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Clean Energy Toolkit Topic: Establish Energy Internship Program

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Collaborating with students can be an efficient and low-cost way to build greater capacity for clean energy efforts. Through an internship program, students can apply their academic knowledge and experiences to help the municipality implement clean energy projects, and the municipality can deliver practical experience and professional development to students. This strategy describes how municipalities can establish an ongoing internship program that will provide assistance with clean energy efforts and serve as a hands-on learning experience for students interested in the planning and implementation of municipal-led energy projects. Read more.

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Energy Efficiency

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Efficiency is a broad concept that refers, in general, to the elimination of waste. The efficiency of a system is measured as a ratio of the useful work it produces to the energy resources it consumes; a system becomes more efficient as the ratio approaches 1. Energy efficiency is a term used to describe using less energy to do the same amount of work; the corollary of increased energy efficiency is therefore increased productivity (using the same amount of energy to do more work).

Energy efficiency is often treated as a resource in itself, with the rationale that saving a unit of energy is functionally just as effective as (if not superior to) producing an extra unit of energy. Energy efficiency tends to be the easiest resource in which to invest, politically and economically speaking, as it generally costs less to save energy than to generate it, and financial payback for efficiency measures can be substantial. Read more.

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Clean Energy Toolkit Topic: Contract for Solar Energy Management Services

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Municipalities interested in solar have multiple options for pursuing it, including direct ownership, community shared solar, or a power purchase agreement (PPA). Each approach to solar has different potential risks and benefits. A solar PPA may be a good option if access to up-front capital to purchase a solar photovoltaic (PV) system is an issue.

With a solar energy management services (EMS) contract, Massachusetts municipalities may lease public space, such as a school roof or capped landfill, for the installation of a third-party owned and operated solar PV system and enter into a long-term PPA for the electricity produced by the system through a single, streamlined solicitation process. Over the term of the contract, the municipality purchases 100% of the energy generated by the PV system. With net metering, credits for power generated are applied to the municipality’s account—either the building’s utility account or (with virtual net metering) the municipality’s other utility accounts. When the system produces more power than is needed at the project site, excess power is exported to the grid, the utility meter effectively spins backward, and the customer is credited at near-retail rate for the electricity sent on to the grid. This strategy describes how to obtain electricity from a renewable source through an EMS model.

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Energy 101

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Everything requires energy to respire, move, grow and reproduce. Most energy on Earth is originally derived from the sun, the only input into an otherwise closed and self-sustaining system. In physics, energy is defined as the “ability to do work,” and can take on multiple forms. Energy can be converted from one form to another, but there are always losses associated with the conversion (according to the second law of thermodynamics). These forms of energy include:

  • Potential energy
  • Kinetic energy
  • Thermal or heat energy
  • Chemical energy
  • Electric energy
  • Electromagnetic energy
  • Electrochemical energy
  • Sound energy
  • Nuclear or atomic energy

The most recognizable renewable energy technologies, such as solar panels or wind turbines, work by harvesting naturally available forms of energy and converting them into electric energy. Read more.

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Clean Energy Toolkit Topic: Develop Anaerobic Digestion

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With a commercial food waste ban going into effect in Massachusetts in October 2014, businesses and institutions are considering alternatives to disposing of organic waste in the trash. Anaerobic digestion is one such alternative. Similar to composting, but in an environment devoid of oxygen, anaerobic digestion produces byproducts such as methane (which can fuel the generation of heat or electricity) and liquid or solid digestate (which can be used as fertilizer, soil amendment, and more). Thus, disposal of food waste and other organic materials can become a source of revenue rather than just an expense. Anaerobic digestion/combined heat and power (AD/CHP) may sometimes be referred to as waste-to-energy, bioenergy, biofuel, or biomass, although these broader terms can include the burning of trash, wood, or other agricultural materials. This strategy outlines considerations for municipalities interested in developing anaerobic digestion/combined heat and power. Read more.

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Clean Energy Toolkit Topioc: Design a School Energy Curriculum

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Schools can be a valuable resource for distributing information about clean energy to youth and their parents. Energy-related curricula with entertaining and interesting hooks educate students about energy issues and increase their awareness of energy opportunities, both in terms of their current behavior and their future interests. The National Energy Education Development (NEED) Project provides energy education and support to teachers and students across the country with the goal of increasing youth understanding of energy issues. Teachers and students can access a range of educational materials, including activity guides, books, games, and puzzles.

This strategy highlights just a few of NEED’s curriculum options that have proven to be both cost-effective to implement and successful in improving knowledge and awareness of clean energy issues. The ability for schools to apply the recommendations for each topic will depend upon available resources, capacity, and student interest. Teachers and school administrators should assess which strategies will be most successful given the unique circumstances of their school. Read more.

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Create a Local Energy Plan

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A local energy plan comprehensively assesses a community’s energy use and past activities, establishes future goals, and identifies projects that will be most effective in meeting those goals. Integrating energy concerns into a municipality’s master planning process is important, but specific energy plans are valuable tools to identify opportunities for improvement, evaluate their relative effectiveness, and outline how they will be achieved. Energy plans can address both short- and long-term goals and will vary for each municipality depending on the extent to which a community has previously engaged in energy work, the resources available, and the amount of local interest. Energy plans generally include a broad vision, goals, energy consumption baseline, resource analysis, and recommended strategies for achieving energy goals. Depending on the depth of the plan, developing an energy plan can take anywhere from several months to a year. The Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) and regional planning agencies, such as MAPC, are available to assist communities with energy planning process. For example, MAPC’s Local Energy Action Program helps identify energy projects/issues most relevant to a given community and then provides the necessary technical assistance, including plan production and project management, to help communities complete clean energy projects. This strategy outlines how to create a local energy plan. Read more.

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Conduct Community Outreach

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Outreach campaigns that focus entirely on education or create public awareness of issues can have little or no effect on behavior. Direct personal contact is far more effective. Community-based social marketing (CBSM) goes beyond traditional outreach efforts by leveraging community relationships and social interactions to build upon informational campaigns. CBSM requires those performing outreach to think carefully about their desired goals and how they can utilize local, community-based interests, values, and relationships to achieve such goals. It requires effective and knowledgeable leaders, a clear vision of targeted behaviors or actions, focused and personalized messages, and a clear process to adopt targeted behaviors. This strategy outlines how to design and implement community outreach for energy efforts using community-based social marketing. Read more.

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Community Engagement Guide

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The Community Engagement Guide was originally developed by Emily Torres-Cullinane using previous project experiences, ideas submitted by MAPC staff, and guidance from other public agencies, and is intended as an internal tool to assist in achieving MAPC’s outreach objective. This version of the guide has been modified to allow any organization to use the strategies that have been developed internally to pursue their own community engagement efforts.

This guide is a tool to assist in achieving an organization’s outreach objective. It proposes a standard for public outreach and engagement, which is based upon the belief that if public outreach and engagement is to be successful, it must be thoughtfully integrated throughout the lifecycle of a place-based planning or outreach project. The guide breaks down the process making it easier to strategize engagement activities. Read more.

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Buy Back Streetlights from Utility

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In order to save energy by retrofitting streetlights with LEDs, municipalities must first own the streetlights. M.G.L. Chapter 164 Section 34A allows municipalities to purchase streetlights from their utility. It was adopted as part of the 1997 Restructuring Act.

Municipalities that purchase streetlights in order to complete an LED retrofit can see savings up to 70-80% (see the Retrofit Streetlights with LEDs strategy for more information). However, 30-60% of streetlighting costs can be saved just by purchasing streetlights from utilities. This strategy describes the process for a municipality to buy back streetlights from its utility. Read more.

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