This month’s NB Science Cafe features Laura Gardner, Co-chair of the local advocacy group Climate Reality Massachusetts Southcoast, who will address “Going Green; Community Electricity Aggregation Programs.” December 5th, 2023.
Good evening ladies and gentlemen children of all ages I say that the kids that I work with at at the Wailing Museum they have no idea what I’m saying I’m some of you will get that reference ladies gentlemen children of all ages so uh my name is
Bob Bob roacha I’m the associate curator of science and research down at the New Bedford whing Museum I just tell people I’m the Science Guy there and I’m part of the uh newford science Cafe advisory committee I want to acknowledge other members of the committee that are here
And Parson is sitting down here in front and I’ve noticed that Grant O’Reilly miles Grant Elise Raposa and Nathan Ricardo and Carrie hawthor are all here tonight so thank you all of you um we definitely whoops we definitely need to acknowledge our hosts the last round bar and grill so Nick and
Victoria and Steph and all the guys in the kitchen thank all of [Applause] you it is quite obvious that you are doing as you are supposed to do ordering food ordering drink and reordering drink so well done by all of you um I’m guessing there are a few of
You here for the first time so let me give you a quick overview with the general format one of the things you will not see you probably haven’t noticed maybe you’ve been looking for is a screen with PowerPoint science Cafe does not have that this is all about a
Science conversation so presenters are usually here 20 25 30 minutes and the rest of it is question and answer conversation so you you get to talk to our uh presenters tonight and I will remind you of this at at the end but our next science cafe after this one will be Tuesday January
9th Bill bur from the capard National Seashore will and I’ll tell you more about him later on when it comes time for Q&A I don’t know that we can get a microphone out to you but if you’re loud enough Laura will repeat your question and then answer it this microphone can’t
Move because that’s for the cable access camera over there but this is this is our one active mic that actually projects the sound and okay so enough from me oh I almost forgot to wish you a blessed Krampus knocked anybody you understand what Krampus is tonight December 5th is Krampus
KN and there’s a great Washington Post article about that today so tonight’s presentation led by Laura Gardner will discuss the importance of community electricity aggregation programs which save residents significant money and boost the use of renewable energy so launched in 2016 the Massachusetts CA program is the second largest in the
Country with 25 towns including the entire South Coast which allow towns to buy their electricity and bulk and keep prices stable and know she and other climate activists hope that residents will opt up that is sign up for higher percent of renewable energy and she will
Explain why and how and she will also touch on other ways households can confront global warming including electrification options through the inflation reduction act that concludes tonight’s president so let me tell you about Laura because I actually know Laura through the uyu church I know Laura and will and
The kids Through The UU Church in Fair Haven but more importantly she is a national board certified teacher in library media is the teacher librarian at Dartmouth Middle School in dmouth and co-chair of climate reality Massachusetts south coast professionally Laura was awarded the school library Journal School librarian of the Year co-
Finalist awarded 2016 and the American Association of school librarians reader leader social media Superstar award in 2019 this year she is serving on the 2024 Newberry award selection committee a lifelong goal which proves dream come true she is a huge reader mother to two incredible children and is married to Will Gardner
Who founded Elma delm Mar Charter Schools Laura became a trained climate reality leader in Minneapolis in 2019 and has since been advocating for increase in Renewables on the local level through the community aggregation program she rides her white bike to work every day did you write your play here
Both of you how about that took about you know put your words into action so ladies and gentlemen help me in welcoming Laura garden thank you Bob and thank you so much for that introduction and for inviting me to speak tonight I’m really excited to be here so I’m going to start
By telling a story because I’m a librarian and that’s how we like to talk so in 2020 um I had new chapter of climate reality here on the south coast it was we only have two chapters in Massachusetts there’s one in Boston and then there’s a climate reality chapter
That I started here on the south coast with a couple of friends of mine who also went to the 2019 training um and by the way there are a couple of climate reality leaders in the room we’ve got Carrie Hawthorne we’ve got Mona Phillips my co-chair and we also have former
Mayor John Bullard in the back who was trained long long ago so in 2020 we were planning this big Amazing Earth Day event and we were going to be a big part of it and this was going to be our coming out debut and then you know what happened so in March
I was like well now what do we do because all of our plans centered on all of these in-person events empowering youth getting youth to speak up about why they cared about climate change and now we couldn’t do any of that and so one day I got an email from a woman
Named Nicole and she said I want to tell you about aggregation I was like I what do you mean aggregation and she said well aggregation exists on the south coast and it’s really powerful and if we convince Town leaders in any of the towns on the south coast to opt up in
Their percentage of Renewables as a default it could be huge for changing the conversation about climate change on the south coast and for were making movement on this and with a local lever and so I started to learn about this wonky policy that I didn’t even know
Existed um and in the last three and a half years I’ve learned a lot about it I’ve done a lot of trainings and it’s pretty exciting the ways that aggregation can really help um save money for residents but also increase renewable electricity here in massach so what is agregation so it’s basically
The bulk purchasing of electricity by residents um by a community on behalf of residents and small businesses and it became legal to do this in 1997 in Massachusetts it had to be passed at the legislative level and um it’s now been passed in six states around the country and active in
Six States around the country there are actually 10 states that have passed legislation to make aggregation legal but only six are actually doing it and um Rhode Island is the newest one Rhode Island just passed that legislation last year so 1997 was when it was legal for communities to do this South Coast
Didn’t get involved until 2016 so basically what happens is that every two years South Coast Town leaders come together with an advocate in good energy which is basically a um electricity broker and they are legally able to purchase electricity on our behalf and all of these communities have a
Representative who comes forward and they all communicate like this is what we want out of our electricity and this is a price we’re kind of hoping for and this is a town approved program so all the 25 towns that are part of our aggregation which as Bob said is the
Second largest aggregation in the entire nation and the largest aggregation in Massachusetts um all of those 25 towns buying and bulk together obviously we’re going to get a better rate that really helps us save money as residents um they can’t guarantee we will save money but
The truth is we have saved a ton of money over the last um s years because of this the other thing that happened in 2016 was that green Municipal aggregation started so regular Municipal aggregation is just purchasing in bulk but green Municipal aggregation means that communities have the option to opt
Up in their renewable energy for the whole town and they also have the option to offer residents the option to opt up on an individual basis so that was pretty huge and that was started by this amazing organization um called Green energy consumers Alliance I don’t know
If any of you have heard of them but they do incredible work um and they have a lot of amazing webinars Larry kryon is um the leader of that organization out of Quincy um fun fact Quincy has wanted an aggregation program for the last three years and they’re still waiting
More on that in a bit but the Department of Public Utilities is definitely a barrier to some of this work in aggregation so the goal of aggregation is to lower the cost of electricity for Massachusetts consumers and it has absolutely achieved that goal the other goal is price stability in the
Aggregation program basically the energy broker can look at prices just the same way you would at a stock market and then choose when to purchase so that we get the best price for the next two years eversource and National Grid they have to go out for bid every 6 months so they
Might have a great summer price and then their price for the winter is pretty terrible whereas we get this nice steady price stability for two years straight it’s been really great um one important thing to mention is that this is only the supply price your delivery is not
Affected whatsoever and the delivery um price is completely set by whatever your utility is the other thing that Municipal aggregation can do though is that it can mean more clean energy for Massachusetts so here in Massachusetts we have what’s known as a renewable um uh product standard so the RPS and
There’s a certain percentage of renewable energy that every Community has to achieve and that is going up over time but because of green Municipal aggregation we are actually generating more renewable energy above that RPS um and so there are options basically everyone in our aggregation right now can opt up to 100% renewable
Energy just by filling out a form on the website Mass ca.com choose your town and it’s not that much more per month it’s about 200 more per year at the most it might not even be that much more um it just depends on the rates that
They get when they go out to bid um but all of that extra energy people who choose 100% renewable as an individual that means more renewable energy generated here in New England it’s what’s known as class one recx so it’s local renewable energy it means more
Local jobs it means um in Renewables it means better air quality here and all of that um all right let me back up just a little bit so there are 351 towns in Massachusetts there are 167 towns that have M Municipal aggregation it you have to have it approved by the dpu the
Department of Public Utilities which is this Commission of five people that um gets nominated by the governor and unfortunately there’s been a huge backlog of communities that want Municipal aggregation but haven’t been able to get it and that’s been one a huge barrier to this out of the 167 communities that have Municipal
Aggregation 55 communities have chosen that their entire town is going to opt up in renewable energy which is a great way to spread the price so in 2020 when my friend Nicole was saying hey Municipal aggregation what she wanted us to do was to convince Town leaders to
Opt up for the whole town and so so we tried this we had people from every town on the south coast email their represent their local representatives and say Hey what if we went to 10% and um which by the way is $2 more per month on your electricity bill on average per
Household and everybody kind of ignored us except the fact that I live in Fair Haven and so do about four other people who are in our climate Reality Group and so we actually got it passed in Fair Haven so in September of 2020 the um Board of the
Select board passed the 10% increase in Renewables across the board and it stayed that way ever since and so this new contract that’s the case too so that’s been really huge and that means that we are generating more renewable electricity from local New England um renewable sources um you know enough to
Power I think it’s something like 3,500 homes that 10% you know it’s it’s significant it does something um oh and also there’s 49 communities in Massachusetts that have Municipal Utilities which is a whole other ball game um so the goals has it achieved savings yes green energy consumers Alliance just
Came out with their newest report um they love green Municipal aggregation there’re huge fans and they say that it has saved $200 to $237 per year on average for the average household Municipal aggregation it’s just huge this buying and bulk the price stability purchasing over two years it’s
Made a really huge difference and those are people who are actually in the green Municipal aggregation they’re still saving money even though they’re at 10% renewable or 20% renewable or something like that it’s about half a billion per year total that’s been saved here in Massachusetts on electricity prices because of the
Aggregation um absolutely it’s me price stability eversource again has to go out for bid every 6 months they just went out for bid for January eversource basic rates are going up to 17 cents per kilowatt hour in January National Grid rates are 18 cents per kilowatt hour the standard aggregation rate is 15.7
Cents per kilowatt hour the 100% renewable rate is 17 which is the same as the basic eversource rate and less than the basic National Grid rate so you can be 100% in our aggregation program and claim that you have renewable energy certificates and your home is run on 100% renewable
Energy and still be paying about the same as you would if you weren’t in the AG navigation program which is really awesome and last year um the prices for eversource in January went so high that the 100% was actually like a couple cents lower than the basic eversource price um the clean
Energy Statewide we’ve done a million megawatt hours above the RPS per year of clean energy and that’s only counting class one reck um some communities Plymouth is one of them have what’s called National wind as their renewable source green energy consumers Alliance does not count that
As um an actual renewable source here in New England because it does not replace fossil fuels here in New England it’s coming from Texas um we want more renewable energy here so that’s an important distinction that some communities unfortunately have have not yet gotten over so
How do I know if I have it so if you look at your bill which still comes from eversource Inter National Grid it will say good um it’ll say constellation on the bill when it says supplier it’ll say like constellation Fair Haven or constellation New Bedford all of us have
Constellation because we’re all in one aggregation our communities can make individual decisions the way that Fair Haven went up by 10% as a default but we all purchase together which is the power there the website to go to is mass ca.com if you look at your bill and you
Do not have constellation if it says basic eversource or Bas basic National Grid or if it says some other company you’ve never like you heard of once because they came to your door and they convinced you to join you can um go to mca.com to join everyone should be
Automatically enrolled it’s the kind of program where you have to opt out everyone is opted in automatically Al again it’s Town approved your town looked at all the information your select board or whoever it was and said this is good for our residents and they’re right it is really really good
But um some people may have been confused when they got the letter in the mail I know we saw a lot of confusion in Fair Haven on Facebook when that letter went out and people were like what is this it’s a scam um and you know a few
People went on and said no it’s not and then I went on and I’ve made a couple of uh PSAs with the town of f Haven um Derek Freights he’s the best um the TV Department there and so I just posted my link to my PSA because it’s not a scam it’s like
Totally amazing and town approved and good stuff um but some people have been scammed if someone comes to your door and says I have a great deal for you and it’s going to be 100% renewable um chances are that is a scam the the aggregation program doesn’t come to your
Door it happens automatically because the town already approved it so I actually have a friend um who looked at his bill after I talked about this with him and he said I’m paying what was it it was 60 cents a kilowatt hour he was paying because he was he got contacted
By some company and they said here’s the rate it’s going to be great it’s 100% renewable and then as soon as he signed the next month they hyped the rate he didn’t pay attention to his bill it was on auto pay next thing he knew was paying $300 a month for his electricity
Bill that is legal in the state of Massachusetts it shouldn’t be there is legislation to change that because those predatory energy companies they should not be allowed to do what they’re doing and no surprise the people that they’re targeting it’s lowincome people it’s people of color it’s people who don’t
Speak English as a first language it’s elderly it’s people who may not you know know how to sift through the information and know what’s right and what’s wrong so it’s really you know it’s a ton of inequity in terms of who gets targeted by these predatory companies so like if
You weren’t targeted there’s probably a reason why um but over six years Governor H’s office um discovered that Massachusetts residents lost $525 million to those predatory energy companies that should be banned that should not be allowed in the state makes me really mad it makes me really mad
Um so there are there are difficulties with the aggregation program one is the dpu as I said there are 22 communities around the state waiting for their approval to join Municipal aggregation I feel so bad for Larry of green energy consumers Alliance because he does so much work advocating for this and his
Community of Quincy is still waiting like they’ve been waiting for two years and Rhode Island got approved in one by their dpu it’s just it’s completely ridiculous so there is a bill House Bill 3852 and um it’s being advocated for by Green energy consumers Alliance by good
Energy which is our broker and good energy has been trying to get municipalities to sign on to it so one thing you can do besides sign up for 100% renewable as a household is you could contact your town leaders and tell them hey can you sign on to House Bill
3852 um contact good energy you know just find out who the energy manager is in town and make sure they know that this is a way of getting more local power back because the dpu isn’t just preventing communities from joining Municipal aggregation they’re also preventing communities from joining green Municipal
Aggregation this summer I got super excited because I watched a Dartmouth select board meeting and I watched the energy manager Kathy Stanley talk about how they were going to go up to 10 10% renewable energy as a default through the aggregation program and I was like
Yes it worked I’ve been trying for the last 3 years to convince other communities to do what Fair Haven did in 2020 and then at the next select word meaning she took it away and it was so confused and I was like I was mad and
Then I found out it completely out of her control because now the dpu doesn’t just want to control whether you get to join the municipal aggregation they want to control whether you change your percentage of renovables too which should not be in their control they should that should be something that the
Town leaders get to decide so that’s in the legislation too is that they would have a timeline of a certain number of months to approve anything that comes before them and that once a town has Municipal aggregation the town gets to make decisions about what they do from
There um and I think that pretty much everyone can agree that we we like having local power um in general this Municipal aggregation green Municipal aggregation why I like it as a climate activist is it feels really possible you know there are like big problems and I’m
Like how do we deal with these Federal problems and these State problems and these International problems like plastic it’s like so frustrating but when you give me like a lever where I just have five select board members that I need to call and tell them I want to
Keep the 10% renewable I’m like yes I can do that I can totally do that so I like that it’s a local lever um a couple of other things I need to mention one is that this does not affect low-income customers whatsoever there’s something known as R2 low-income
Customers get 30% discount on their electricity bill this does not affect it they still get that it also doesn’t affect your solar net metering so if you have solar panels and you um you know sometimes get money because you’re contributing to the grid this doesn’t make any difference on that and that’s
All in the FAQs um that they have on the sheet that they sent you in the mail that was super confusing um so in July of 2022 they came out with a report Statewide we’ve got 43% of people in Massachusetts 43% of households on Municipal aggregation um 40% of households have basic service
And 177% have one of those individual competitive Supply contracts which are really just predatory energy companies that are um stealing money so we’ve got a lot of people here in Massachusetts that are served by this it’s confusing so I’ve kind of taken it on myself to
Like try and demystify it as much as I can with handouts and PSAs and I’m so grateful I was able to come and speak to you tonight about this um so that I can further demystify it uh I do have a handout about all of this to try and
Make it as as simple as possible it has the rates on here along with the website to go to if you want to join the program if you find on your bill that you do not have constellation or if you want to switch to 100% renewable that’s another great thing you
Can just pass it out I didn’t give it out sooner because I’m a teacher and I know what you do if I give you a handout you don’t listen so um and then the other hand out that I have you know one of the really big pushes at climate reality is to make
Sure that everybody knows about the free money that the government has for you to make modifications and upgrades to your home who here has a heat pump and loves their heat pump with all their heart me yeah that first week of September when I was dying at school because we do not
Have air conditioning at school and then I would get home and my home was perfectly comfortable plus it was being all generated by my heat pump and renewable energy since I’m 100% renewable thanks to the aggregation program um so I have a handout about all the tax credits available to you it’s
Not just heat pumps it’s also solar it’s geothermal my mom has geothermal she loves it um it’s insulation materials basically the best way to start is get in touch with Mass Save we’ve done Mass Save in my household every 3 years pretty much on the DOT they give you
Free stuff and all sorts of um you know discounts and rebates for all these improvements that you can make that will not only make your house more comfortable but also hopefully lower your bills so it’s important to use everything that’s out there um and this is a huge way of fighting the climate
Crisis is making sure that households are as energy efficient as possible so I encourage all of you you to look into it if you haven’t yet we got a $10,000 reate rebate on our heat pumps it was pretty incredible okay I don’t know did I did I do okay what time is
It all right okay so i’ I’d love to hear if anyone has questions but um okay and if anyone does know that they want to opt up to 100% I have a very nice sticker that you can put somewhere to show off that you’ve done it and then
Encourage other people to find out more if you did one thing after tonight I would just love it if you would explain this to someone else it’ll help you cement your own understanding but it will also really spread the word about something that I think a lot of people
Don’t understand I’ve talked to a few people about it and they’re always was surprised to find out that we have this here so all right yeah I have two questions one is you mentioning choosey weate yes so it’s all about demand and Supply so when we oh sorry IAL I was
Talking about how when we choose renewable energy um the more they’ll Supply so when we um have demand for renewable energy through the aggregation program that means that more renewable energy projects are able to come online to fulfill that demand and these are Renewable Energy Products projects throughout New England it’s like Anor
Robic digestors wind solar offshore wind is going to be part of that there was um legislation about that too why don’t they come online automatically they’re very expensive to come online so if they don’t know the demand is there for it and they don’t know the Rex will be
Used by someone then they don’t have the incentive to start the projects and with the um State the commission why are they holding back why is the dpu holding back bureaucracy is what I hear I worry that it’s something else but I don’t know I mean fossil fuel in interests are
Pretty strong and they have a lot of power but I’m told it’s bureaucracy um I don’t know it’s a 5 person commission and they are approving things just fine at the dpu in Rhode Island but they’re not here so I don’t know who appoints that commission the dpu
Commission is appointed by the governor she’s so far appointed I believe two people to the five person commission but the other three were appointed by Baker yes what has been pushed back from politicians about why they don’t want to opt up thank you for asking that Jamie so in the local communities some
Communities have said they don’t want to opt up because they don’t want the price of electricity to go up for seniors who live on a fixed budget I forgot to mention that it’s really easy to opt down so in Fair Haven we actually were required to do a big information
Campaign about how you could opt down to Fair Haven basic Fair Haven basic is the same rate that everybody across the rest of our aggregation gets um that 15 cents it’s not hard to do there’s a phone number to call there’s a website to do we especially did it through the
Council of Aging we had flyers in all the library books that went out for like two months straight um to make it clear if you don’t want the $2 more per month you can opt down to a different rate um so that’s one thing we’ve heard that
Seniors are the concern the other thing is um just not wanting to confuse people more it’s that’s the biggest con honestly of the aggregation program is that it’s confusing obviously I had to explain it to a lot of people my husband I think maybe understands it today for the first
Time but um I’ve explained it to him a lot and I don’t know it might be him but so when I go home and look at my bill I can see B what should I be when you say Offa degree can you explain even more what to do and why aren’t I getting
Letters from the town about this great so um an asked when she gets home and looks at her bill what should she be looking for and how does she know how how to get to 100% if she wants to and why isn’t she getting a letter from the town so
Um the website to go to is Mass ca.com to opt up it’s so simple to do but when you look at your bill it’ll say under Supply constellation Dartmouth or constellation fa Haven or whatever it is you’re not going to see anything different on your bill when you opt up
To 100% it won’t change um you’ll see the rate change on your bill but if you go to the aggregation website which is at nca.com it has like Community drop- down boxes and you can choose the community drop down box and choose your town like say Dartmouth and
Then it’ll have all the information laid out and it will say you know here’s a form to fill out on the website if you want to join the aggregation program or if you want to switch to 100% um and you just need your eversource number that’s the only thing
You need that you won’t have in your head like I you could do it right now but You’ need your ever Source number um the last time I gave a talk gave a talk like this in Westport some people brought their bills and they did it right there with their phone it’s very
Simple and then you will get an email from good energy I believe saying that they got your email and they’ll and they’ll do it you you probably did get a letter from the town it was probably really confusing I up exactly so can you go what we’ve all been doing with just
Electricity and suddenly be a part of the 100% off have to go to the Stag no yeah so if you if you’re not part of Municipal aggregation you can join tomorrow and it’ll be a fin next bill you could join 100% tomorrow and it’ll be on your next
Bill it happens really fast it’s not difficult the really annoying thing was that anyone who was already at 100% we got a letter that was super confusing that was like you’re out of the aggregation program and now you have to rejoin and if you want to join back at
100% you have to do that it was super weird especially the people who were at 50% because the 50% option went away there used to be a 50% renewable option on the last bill and they just took it away partly because the whole aggregation is close to 50% now um with
The way the re work so our you know our renewable our RPS is just going up year by year and unfortunately that RPS is made up of not just class one reck different people count it different ways green energy consumer Alliance they are really specific about only counting renewable energy certificates that come
From New England sources but the state sometimes counts it differently anyway but yeah anyone can join it’s really easy to join at 100% renewable it’ll probably be called something like Fair Haven plus Dartmouth plus I believe they changed the name so now it’s just like
The name of the town and the word plus um and it will be at the rate of 17 cents per kilowatt hour um which is again the same as what basic eversource will be starting in January any other questions so I know that you said you
Hear me so I know that you said that one of the concerns is for fixed income households if you receive the assistance from ever you get that off of your delivery I guess I’m asking for you discount off of your dely rate and the rable is coming from your supply so you
Can still say yes I want supp yeah because the low income R2 comes off the supply and the delivery so yes you could do that great I hope you heard her question I’m sorry her question was about the um if you’re on the low-income R2 rate if you could
Still opt up with the um Supply which you totally could yeah there was a question over here I think no go ahead I don’t have specific programs where the so yeah sorry um the where is the renewable energy coming from I don’t have specific programs the green energy
Consumers Alliance has like a general map where they show like here different things um it’s it’s solar it’s Anor robic digestion it’s wind it’s geothermal um it’s all sorts of different sources I don’t know that I don’t know what percent is available but I do know that offshore wind can contribute once
That’s live um the most I think it was last legislative session a bill was passed that included a provision that offshore wind could be part of the municipal aggregation um green portion which is is great because there’s going to be a lot of renewable energy certificates generated by those wind turbines so any Yeah and I as this because I learn re yeah so Gina talked about this form right here the IRA tax credits and if there was a strategy for when you would get Which tax credit for which thing in your house I I might be wrong Mona would
Be the best one to talk to about this but I think it’s probably different for every household depending on your needs I mean insulation if you haven’t done insulation yet that’s probably the the most important thing on here but yes the rewiring am.org website is a fascinating fabulous resource there’s tons on there
Climate reality has done some great webinars with them our chapter has to so that’s a really wonderful resource to learn more about all the different options that are out there and on their website you can actually put in like what kind of household you have and then
It’ll tell you kind of what your priorities are there’s somewhere on the website that has that so okay questions back there any other questions you want more questions policeing your energy use but but their bottom line is driven by increasing energy and so I don’t really know very much
About that but I think it’s fascinating so her question was related to the fact that Mass Save is run by energy companies and that there’s of course a problem with having energy companies run Mass Save when goals are opposing um I don’t I don’t really have a ton I
Haven’t really thought about that a ton yet but um you know I have used Mass Save in the past and I found it to be pretty manageable and okay but I definitely have um misgivings about anytime that an energy company is running something like that so you know
I would definitely want to read more about that and learn more about that for sure so if anybody wanted clarification about that confusion letter they got how they so if anyone wants clarification about that confusing letter you got in the mail um I really recommend green energy consumers.org they have a ton of
Information about everything I talked about tonight including webinars and their most recent report about all of this and the ways that it’s saved Massachusetts residents tons of money and also created lots of great renewable energy around the state and more demand for re renewable energy um our website climate reality southcoast.com
Also has a page about optup and um I’ve put my PSA on there that I’ve created as well um and if anyone is interested you can join our email list and we send out weekly emails um with events that we’re sponsoring as well as any action steps
That you can take like for example contacting your um municipality about supporting House Bill 3852 which would put more local power um in communities when it comes to these aggregations um so yeah mention the Facebook page too oh and we’re on Facebook climate reality project Massachusetts south coast and um
You can always email me the emails on the website and um I I’m always happy to talk about aggregation so yes Gina do you know any contractors who are particular attuned to this support I don’t do you do you know of any contractors who are really good at
Being green anybody want to recommend a business Larry you say Boston Heating and Boston heating and plumbing we got a recommendation thank youon Boston Boston Boston okay anybody on that side have a question all right well in that case that’s fine we like we like lot oh here
We go so all these random letters we get from tax I just look at and rip them up and throw away yep yep yep you’ve been doing the right thing if you’ve been ripping up letters from solar companies or you know energy companies out of other
Places that’s good rip those up if it has the town seal on it that’s when you read it okay anything that comes to you about the aggregation program should have the town seal on it the mass ca.com website all the different pages for the communities they have the town seal on
Them that’s how you know it’s Town approved so absolutely keep doing it if that has the town wall RIS you should be really suspicious anybody else don’t good have a question from look like Carrie over there they’re all part of the municipal segregation program every single one of
Them um and then there’s a bunch of other random towns that aren’t on the south coast because it’s 25 and obviously we don’t have 25 towns here but no they’re they’re all a part of it um so we don’t have any Municipal Light towns on the south coast so
Yeah what was the name of the company alter aush alternative heating okay ask for Lou thank you f I’m have to stand in the middle because of the feedback so we have a round of applause for Laura please and as as we like to do for all of our
Presenters we have a little thank you present for laa and hopefully you’ll be able to hold that the handle should be long enough so when you’re riding your bicycle I have a bag that’s right so just a couple of other things um again let’s thank last round because
They are normally not open on Tuesdays they open specifically for us once a month for and so for those of you that were here for the first time we hope it was worth your while and that you’ll consider coming back and for you repeat offenders thank you for being here and next next
One will be Tuesday January 9th Bill Burke from the national the cape cot National Seashore he’s an archaeologist for them will speak on Excavating the great Island Tavern in well Fleet this is a place where Native Americans Whalers and European settlers get gathered to drink smoke and socialize together from 1690 to
1740 it’s not a place you can get to easily because I’ve seen it on a map and it’s kind of a long arduous sometimes very wet walk so it’ll be it’ll be cool to hear that from him and interesting to see how he does it without the help of
Power so again thank you all for being here thanks for eating drinking spending and and being being a great audience for our presenter Laura Garder tonight thank you have a wonderful [Applause] evening