well.

Future Plans

An extensive description of plans and strategies are in the Action Plan. Due to the expected availability of grant funding, we do not anticipate requesting any Town funds to continue with Action Plan implementation. However, some additional funds (about $600) are needed to complete the solar heating project at the Chapel Hill Community Center (see Requests to Council, below). A few specific projects we will pursue this year, in addition to the completion of current projects, are:

· Promotion of the NC Green Power option for electricity purchases.

· Completion of the Chapel Hill Community Center solar water heating system and the addition of an energy monitoring system and informational display at the Center.

· Further enhancement of the ChapelHillSolar.org web site including case histories of solar buildings and installations.

· Continuation of workshops aimed at our local builder and building inspection, financing, and sales community.

Future Role

The Steering Committee is application- and advocacy- oriented, and is currently the only Council organization in a position to respond to identified grant opportunities and to pursue initiatives.

Requests to Council

The Committee requests the Council to:

1. Authorize staff support for an additional year;

2. Advertise for additional Committee members while allowing some current members to discontinue as members if they so desire; and,

3. Appropriate $600 in Town funds needed to complete the Chapel Hill Community Center installation of solar water heating system.

PHOTOS