East Haven Getting ‘Greener’
By Mark Zaretsky, New Haven Register, Conn.
Jul. 6–EAST HAVEN — East Haven wasn’t always the "greenest" town in Connecticut and wasn’t among such green energy pioneers as New Haven, Bethany and Branford, even when the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund began offering grants to help spur alternative energy projects in 2005.
But the landscape has changed dramatically.
Electricity costs last year jumped by one-third, and last week the state Department of Public Utility Control granted 4.7 percent rate increases to both Connecticut Light & Power and United Illuminating.
State grants now can make what once were pie-in-the-sky projects affordable.
Mayor April Capone Almon and other town officials have found themselves facing dramatically increased utility bills, both now and next winter when it’s time to start heating the town’s 11 mostly aging schools.
So when officials became aware of Connecticut Clean Energy Fund grants that could pay half the cost of installing solar power systems, combined with school construction grants that could pay two-thirds of the remaining cost if they also replace 20-yearold roofs at the same time, they jumped at the opportunity.
With the state facing its own fiscal crisis, they then rushed an authorization through under a program for the fiscal year that ended Tuesday. That night, they got Town Council approval for a $9.52 million bonding authorization for a project they hope will require them to bond just $2.28 million once state reimbursement comes in.
Of the $9.52 million total, $6.45 million is for solar panels and $3.08 million is for new roofs on Mellilo Middle School and Overbrook, Deer Run and Momauguin schools.
If the four schools all go solar, East Haven forecasts that it will be able to produce 100 percent of the energy required at all four schools and save $8 million in energy costs over the next 25 years.
The town also is looking to install a cogeneration system at the town pool that will generate its own electricity and use the heat produced in the process to warm the pool.
So what’s up with East Haven? Are officials just trying to do the right thing and be "green"? Are they looking to lower skyrocketing utility bills? Are they trying to get their share of state grants?
"It’s really all of the above," said Capone Almon. "When I first heard the idea and when we started working on this plan, I thought, ‘This really just covers the majority of the bases.’ … It’s green energy. We’re hoping it will help us cover rising utility costs in the future and the bonus is the grant money. "It’s out there," she said. "East Haven has just never gone after it." Some officials, particularly Republicans, have been skeptical. GOP Board of Education member John Finkle has questioned the accuracy and validity of the town’s estimates and suggested that officials check their math before spending taxpayers’ money.
But if East Haven is suddenly eager for alternatives, there’s a lot of that going on these days among hard-pressed Connecticut municipalities.
Branford First Selectman Anthony "Unk" DaRos leads a town that has long sought "green" opportunities — and recently dedicated at Branford High School the first "tri-generation" power system in any school, which generates its own power while at the same time using the heat produced as a byproduct to generate its own heat and air conditioning.
Branford is planning a new public works garage and fire station, and possibly a new housing complex for elderly residents, all slated to be "green" buildings.
But DaRos admitted that for all of the talk about lowering the town’s "carbon footprint," the need to save money on climbing utilities is "the driving force behind this.
"When you talk about reducing your carbon footprint, that’s when you really start saving money," he said.
And "when you do have the state grant money available, you can afford to do these things," DaRos said.
While there have been no great spikes as a result of utility rate hikes, "Over the last 12 months we’ve seen the pace through which communities either participate in our clean energy program" or encourage individual residents to participate steadily increase, said Emily Smith, managing director of external relations for the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund, based in Rocky Hill.
Smith said communities are seeking green alternatives for a variety of reasons.
"I think towns are taking a more serious look now at the alternatives to fossil fuel because of the cost of energy," she said. "But I think most of the towns are committing to the "20 percent by 2010" program because of the activists in their communities" who are encouraging them to.
"It’s really a grass-roots thing," Smith said.
"Five years ago, our solar rebate program didn’t exist," she said. Now, about 550 residential systems have either been installed or are ready to be, Smith said.
At this point, "probably over half the municipalities in the state are now participants" in the fund’s entry level "Smart-Power 20% by 2010 Campaign," in which municipalities take the first step toward being green communities by pledging to obtain 20 percent of its annual electricity demand from clean, renewable sources by the year 2010, among other measures, Smith said.
Once a community meets that goal, makes an initial purchase of clean energy and has at least 100 residents sign up to purchase clean energy by checking the appropriate box on their electric bills, it becomes a "Clean Energy Community," which carries with it, among other things, the ability to earn credits for free 1-kilowatt solar panels.
New Haven and Bethany are among the state’s leaders in that regard, Smith said.
New Haven has earned a total of 16 kilowatts — which it can "bank" and use for larger systems on buildings such as schools — and already has solar panels powering the newly renovated Barnard Environmental Magnet School.
Bethany, which late last month installed a 4-kilowatt system on the roof of its firehouse and will erect a 9-kilowatt system at the Bethany Community School later this summer, "is up to 8, 9 or 10," she said.
The manager of engineering for New Haven’s school-construction program, Webb Grouton, said communities such as East Haven "are very late in the game with this stuff … Last year, UI’s rates went up 33 percent … and five years ago, New Haven realized that there were going to have 4 million square feet in new school building space that they were going to have to manage for the Board of Ed."
New Haven already has a solar array operating atop one of its schools, the reconstructed Barnard Magnet School — which also has a live, planted "green roof" on a portion of it. But New Haven also has a variety of other ways to save energy, Grouton said.
Its toolbox includes high-efficiency lighting and "daylight harvesting" that dims lights closest to school windows when the sun is out to use less energy.
In the extensive renovation and new construction that has gone on over the past few years, New Haven has installed tinted glass and is looking at a system that controls ventilation systems by measuring carbon dioxide in a room to determine when people are there, Grouton said.
It has installed "dual fuel" boilers that can run on either natural gas or heating oil in some schools and is installing "heat recovery" systems to recycle the exhaust in some schools, he said. New Haven even is trying waterless urinals — already in place at Barnard.
The motivation for all that innovation is both philosophical and economic, he said.
But as fuel and power costs rise, "I think we’re finding less resistance to some of the energy conservations measures that were initially questioned back in the early stages of the program," Grouton said.
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