001e e e welcome everyone my name is Gabriel harp chair of the an arbor energy commission and as chair I'm calling this meeting to order I'm participating from my home home in Sunny an Arbor Michigan uh welcome to the August 13 2024 electronic meeting meeting of the energy commission we will conduct this meeting like inperson meetings and Commissioners during roll call please indicate your current location also during the meeting please remain on camera just as you would be visible during in-person meetings finally mute your microphone when not speaking public comment will be by telephone only and to speak during any of the public comment opportunities please call one of the following two toll-free numbers 877 47 or 888 78899 and enter the meeting ID number 8718 7876 on your phone this information is also available
002on the published agenda in the Public Notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting on CTN Channel 16 ATN channel 99 and online at www.gov.org watch CN Joe would you please read the land acknowledgement yep um I acknowledge that the land the city of Van Arbor occupies is the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the Ana shanab including oawa uu wadm and wad peoples I further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the United States on lands obtained generally in unconscious ways from indigenous peoples The Taking of this land was formalized by the Treaty of Detroit in 1807 knowing where we live work study and recreate does not change the past but a thorough understanding of the ongoing consequences of this past can Empower us in our
003work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals thank you and if you wouldn't mind please taking the role y um commissioner burwitz presid from my home in an council member Briggs um here in Mount Pleasant South Carolina uh commissioner cvin Garcia uh here Ann Arbor uh chair harp present here in Ann Arbor commissioner Hans you're from my home in Arbor uh commissioner 11 is out of town unable to join uh commissioner mki here attending from Seattle Washington uh commissioner overp I'm here in my home in an aror council member Rina here in Ann Arbor and I apologize I am on my phone right now so I won't be on camera right away thanks and commissioner Smith is also unable to attend so chair you have a quorum thank you
004okay we'll move on to the approval of the agenda is there a motion to approve the agenda as posted and a second so moved chair mki and a second commissioner col Garcia excuse me old have it thank you um Commissioners uh please raise your hand if you'd like to propose any changes or discuss any an issue there are no any uh changes we'll seeing No Hands raised uh all those in favor of approving the agenda is posted um raise your hand and say I I hi all those opposed please raise your hand and say n seeing none opposed uh the agenda is approved we'll move on to approval of the of the am minutes um is there a motion to approve the Ames as posted in a second I move to approve the minutes I
005posted thank you commissioner mki and second from commissioner cven Garcia um Commissioners uh please raise your hands if you'd like to discuss any changes yes commiss commissioner over no okay um Sen's hand raised all those in favor of approving the minutes as posted um please raise your hand and say I I I all those opposed please raise your hand and say nay seeing none opposed the minutes are approved okay we'll move on to public input this is an opportunity for people to speak for up to three minutes if you're watching on CTN please call 5247 and enter meeting ID 956 8718 7876 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed City staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of phone of
006your phone number to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star N9 on your phone you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move uh to a a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments Joe do we have anyone we do uh caller ending in [Music] 134 thank you Mr Lang and chair harp Ken Garber 28 HH Hill Court my comments around the 2023 greenhouse gas inventory that was recently posted it shows a 1% decrease in emissions following two years of increases this is not good news that drop which is mostly from buildings is not from anything we did but instead
007reflects dte's carbon intensity which fell 6.5% last year and improves our scope two emissions numbers for purchased electricity Citywide emissions are up 20% from 2020 they're down only 5% from the pre-pandemic year of 2019 again thanks to DTE not us forget cutting vehicle modes traveled in half Auto use has risen 23% since 2019 and Transit use is down 32% solarise is a great program but its emission impact is small at this rate we'll reach our 820 goal early in the 22nd century and we're not even counting scope three emissions which are probably the majority We are failing which I think we all know that's not to knock Mr Lang and his dedicated OSI colleagues who are working hard including on the geothermal we'll hear about tonight but the only metric that matters greenhouse gas emissions
008is not going down certainly not by the 15 to 20% annually that's needed both here and across all rich countries as our Global carbon budgets dwindle we're racing towards a world none of us will want to live in this is not osi's fault it's a collective failure but osi's positive messaging creates complacency and cynicism we need a reset first name that failure and communicate real urgency existential urgency we as individuals must set a genuine example half of global emissions come from the top 10% in net worth that's us denormalized flying SUVs and all personal vehicles large homes second homes and overseas travel starting with staff and counil modeling that behavior I'm not talking privation just living like the average European radically curb our consumption and give up unlimited Mobility our lifestyles are unjust and inequitable
00980% of people for example have never flown in an airplane each time we fly we destroy their future right now our message is live destructively if you want as long as you add some solar panels buy an EV and consider a heat pump when your furnace fails eat meat one less day a week this was okay in 1990 or 2000 Maybe but it's 2024 and there's no more time we failed for 35 years so we now must rethink every aspect of our insanely organized Society overnight tinkering as we're doing now is not working and will not work it's too late for that thank you uh no further callers okay I want to thank the callers for their comments um and we will add it's great to hear um great to hear those comments for the
010commission and look forward to Future comments as well um we'll move on to the presentation portion of the agenda and tonight is uh focused on Ann Arbor's District geothermal feasibility study at the outset U Joe's going to give an overview and some sort of context setting and background on this um that will help provide uh a setup for uh the um uh geothermal advisory Services as well that that will be presented later that's also in the uh agenda packet that you all should have received links to so Joe do you want to take it away yeah thanks and I don't think I need to do an introduction myself because I'm here every month but I wanted to first turn over before I go into it to our um colleagues here at stanch to give just
011quick introduction to themselves before I go everything so they're not just random people sitting in the corner of your screen there so Jeff do you want to kick us off with some quick introductions yeah for sure can you guys hear me okay perfect uh yeah so Jeff schroer uh I'm a mechanical engineer I work with stantech I've been with STC for over 20 years um really focusing on District energy systems for the last 15 years within North America and uh yeah excited to be on this project and on this call we're at the early stages and so happy to hear any discussion and added advice uh that you would have to bring but I'll uh I'll let Ellie introduce herself as well hi everyone my name is Ellie wator um I'm a mechanical engineer and
012intern with stanch and I'm supporting um Jeff on this project as his coordinator great thank you both yeah well um they kind of saying I'm going to give just kind of a quick overview to kind of where we are at and then I'll be turn it over to them to go a little more into depth um on some of the work they're doing and before I even jump in everything just want to kind of frame the discussion in terms of what we're talking about today um like Joe said we're at the very early stage of this thing we pretty much kicked off in the past like month month and a halfish of you know getting everything going and as part of that I want to make sure that we're you know incor incorporating feedback um
013that you know people have early on to make sure it's kind of like guiding our Direction a lot of it's kind you know uh we've got set a plan of where we want to go where we think we want to go want to make sure we just had kind of an opportunity to you know get folks involved and make sure that there's nothing you know we're you know crucially missing or you know anything like that early on so with that like I said I'm going to start with just kind of a a quick overview um for a couple things um want to start off of just kind of like I said going through um a just very brief overview here I plan to be as brief as I can um including just kind of just
014quick ground setting I know that you know a lot of people are familiar with geothermal but I know also a lot of people are not so I want to just give like as Bare Bones you know at Jury high level discussion of that just to make sure everyone's on the same page as well as talk a little bit about uh you know this project how we got to where we are why we're you know trying to look into this as well as kind of what the goals are for the study as a whole uh before turning over to our our our friends here at stanch to talk a little bit more about what they're doing and like we said have plenty of time at the end uh to really go into you know questions you
015might have have any advice you might have or any you know anything again making sure we're you kidding the goals that we're really looking for so with that like I said wanted to just give kind of a quick overview of geothermal heating and cooling in case there's anyone who is uh not familiar like I said it's going to be pretty high level here we can go into more details if anyone would like uh but I do just want to note we're talking specifically Heating and Cooling here uh there is also you know geothermal energy but for our purposes we're focusing on the heating and cooling portion of this um and basically the way it works is so in buildings you can have a heat pump that is connected to a loop that goes through the
016ground um the ground or the ground Loop has a fluid in it generally water sometimes with um you know food grade glycol or some you know potentially other things in there and the way it works is they just work to uh move heat from one place to another uh the simplest way to think about it is think about the fridge that you have in your home the same thing what it does is it's taking the heat out of that space moving it out and that's what provides the cooling this is working the same way um but it can also do you know work in Reverse to provide heating um similarly if you're familiar with an air source heat pump which again I know not everyone is so I'll go into a little more depth but
017same concept but instead of you know using the air as the source that's moving the heat around we're using the ground and where that's beneficial is because the ground has a very stable temperature year round uh here in an arbor it's generally around 55 degrees uh pretty much at all times which is really great because again even in the winter you know it's -10 -20 degrees out the ground still 55 Dees you're able to get uh you know Heating in a pretty efficient manner uh and so the way it works like I said it works in both for cooling and heating so just to start with cooling for because that's kind of the Season we're in right now the way it works is you got the heat pump in the home and what is or
018in you know building business whatever um and it's able to pull the heat out of that air goes through you know the processes inside there goes into that Loop which then goes under the ground and discharges that heat into the ground um and then it kind of keeps going throughout you're able to have a nice cool home works really efficiently really quietly really great um in the winter then when we need heating you know especially here in Michigan which we're all too familiar with uh just kind of again Works in Reverse this time you got that Loop that's going under the ground and what it's doing is it's pulling that heat from the ground again it's operate like again pretty much 55 degrees year round pulling that out goes into the heat pump goes through
019the heat exchange process and is able to pump heat out into the building the home um and you know provide pretty pretty consistent temperatures very comfortable and much more efficiently uh than some of our other um you know some of our other Technologies again as we you know talk about the easiest explanations we think about you know a furnace it's got say a 96% efficiency rating what that means is for every one unit of energy it's putting off you know 0.96 units of heat because you got combustion so a little bit of that's lost in the process but in this case because we're just moving heat from one place to the other it's a it's a lot more efficient you're able to get about 200 300% sometimes even more efficiency in that case you know
020for every one unit of energy you're putting in you're getting about two to three unit of heating or cooling so where this gets to kind of where we're going is we start talking about geothermal uh in the district Heating and Cooling sense um this could be called District you might have heard networked um sometimes thermal energy networks all kind of getting at the same thing just work a little differently but I'm just going to stick to district for for here uh but basically the way it works is just as with all our you know existing utilities you want to think of the existing gas Network um the way it works is you kind of got a Central Area you might have a couple different ones that are you know have these big giant um you
021know bores in them so in this case you see it kind of on the left of the screen uh these are you know big big bores going down you know 500 700 feet it can it can vary um and what they do is they you know really do all that heat exchange process and then they connect to these Loops that are kind of going throughout a neighborhood a city you know what have you and then all the different buildings or homes businesses that are there are able to connect to it uh they have their own individual heat pump or multiple heat pump and they're all able to tap into this system uh again just like our existing you know water infrastructure gas infrastructure sewer infrastructure things like that um all able to connect to it
022which is great because one it kind of reduces some of that upfront cost you're not having everyone have to you know pay to have their own boore you know or multiple BS installed throughout you're able to tap into that which can again save on some of that upfront cost as well as it can create um increased efficiencies the you know easiest example to point to is you think say you have a supermarket on that Loop um you know supermarket Market there it always has cooling for you know the different their freezers things like that and so in the winter when other places need heat the supermarket's pulling heat out of there going back in the loop that heat can be used by others in the area um and so you can get potentially further efficiencies
023there I do want to just touch on because we've talked about this before um but just want to note that this isn't necessarily the topic of our discussion today uh but we do have the work we have from the the funding we got from the Department of energy to design one of these systems in the the Bryant neighborhood here um Jordan talked to you a little bit about it a few months back um and that project's going really well we're in some of the final stages of design before we submit uh because that was a one-year planning Grant so then we submit back to the Department of energy for uh potential implementation dollars um like I said it's going really well we'll talk to you yall more about that when we have uh some of
024that information um and kind of are going through that process but just want to note this is a thing we are doing uh but what we're going to be talking about today is just a little bit different because it's kind of you know the what's next what what more we are doing so so for that framing uh one of the things that um we knew is this is something we wanted to investigate we wanted to investigate as part of our you know a20 goals finding a way to get off of uh gas for heating where we can uh we know you know here in Michigan we're uh we need we need heating a lot and that's one of the more challenging things in some cases to uh transition for in a cold climate so uh
025we started learning more about geothermal and we're interested in what we can do for that and so to learn more we uh we worked with through a department of energy program called clean energy to communities we were matched with um some staff at the national renewable energy lab or enr and just kind of worked through like how do we start this like how do we figure out what we need to figure out what do we need to do how do we go down that path um and so we spent a lot of time with them of again just figuring out all those things like seeing what information we have what information we don't have and then how do we get what we need to to get to the point where we feel comfortable with making
026a decision around this and so we kind of took all that information and working with them we created a request for proposal um this was RFP 25-65 uh which was in your packets and it had three goals that were kind of part of it we're going to focus mainly on the last one but just also noting that part of it was doing a having a geothermal technical advisor so they can answer specific uh questions around either you know work we might have going on or other work that's going on I think uh one of the on we talked about is that uh the an Arbor Housing Commission they have a new development that's going to be uh using geothermal and you know there were some questions around permitting and how to go about that so
027answering questions around there um similarly having an owner's adviser which is able to kind of evaluate plans provide Insight on how to go about it you know just looking through making sure we're understanding everything and going down the right paths and making sure everything you know makes sense through that you know technical lens and then lastly like we're going to talk about here today is doing the feasibility study um which is really just collecting the data and figuring out where this could be feasible and how to go about those next steps so the first part of it is doing a pre feasibility screening assessment and model creation that's really just looking at again where this might be feasible where this might make sense and starting to prioritize where to um you know dig deeper into
028everything um this is definitely an area we're very interested in you know feedback in you know of course there's all the technical things of like where you know building density makes sense where you know the resources are you know all those kind of things but also just importantly we want to make sure we're adhering to our energy principles our community goals the you know core values established in a20 and making sure we're looking at things to make sure building an equitable system to make sure we're considering you know energy Justice in the um in the design and the consideration of the design so you know definitely want to make sure we're getting feedback to make sure you know we don't just go down the path of well this is the most technically sound and easiest
029one to go down but you know we don't want to do that expensive you know any of our other any of our other goals so definitely open a feedback there and then like we said taking that and doing a more detailed feasibility study at three locations is what we have budgeted for um so similar to the kind of what we're doing in Bryant right now you know going through seeing you know seeing what it would look like what it would take um you know making sure we assess all the ground conditions things like that um and then at the same time doing a technoeconomics study where we're evaluating all the costs of everything you know to um to design it create it the funding support that's out there life cycle cost to continue running it
030and everything like that so like I said that was an open request for proposal and then as part of that um we selected stantech to work with that and like I said we just kicked off um fairly fairly recently and so we're really early stages getting everything up and running um and with that I'm going to turn Jeff to talk a little more about uh what what they got going on so far all right sounds good uh great intro uh let me just share my screen one second is it giving you permission to share or do I need to give that to cool no it when I was first uh when I was first doing it it was popping up right at the top of the window and uh all of a sudden it decide
031to hide it so yeah sometimes sometimes it automatically gives it to people sometimes it doesn't I never know we are all good can you guys see the full screen now does that work has that worked it's showing your presenter mode right now I think if you go to the top under that display settings um you can swap it to okay one second yeah how's that there we go perfect Beauty all right um so yeah thanks so much for the intro uh um Joe appreciate it so this is going to be you know we're just starting out um but really excited to uh support the city in this um really excellent opportunity so Joe kind of went over this already so some of my slides may sound a little bit repeat but four main scopes of
032work that we're looking at um technical advisor and own owners agent so we've actually been supporting the city a fair bit on this already um even in the past um and so just excited to support that a bit further uh with some of the skill set that we have on our team and then right now we are in that early feasibility study stage and uh a lot of modeling and a lot of uh development towards creating uh the model that's going to help us move into the next stage so speak a little bit about our team so a large team uh I know it's just Ellie and me on the call here but we have a team of specialist from around the world uh a lot of people from Europe as well as from in
033Canada and then a lot of people from in the US as well uh really bringing uh an international skill set towards this uh because there is a lot of opportunities and changes in technology and lessons learned that we have um from the team that we have pulled together here uh as well as our team uh locally within an arbor and in the Michigan area so yeah a good-sized team that we have on this and we're meeting on a regular basis as we're Gathering all the data in Intel and really stepping forward in that first area the feasibility study uh and feel free to jump in if you have any questions as we as we uh as we keep going there's only a few more slides and then it'll be more open discussion um uh really
034this slide is to just recognize that we are a part of the larger project and plan um so we see ourselves as part of the larger group of individuals and so you know everyone on the call here to me as a stakeholder that could provide input and provide Clarity on some of the the known on and unknown that we may or may not recognize um as consultants and so we really want to gather as much Intel as possible uh working with the city working with the community and then eventually with owners operating ERS and contractors um but we bring a a large project team and Specialists that are all inous within stantech uh from a schedule perspective so the tech advisor owner's agent those are things that are just as and when required um really
035like Joe was saying we're really speaking about the feasibility study so the screening study is the first step uh that screening study is happening right now and is going to be going and completing just before Christmas um and then after after that we dive into the three locations uh one of them kind of being already a default more that uh the urban Business Center uh within enob um and there is some overlap with the technical uh technal economics study that will'll be doing pricing things like that and then just a couple of notes so this is the stage that we're at right now uh where essentially we're building a heat map so there's a lot of um tools and softwares that we're using to build this tool out um right now we are primarily ba
036working on the energy modeling that would support essentially energy loads throughout the city and we're using a different a number of different tools like Comstock and resed stock which are uh uh modeling tools that develop archetypes for different types of buildings and then we can organize those within different types of neighborhoods Etc within the city to understand okay where are the energy dens cities that we want to pay attention to um but layering on to all of that because that could be just one layer but other uh layers that we want to include and that this you know Joe and the city asked for um were where could potential energy sources be within the city um where is city- owned land that could be available for use for energy generation and then of course uh
037an economic and environmental um evaluation of justice and disadvantaged communities within the city so it's layering on all those different aspects that we hope to see okay there's here's some um relatively clear or easily determined locations that could be going into further study and that would be part of that second phase so at the moment we're doing the the screening um evaluation and developing all of the different um feed in components to develop those layers and uh that is uh expected to be finished just uh just before christas as I mentioned so we've done this for a different a number of different municipalities different flavors not specifically all the different things that have been asked for here uh in the city uh at an arbor but um yeah it it should be really interesting and
038exciting and I think potential for future use as well uh so it is a Citywide um evaluation that's being completed so that's really the last slide that I had uh Joe um happy to receive any questions and comments yeah thanks um yeah I guess Cher If you want to kind of moderate everything but yeah like kind of said open to yeah one obviously if people have questions definitely want to hear your questions make sure we're answering things like that um yeah kind of like we were saying and Je was just saying there yeah what what should we be considering you know is there anything that you know you're seeing like I said you know um team at stti they got a lot of great experience um but naturally you know we all there's always stuff
039that even people with the most you know amazing subject matter expertise you know there's stuff happening locally that no one else would be aware of if they're not exactly there so definitely over hearing feedback on anything like that um people kind of turn over for questions comments anything like that yeah commissioner Hans thank you uh commissioner harp um so one of my questions was I'm um somewhat familiar with uh geothermal projects I was present for the installation at Cay Middle School on the north side of the city um and I was curious what if any land use is possible above the cores once they're completed once the insulation is has occurred what what if any land use can can be done on that property yeah I'm happy to start taking that and you know Jeff
040correct me at any point if you know you all know more but yeah in general pretty much all of them and the way we're looking at to is being able to restore it back to you know the exact same way you know a lot of the you know the BS are all going deep deep underground um you know there's obviously you know going to be disruption during that time period during that time period you know can't access it um but afterwards you know the goal is to restore it back to pretty much exactly where it was looked at or at some of the schools you know they're able to kind of do it and then they restore it back you're able to be on that land you know there might be you know some areas
041where there might be a mechanical shed or something like that um but for the most part you're able to get it back to pretty much you know as is before the installation you might not even see that's there at that point I I guess it one of my my followup to that would be for clarification uh would that allow athletic fields would it extend to allowing slab on grade would it would it allow foundations um you know I I'm just kind of curious as to what our limitations are uh once choose a land for these scores yeah I think especially when we're talking like you know um in general you know the easiest space is kind of some of the the the Green Space you know you got a big open field big open Park
042something like that super great because it's you know again it's not as much you got to necessarily tear up or anything like that don't got to do any like you know um you know say again if you're going into a big parking lot kind of a deal you don't got to repave you don't got to do stuff like that um so you know Open Fields are a lot easier from that perspective um but that's not to say you can't do kind of other areas sometimes there's other limitations that um others might be better able to speak on than than me um but yeah there's generally the more open the area the better um just because it's easier it's more efficient kind of a deal um but there there is stuff you can do in kind
043of more dense areas it just gets more more difficult and more costly to an extent um Jeff I don't know if you got more on that yeah I mean I could speak to a little bit so we have um fields that have been installed below Park parking lots below parades below buildings and as part of foundation piles so there's a lot of potential I think the most difficult would be to have a field and then try and build let's say a large building on top of a field because you would just have to organize around those uh those bore holes right um so there would have to be some careful planning if there is a proposed large infrastructure plan for a particular site but yeah you know we have projects that have been completed that
044and are in operation that have retrofitted bore holes below a building and they bring in a very small Dr drill rig to go through the basement and then uh complete those activities so there's actually a lot of opportunity where it's out of sight out of mind obviously very quiet um and has has a great uh lifespan as well thank you council member Briggs I guess just continuing on that sort of train of thought um so it sounds like um there's a need for the bore holes to be um yeah maintained so I'm assuming that in terms of thinking about City own land like not this would be the easiest space but streets and right of ways are not wouldn't necessarily be an easy space to work with I'm just thinking it's a lot of public
045land it's a bit more complicated um you you generally want a bit of a density uh so you know it when you start doing things in the line it gets a little bit more um uh expensive essentially but and there's utilities to work around right so but at the end of the day the maintenance that you do once they're installed is very minimal right it's all it's all buried uh the effort is really in putting them in correctly to begin with and then are we looking um is in terms of obviously there's City owned land um are we talking in coordination with other partners in the community that may also have similar interest or goals whether that be U ofm or you know the county or conceivably the um the public schools are those are
046those stakeholders I missed if those are conversations that are happening as well yeah kind of work in progress um definitely you know talking to them I mean fortunately you know like I kind of was talking about with the uh the work in Bryant like we do you know public schools are part of that one so we're learning a lot from each other there um yeah definitely talking where we can and trying to figure out what what those different options are where those synergies could be um just to you know make something as efficient as possible um where we can and is one of the outcomes that's going to come out of this as well sort of um an assessment of the the policy landscape any changes that we need to make whether that be you
047know I don't know if this is a permitted use on Parkland you know if there's any ordinance changes there that need to be happening or um or um my understanding is the county was a it appeared to be a bit of a barrier when we were talking about the the development geothermal on an Street you know I don't I assume that maybe that has been overcome but there's sort of an assessment of the policy landscape of things that we need to be also working on current um at the same time yeah I think um to start and again Jeff feel free to jump in any time too um if you have other other thoughts on how we're going about it but yeah I mean some of that's coming from like uh we were talking about
048that um like owner's agent and kind of advisory service um as you know as things come up diving into what those are I mean like you know Ju Just recently again as we're working through something stuff and Bryant we're running into a bunch of different um you know different whether that be how to permit or how to you know go through and you know do an installation in this kind of area um and kind of addressing those questions as they come up uh so as part of that it's you know to an extent figuring out as we go but also you know they've like kind of Jeff was saying they've done this in a lot of other places too and so they're pretty familiar with all the different kind of Landscapes out there and being
049able to kind of um you know once we you know see what those barriers might be able to kind of help answer and um Direct us to a way that is uh able to accomplish that work and overcome those yeah i' say different um different places within North America have different standards different regulations and so we've been um basically pooling our resources in regards to what those regulations look like and looking at which are the ones that's most comprehensive because it is a ever evolving evolving landscape uh this type of Technology continues to evolve there's different solutions that are regularly coming up and uh and cities and municipalities are regularly creating uh guidance around what this type of installation can look like and and Rule so that it's it's safe and that it's uh and
050that it works well and functions well for the longevity so uh it is regularly changing um but we we are working on projects across the country so we somewhat have a line of sight on that um to to a certain extent and so trying to help Joe and the team uh with that as as uh questions come up for some of those projects for sure commissioner Coen Garcia uh this is a very fascinating consideration that uh the city is engaged in right now and I am imagining so um in the the model that I have in my mind that I um the only thing that I have that I can try to map onto this is with with natural gas so you have something that you're that a a building is going to be connected
051to so there's an energy source um there's a connection Point into a a built structure and then and that's going to be um controlling the temperature of the building the environmental temperature of the building so is there so being that the energy source is a particular area that has the you know the boes the Deep the Deep pipes going deeply to the ground is there I guess it depends on how it's designed um but have there been established like this is the range like in terms of distance from that that you know how how far the pipes can go until they start losing you know temperature or whatever their energy right their temperature energy or is there like a certain number of of user points that can be used maximum we can only use this
052many this many types of buildings this many types of homes you like so or rooms like I'm sure this is all in the modeling and so I'm just trying to figure out like how the three three areas in the city what are going to be chosen are you going to have like mostly residential area like a multi-unit dwelling residential area a combination of Industrial and Commercial how are you how are you guys going to choose that could I could I add could I add briefly to a a a a slight related question which is when we're talking about District geothermal sort of what's the scale of that relative to you know commissioner kov Garcia's question Joe do you want to answer that question first on scale and then I can talk a little bit more
053about details sure yeah and I'll do my best because yeah part of it that's kind of a thing we're trying to figure out um to an extent um you know some of this is I kind of been saying some of it's early on here at least there's plenty of things in you know kind of like we're talking about Europe Canada do it definitely doing better than us um yeah so kind of trying to figure out some of that of of where it works and some in in some cases it kind of can vary on scale I mean like I said you know I said I wasn't going to talk too much about it here I'm always talking about it uh some of the work in Bryant kind of as we've been going through it you
054know like that's an area that's got 262 homes a um you know a a school and across the street we got the city service center and a County mental health facility so that's um you know in comparison to some of the others we're seeing you know somewhat of a bigger scale um but the scale we kind of need to be looking at to an extent and trying to figure out these things um you know and with that you know we've looked at different ways to kind of go about it whether that be you know you can do all of that on you know one Loop um to do that though you're going to need a bigger pipe you're going to need more energy you're going to need more you know kind of going into that
055and so we've also looked at different ways of um still having that whole area but it's on kind of separate subl Loops that are all part of that and that you know the benefit of that being you can do um smaller pipes that are going throughout the street um again similarly using less energy to pump that all over the place and you you have less concern about you know whoever's at the end of the loop who's you know it's not as warm as it is the person in the beginning of the loop so there's different ways to kind of look about it um and different ways to kind of go about it um and just you know again it comes down to you know cost performance um energy use things like that um but in
056general the the kind of the goal is to be able to look at different areas see kind of what different um perspectives might look like kind think we talked about part of this is regarding is definitely looking at something in the Downtown Development Area um you know we're partnering with the um you know with the DDA to kind of figure some of that out because you know we need to kind of try to figure this out in all the areas you know if we just focus on the area where it's the easiest to do it cool we'll figure out all the areas where it's easy to do it but then what happens when we get to the area that's difficult and we still need to decarbonize there um so you know that's definitely one of
057the areas we're looking at and like I said kind of you know some of that is just figuring out what's possible where and then just kind of building from there um I'm still trying to figure out some of that from my perspective clearly um and that's kind of what we're working towards as well so I don't have as defined of an answer as I'd like to necessarily um but trying to figure that out based on what's possible I suppose I could add a little bit um yeah like Joe said there's actually quite a few different ways that you could go about this um you know larger Loops smaller Loops more nodal design for energy Generation Um one of the main opportunities though with trying to gather this together in a district type system is that
058you really can ride the Peaks and valleys if you will when it comes to energy and it also allows for the opportunity to um introduce new energy sources that may not even be readily available right now so that's an interesting and intriguing thought um that could easily be added and then shared uh there's a lot of different things and technologies that are being developed right now that could easily feed into a common loop system that can serve a variety of buildings and I guess speaking to the temperature uh we are definitely envisioning a lowgrade temperature underground and so it really doesn't lose that much energy as it passes through the ground you know there's some systems in North America that are generating steam that's a whole different scenario right commissioner hunts thank you um this
059is back to the feasibility study in in its scope uh I know some of the other Commissioners have touched on this when it comes to what the study is assessing is it assessing all of the possibilities in within city limits or is it targeting larger scale it will it will it return um statistics and data on residential individual scale all the way up to large County buildings um I'm just kind of curious as to what the scope is and uh the possibilities of adjusting scope if it's not matching with um the desired direction of the commission and Council yeah the goal is certainly to get kind of like all that diversity of buildings in there and in fact like when you have a diversity of buildings it can even be kind of more helpful kind
060like we were talking about um like the the supermarket example kind of a deal you're able to get more similarly you know say you got an office building on a with residential buildings you get some benefits there because you know the office building is they have their Peak loads during the you know General 9 to 5 hours as opposed to you know residential buildings you get more of that peak in that you know five to seven period when people are coming home kind of a deal um so definitely you know interested in looking at kind of all of those seeing how they connect together because again as you get um you know more diverse options on there it becomes a more efficient system as you go um so that's that's kind of the general what
061we're looking at and kind of trying to see where that can be feasible um you know if we're running into situations or we're getting feedback where it's like you know that's you know not possible how you doing that um certainly you know can't adjust if you know again like we're doing that pre- feasibility screening if we see like these are the areas that are going to be the most feasible that are going to make the most sense um we're going to start going down that that path there all right thank you and uh just a quick follow up on that uh since we have a couple of experienced Engineers here um I know one of the issues that will very quickly be voiced and has already been voiced um I'm sure is um safety and
062regulation um and inspection and maintenance of these cores uh four holes um obviously in an arbor we have a particular awareness of our groundwater and uh the dangers that uh arise from mistreatment um I was curious if uh if it's if there's the ability I mean the more information we get the better so if is there the ability to cover all of the different uh geologic situations we have in our district and how what guards are are placed and what kind of potential risks are involved just so when we present this to the public as a as a larger concept um we have some uh some some some safety to to to push back on yeah I can start and then Jeff if you got more specifics definitely jump in um yeah I think in
063general at least you know what we've been looking at so far what's called uh closed loop systems uh which is basically that like they you know they do not directly interact with uh any of our our groundwater which is good because especially as we we do know there's you know we got different um you know we got the plume as well as other different um groundwater things we need to be concerned about and so what's good about the you know the the closed loop system is it means it doesn't interact with that basically you you know install the piping things like that um you fill up that pipe and then you just kind of Let It Go um you know it's kind of circulating throughout there in general um you know at least again what
064we're looking at kind of in the other area right now is it's uh it's water water is what's flowing through the pipe that's there's like potentially food grade glycol which you know you don't have to worry much about because again it's a you know um said it isn't much of a concern when it comes to contamination anything like that um the only reason you put that in there is just for a little bit of making sure that that um you know if it if something were to happen you're not potentially freezing in the pipes if something happens but for the most part because it's that closed loop system because of what's in there we don't have to worry too much about contamination obviously again you got to make sure when you're doing you know with
065any sort of you know installation especially when you're digging into the Earth whether that be for any type of pipe and things like that making sure you're doing it right making sure you're avoiding uh you know hitting any the other pipes or anything like that and just making sure you're doing it in a way that um you know is safe as with you know any kind of installation there but in general those are kind of the ways that we're looking around to make sure that we're not um running a foul of anything like you know or having to worry about contamination both for the loop itself as well as making sure we're not running into any you know contaminating the resources we have in place um yeah I know you also got some folks on
066your team Jeff who look into all the kind of hydrogeology and all that kind of stuff that's right yeah we have hydrogeologists on our team specifically for that purpose um and we we started looking at that actually a little bit last year already as well so M Mery thank you um I have a number of comments and questions and what I suggest is maybe that I just list them all off and you all decide what's appropriate to respond to and what we have time for and maybe what's not and so I'll just try to click through them uh quickly I've noted them in my phone um and I'll just read them with a pause in between so maybe people can take a note um I'm wondering what the contract award um amount was the dollar
067amount um as far as deliverables um I read the RFP and also obviously we all saw the slides and I'm wondering it seems to me that uh a deliverable is there's going to be a written report that addresses a lot of the questions that were raised in the RFP and that on top of that there's going to be um technical advisory support and services that are provided I'd like to understand if that's indeed correct um in terms of stakeholders uh I'm pretty sure these are probably already taken care of are um been considered but the 2030 District um and Jan Culbertson they seems to be would be a really good partner um obviously the U of them um was already mentioned and that's really significant because they already have some projects that have already been
068done and as many of you know that uh pccn commissioned an engineering feasibility study um to do uh geothermal for heating and air conditioning of all of University of Michigan's 40 million square feet under roof which is a huge project um by the way that's 20,000 Wells um just a loan for that uh so I'll come back to that in a little a little bit later so I hope you of them Shauna Weber um architecture engineering and construction those people and their lessons learned and their whatever they you know they recognize hopefully that is a collaboration that can go both directions that we can learn from each other um I I understood also that um parks and Rex is also going to probably be a stakeholder because uh I know G I'm looking at um
069U ofm uh campus plan 2050 it looks like they're going to be putting a lot of their Wells on recreational Fields um Palmer Field Mitchell Field Etc so I'm I'm assuming that will be a possibility um for Ann Arbor and be curious to see which Parkland is would be under consideration like ball fields and things like that and what might not be um I'm wondering also if major developers are going to be uh included in this I'm thinking in particular um Oxford Oxford is looking at a major development on South State Street and then uh when you think about that then you have to also think about the other tc1 um districts and how those might look and how they might be developed um one thing I didn't see mention anywhere are impacts and implications
070on natural features in general not just in parks and um in nap areas but just in general if you're going to be putting in all these Wells that's a huge amount of construction um uh I have geothermal for our home and when we put in our three Wells uh we uh had problems with uh clay that was excavated and spread on top of um some significant trees that we had and um one of those in particular was very stressed and I'm afraid that uh that may be a major problem um in the city of Ann Arbor so I hope that's taken into consideration um I noticed feasibility studies um are being planned for three locations and I'm wondering how that was arrived at and just as a a a list of to me which seemed
071like sort of unique areas um downtown was mentioned that's clearly one tc1 districts are going to be different most likely than those you've got subdivisions forestbrook Georgetown Orchard Hills places like that um that that's going to be different um places like ant aror hills or the Far West Side that's going to be different vers compared to Historic districts and then you have condos and apartment complexes so all of those are going to be um you know very very different from one another and that's more than three and I probably other ones that I haven't mentioned um I'm curious if stantech um has had any role in uh the project in Boston with heat and um as I mentioned U ofm is looking at 20,000 Wells uh I know U ofm is about onethird of the
072total emissions I know this is not a good way of drawing a parallel necessarily but if there was rough uh relationship then that means there might be 40,000 wells in an arbor and I'm wondering um what that might mean in terms of everything that's been discussed but also just in terms of pure disruptions and and even the Aesthetics between U ofm and an arbor drilling 60,000 Wells and Arbor is going to look like West Texas for 10 years and so I'm I'm wondering if really people are thinking about that um and then I'm also wondering what the implications of all this are on um our natural gas franchise uh renegotiations um and that's that's my list so take any of those or none of them um whatever you think is appropriate for this forum so
073thanks very much sure I'll take a stab at a few and um yeah see again obviously we don't address any definitely feel free to send over we can make sure we get answers to those too um yeah in terms of budget I think I have the number but someone correct me if I'm wrong or you can find it out I think it's about $689,000 for the for the study and that also kind of informs the number of areas we were looking at um you know naturally if we had more funding kind of towards that you could do more feasibility studies like these are you know is expensive to do um so that's kind of where those numbers came about um as to disruption that's absolutely something we're thinking about and we're looking into um you
074know as you know best we can is kind of want to do alignment with um other types of constructions projects happening um you know naturally if you're if you're kind of doing um the distribution system if you're already having to dig up a street for some other reason working with it at that time so because one that's just more cost effective uh but two it's you know the disruption is happening regardless let's make sure we capitalize on it where we can um in terms of um you know some of the uh some some of the locations and other things like that again kind of looking into it trying to get as best of a sense we can as diverse of a mix as we can um you know with three locations naturally you know we're
075there's going to be some unique things that we're not going to be able to get to in every single one uh but trying to do the best we can and kind of again going towards the most impactful we can with that um additionally um I'm jumping around more than I meant to uh but going back to disruption a bit here we've also been looking at different technologies that are kind of out there um one of the things we've been looking at again as part of the work in Bryant is uh there's a couple different ones that are using they have different terminologies based on who they are but like clustered angle drilling uh which basically allows instead of you know the your traditional concept you're thinking you take a big empty field you know drill
076whole every you know however many feet apart all throughout the field in a giant grid um they're able to just kind of take you know one the way we're thinking about it is you know take an the elementary school if you take you know four parking spaces they're able that's the area that they're doing and then they drill diagonally from out there so they can get the same amount of um you know uh Heating and Cooling energy from a much smaller footprint so seeing what what options are out there what kind of Technologies out there and learning more to make it um you know as minimally disruptive as possible again there's going to be disruption we know that and we're making we want to make sure we do it in a way that's not overly
077burdensome because exactly like you said we don't want to go through and nor could we you know just go through and dig everything up in the entire city and kind of go from there that doesn't help anyone um so yeah trying to figure out all those different ways we can to limit it where we can uh while acknowledging there you know there will be you know if this is a path we go down there there is some level of that and making sure that we're doing the education around that um again going back to the Bryant project we're going to be uh the community center itself is going to be getting geothermal uh for their Heating and Cooling there and as part of that you know got to be inviting residents out to be able
078to come see what an installation looks like see what um you know what that looks like what kind of disruption looks like um to get people you know a better sense of what that is and be able to kind of make that uh determination you know for themselves um all that to say there's a lot more to kind of consider and figure out and those are definitely things we will be considering and thinking about um and want to make sure that again we're doing it in a way that's as you know impactful as possible while also making sure we're doing it in a way that's you know effective economical um and as beneficial as possible so I probably didn't get to everything I'm sure Jeff you got a few things here and there but yeah
079definitely open to continuing all those conversations around all those things and yes we are also talking with our you know Partners aaps U ofm uh folks like that to make sure we're we're learning from everyone around that so you you really covered all there John Joe I should say um uh maybe one thing to note um sometimes when it comes to picking locations Etc trying to align things with infrastructure upgrades that are already causing A disruption really could be beneficial um so that could be that could be an extra component that uh uh you know could be part of the lens Mion hunt did you have another followup you might be on mute sorry thank you um this is more in regards to a the long-term lifespan of uh the project um I know from
080experience that in construction maintenance uh and accessing installations often causes more disruption than the original installation um so I was just wondering uh as part of our study uh that's being conducted is it also so factoring in out you know 50 100 years everything needs maintenance everything will at some point need to be replaced um you know if if you're uh Jeff you mentioned drilling through basements and uh Joe you mentioned um this angle drilling um I guess from Jeff's uh experience are there uh existing uh effective means for full repair replacement underground without going straight down and ripping up you know truckloads of of soil so you're saying like if a bore hole fails what to do or what what the options are yes uh typically that that bore hole would be if it's
081under a building it would likely be abandoned um you you could place another bore hole very close to it though uh to support that but there is uh and they're getting much better with the technology about the accuracy of where the bore hole goes but you can imagine you know 600 feet down there is a little bit of um movement that can occur which is generally why there's a certain spacing that's created so it it is it is a challenge typically what we've experienced is that if a bore hole were to fail it will become KNN very very quickly very very early on um apart from that uh they do last quite a while like 50 years plus easy thank you commissioner burtz I've got a question and maybe I'm getting ahead of things but
082I'd love to maybe just pose it um for people to think about um if this is too far down the road but um the sustainable energy utility um I'm thinking about you know uh if we had this geothermal capacity is it going to be owned and operated by DTE it could it potenti be owned and ined by the seu any thoughts on how that looks like yeah we're uh we're looking into all the kind of options there and um you know looking at the the ballot language for the um you know for the sustainable energy utility you know things like District geothermal are in there uh so you know that is a thing that we're definitely looking into as as an option and we that to you know go go forward be voted on um
083be something we're looking into that's certainly an option that we would would be considering as part of that awesome thank you I want to oh sorry council member Briggs yeah thanks just one last thought I appreciate that this has been a great discussion and lots of things for me to think about um I appreciate um um just a lot of lot of interesting pieces raised um uh uh commissioner mery's uh comments made me think in particular um obviously as a council member I think a lot about political feasibility and um in addition to technical feasibility and so um in the long-term political feasibility of different different pieces and so I think the you know the disrup disruption aspects you thinking about you frame this as what's unique to an arbor at the very beginning of
084this I mean most of this stuff is you're dealing with it in every Community we are a highly educated Community lots of folks don't know you know don't know anything about geothermal lot there will be a lot of experts in our community you know um and but it's a very um folks dig in deep and so in terms of you know the out the materials that get produced out of this you know I I think it's um in terms of reports I think it's better to go provide more substance for those who'd like to to dig in um I think that's helpful I think those that they kind of community here that will um have those folks and you know comments around like impacts to trees and things like that as Tree City I think
085those are you know those are political they're obviously those are just things like that that should be touched upon potentially even if they're not necessarily like the primary uh issue that we're going to be facing moving forward it is a consideration and it's something the types of things we might want um just be factoring into those reports so um a little bit of brainstorming with the team around some of those aspects as well just to think about um um you know as a team you have youve approached a lot of OSI has gotten a lot of a lot of feedback over this and I'm sure council members can provide some greater input on this as well thanks yeah definitely thanks for that too because yeah I definitely want to make sure we're addressing everyone's needs
086because you know as always some people just like a quick little thing but lots of people really like to dig in to everything there so definitely appreciate that speaking of of digging in I was I I just wanted to follow up on the comment about riding the Peaks and Val valleys of energy sources that I think you made Jeff in in reference to trying to piggyback on top of and I'm assuming this to mean sort of adjacencies between renewable sources or other types of energy use intensities and and I was wondering if you could say a little bit more about that and and and what I'm wondering is sort of how is there the capacity at least in terms of the feasibility to balance not only this sort of site planning but also the impact
087at least in terms of um CO2 intensity usage relative to the grid um time of day or seasonality in terms of Heating and Cooling and the sort of relative impacts also in terms of the sort of the site and site planning and land use yeah definitely I mean that time of day and seasonality it'll be absolutely part of what we're looking at um and as Joe was mentioning you know taking into account how peaks of of energy differ based on different archetypes and building uses is going to be a key consideration um we do want to look uh under as many rocks as possible to find energy sources even Beyond geothermal um and that could be helpful and and and also cost effective to support the city uh and distribute that energy in a different
088way um so that that to me is going to be the other aspect of it and we'll see what we find haven't we haven't looked uh very far yet we're just getting into things and so you know if if you if anyone on this call thinks of anything that could be a potential energy source uh you know share it with Joe sorry Joe um and uh and and we can have a look at it right um it gets complicated if it's private but um one of the the ones that we're seeing a lot of interest in is um Wastewater to energy recovery and the potential of Distributing that and that is another key advantage to a district system is that that could be a localized installation that could be shared to a much greater group
089of individuals and and properties and so lots of potential for that and that's this is why a low- grade system low-grade heat system is so important is it gives so many more energy sources as a potential yeah and it's all the things I would have said anyway the other thing I this wasn't exactly what you asked but I I like to throw this out here every time um I talk about geothermal to extent there's a really cool uh well cool if you're interested in stuff like this which I'm I'm I'm labeling you all as um they have a a report from um the uh doe a couple of the National Labs uh basically looking at you know what it would a bunch of like I think it's like 70% of buildings switch to geothermal heat
090pumps and basically what it shows is how much of an energy savings that would have cumulatively on the grid and the grid benefits of that uh because it's a more efficient technology you're using less electricity to provide all this Heating and Cooling uh just really goes through and says how much of an impact it could have uh which you know Cascades down the line of by doing this you're installing less lines for transmitting more electricity installing less substations unless things like that um and so just considering that um I don't I I know that's probably not even what you asked for but that kind of ticked in my mind of a thing that I wanted to bring up and showing like how this is another step towards cutting down on our overall usage as well
091if it is again something we look into other interesting things too maybe something that's not it can be easily forgotten is the the reduction in noise pollution of having a bunch of condensers everywhere um we're seeing all kinds of interesting things where you know pen houses no longer need huge cooling towers and low noisy equipment it can be generated quietly and John if you have a geothermal I do as well and uh I can sit outside with peace and quiet because I don't have a condenser outside commissioner Mercy I want to bring up one more thing when I read the RFP I noted that the number one objective is is uh looking at equity and uh we talk a lot about Bryant I know the city has really been involved in Bryant but there's one
092other neighborhood that I've never heard addressed in any of these meetings or in really any of um osi's Communications at least that I've read and that is um Sunnyside Park that's the trailer park off of Packard um I raised it to Missy about I don't know a year or 18 months ago and it just seems to me I know it's probably since a trailer park it's not something that's going to work for geothermal but if we're really focused on Equity um it seems to me we need to be talking about the residence of that Park it's been there since the 1930s and it's still there it's likely probably still to be there for a while and so I'm hoping that we're looking at what can be done for those residents because that's probably one of
093the lowest income neighborhoods in an arbor and we uh never really as far as I've heard about it talk about it in the public domain there may be a lot of discussions behind the scenes but I'm hoping that those people are not forgotten yeah thank you for bringing that we were um actually looking at it just recently in terms of um a Grant application there's Ann Arbor's kind of um I'm not going to say unique or weird for whatever reason but in terms of where things pop up on some of the um what we're able to apply for for funding uh you know some of it's based on different Federal definitions and sometimes certain areas uh don't get included even though we very much know that that is a neighborhood that should be included um
094and unfortunately that's one of them that sometimes Falls in those cracks which is very unfortunate because again we know it's an area of need but the federal government is you know we can't apply for it that specific area in some cases but all that's to say we're definitely looking into it in different ways to figure out yeah what what could be possible there and trying to find out some of the different solutions there so thank you for bringing that up though okay I think we'll move ahead with the rest of the agenda and I just want to thank Jeff and Ellie for the presentation and for Joe for the for the setup and the context and and and the background I know we're going to look forward to um all the work ahead on this
095and and look forward to learning more and and reading more as it progresses and for the Commissioners if there's any comments or anything um please bundle and share with Joe um who can pass those along and um I think they'll be glad glad to get any additional insights or thoughts that you might have so thank you again and we really appreciate it today thanks nice to meet you guys I guess we can hop off then yeah absolutely I mean you're welcome to stick around for a rousing discussion on potentially electing a vice chair for the third or fourth time but yeah you're you're you're welcome to head out bye guys thank you thanks okay I think we'll move ahead to commission business um the first item on that uh part of the agenda includes the
096vice chair election um Joe have you had any expressions of Interest or forthcoming applications for the vice chair role um I have not so we're going to go through another round of awkwardly staring at each other and seeing if anyone has reconsidered since last time I I I would like to share pit oh sorry uh commissioner overp I see a raised hand I think we should offer a free geothermal system whoever it takes SS is that a bribe I'm not sure would that apply to my whole condo complex see now now we're getting somewhere if that's the cas whole neighborhood yeah right see what scale can we get whoever's got the biggest scale let's get them in how about my whole university could we do just a quick over review of the responsibilities of the
097co sure happy I I can say a little bit about that um more or less what it looks like is sort of riding along and and sort of helping out sort of discussing what the agenda might be for the the the month or months ahead um sort of filtering out and discussing how how to sort of accomplish that and and thinking about um folks experts or others that that we might invite um uh to help speak to that um but also just sort of being in being able to step in in case the chair isn't able to uh lead the meeting and chair chair the meeting in in the rare cases um that that that happens um and let's see am I missing anything else Joe I mean you're the most recent Vice chair you're
098kind of the best yeah that's true I mean basic basically we made for about uh half an hour uh short usually in the week or two following the the uh previous um commission meeting and sort of take all take stock of of what we need to discuss um based on the feedback that we get from council members and Commissioners and and try to feed that forward into an agenda and a plan for for how to sort of shape shape what's shared with you all um in advance but also what um what's going to be covered during the commission meeting and and to the extent that any discussions or or follow-ups are needed Beyond but but usually it's that's that's pretty much the gist of it in addition to the commission meeting itself it if I
099may there's two other things that potentially come up and that is uh working with the chair and the two council member Lee aons to review uh applicants or openings um and um voting on and making a recommendation to the mayor's office for uh nominations um to fill those openings and then once named um helping out with the chair if needed with uh orientation of those new members um but yeah I think the main you know though that comes up maybe once a year or something like that so it's not significant activity and and frankly Mark I hope that you might consider uh nominating yourself or being willing to serve in the role because I think um it's it's um I've been pleased with your level of participation and engagement in meetings and I think uh
100it would be great if you might step up to to something like that well that's very kind of You' to say um yeah I I appreciate the rundown um you know it's one of those things that I still think I'm quite new to this commission um but I do understand the needs of uh an executive board a functioning executive board so um I I guess where are we at we have zero currently interested members um do we have a discussion on any changes to the role I mean I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything no I think we've gone the past um I don't know two or three and kind of I think everyone's been nominated at some point and everyone turned it down for various reasons so um that's kind of
101where we are in general we haven't had discussions around changing necessarily because you know for the most part um you know kind of like uh chair harp was saying you know it's kind of the the biggest is kind of those 30 minute monthly check-ins kind of a deal um and so it's and it's it's really I mean um I can't speak too much but commissioner har I mean I think you were Vice chair um just a few months after you joined kind of um so it's it's definitely a thing you can you can step into and learn without you know not too much responsibility placed on you if you're not um you know comfortable with it necessarily and I'm but I'm also not going to force anyone into it um I would have done that
102already if I was going to um but yeah so you know don't feel pressure if you don't want to kind of a deal um but yeah that's kind of where we are in the process but it would be great it would be great if you're interested and and and wanted to want to nominate yourself or um that would be fantastic um be great to have have another set of another spotter council member Briggs since it can feel weird to nominate yourself I would love to nominate you commissioner Hans as as Vice chair if you are so interested um I don't like maybe you must have not been at the meeting where I would have done that previously I know I've missed a couple meetings so yeah no I I have missed a couple here so
103no I appreciate that it it uh it's like you know networking selling yourself it feels weird so I appreciate that uh and I'm I don't necessarily think I'm the most prepared for but if uh it say I have uh commissioner harp and chair harp to to kind of guide me out I would accept that nomination brilliant we I think we have to technically have a second so we throw a second cool we're I figured didn't even need to yeah then then a vote which yeah okay well um over there should we move to a vote sounds questions sorry oh sorry I was just saying feel free to ask me any questions I'm kind of on the spot right now so you can make me justify myself if you like I'm I'm more than happy to
104answer any questions you might commissioner overp yeah I want to just thank you for um being willing to do this and I have a funny feeling there'll be an unanimous vote just a guess uh you know my Achilles heel is I travel too much and I have not a lot of control of that travel so I tend to miss a few more meetings than I should um but one things I would really love to do and I'd be willing to help you leaders um even participate in some of your meetings to get a better uh sync with the university and both from the operational point of view and how we make the university more seamless with the city on is isues related to energy and sustainability and at the same and Justice um the second
105thing is uh we have a lot of experts on campus and one of the things we're doing right now is it's very in the nent stage but we're um trying to build a partnership with DTE focused on accelerating their decarbonization efforts you know and uh I think a lot of us on this Commission should know that DT is kind of like the sharp edge or the bad guys and slowing us down and all that um and I worry about that um but I also am just pragmatic um and I think our camp both our campus operations folks and a lot of our most powerful researchers in this space are Keen to see if they can you know get DT excited get them the workforce training they need and uh really work on Innovation such as
106you know distributed energy uh which is really um that's everyone here knows that's probably one of the hardest reaches right now that we really need to conquer um and so I all I would like to say is um I'm really happy with the leaders we have and and I would be you know willing to you know do a little more homework and stuff to figure fure out you know who we could get to come and talk with us um and you know in terms of strengthening the partnership with the university but also you know getting our aligned in how we're trying to accelerate the uh the energy transition and and you know essentially justice as well in a just way um so that's just my two cents if that helps at all um I just
107I just want to say thanks commissioner overbeck much appreciated and and I think I think that's be welcome not only by the commission members um but also council members as well and and any insights and I I know you're fairly well positioned to help sort of set up some of those conversations too and think through some of that so um that would be much appreciated and look forward to um some of those discussions in the in in the weeks and months ahead thanks okay um well then I would like to propose that we um I forget how to do this uh move to a vote um on the vice chair uh uh now that there's been nominated um seems like we've had some some discussion and if there's there's no other comments um all those
108in favor of uh commissioner Hans uh in the vice chair role um please raise your hand and say I I hi hi all those opposed please raise your hand and say n seeing none opposed the vote passes and we have a vice chair congratulations commissioner Hans Vice chair Hans and uh look forward to working with you in the the weeks and months ahead um we'll we'll we'll follow up with uh over email just to set up and and sort of arrange some some times to meet um in the next in the next month or so all right thank you so much and I I wanted to just Express to all of you how much I appreciate and understand the responsibility You' been trusted to me and I just wanted to make a note um Joe
109and I had a very Frank discussion uh after the last meeting um and he was extremely helpful and uh and encouraging um so I know he always mentions hey if you guys ever have any questions to like reach out to him I I just wanted to kind of re emphasize that and state my experience um so that uh helped a lot um bringing me to this point so thanks Joe appreciate it and yeah definitely definitely appreciate all you have to offer um so yeah really really glad you're steing into this role and we'll be definitely reaching out soon to get things going in a good direction all right thank you and on that note we'll move on to the staff report from none other than got talk I gotta talk too much this this month
110um yeah try to be quick um on some of them some of them are might have skewed a little more towards last month um but yeah I just want to first start off um semi- update just noting that again our rebates the City rebates as part of the climate action millage did um launch at the beginning of July um this is a it's a total of $ 1.9 million uh expected to offer over 1,300 rebates across the city um at least 15% of the rebates are for income qualified households and you know there's been some that are starting to fill up but there's still plenty of rebates that are still available um in addition there's some that are you know have been reserved and if those haven't been um fully utilized by the time of
111that period ends they'll be open back up uh but in general pretty much all the rebates still have available rebates so if folks are interested um please check that out um this is also just a reminder because I recognize we didn't necessarily talk about it too much here but um in December uh city council did pass an ordinance with restrictions on the use of gas powered leaf blowers within an arbor City liit Limits uh the this began in 2024 and gas powered leaf blowers are prohibited in an arbor from June 1st to September 30th uh meaning that the summer ban is already in effect uh ordinance violations can be reported to the uh anr police department Community standards at 734 794 um next one of talk a little bit about um has happened uh as
112well last month and I think we I think several of us have actually brought up uh throughout um but there was a Bill signed last month by uh Governor Whitmer that homeowner associations are no longer able to prevent residents from installing Energy Efficiency upgrades in solar panels uh to help with this new landscape U sustainability Innovations has developed a model energy policy template that can be used by any Homeowner Association to comply with the uh the new law um and also always have to plug that that um you know due to the nature of a homeowner asso association excuse me uh they are perfect candidates for the solarized program uh our community bulk by program that brings together residents for a bulk purchase of solar uh to realize significant savings so home homeowners associations are
113encouraged to reach out if interested um we uh mentioned this last time but or we'll have another um we're having special webinars to learn more about an our ver proposed sustainable energy utility an optional supplemental Community owned energy utility that would provide 100% renewable energy from local solar and battery storage systems and network geothermal like we talked today at participating homes and businesses in the city um the uh the virtual event will presentent opportunity to learn more about the proposed sustainable energy utility discover the benefits it could provide ask questions and find out um what will be asked on the ballot um and naturally I didn't write down the date of that so give me two seconds as I pull that up so I don't just give you um say what that was um that'll
114be happening later this month um while that loads forgive me [Music] um events that will be uh the next the next one will be on uh Wednesday August 21st uh from 6:00 to 7M uh you uh the registration is free you just got to sign up to be able to get the link to that um also wanted to note that we had our third annual home electrification Expo on August 2nd uh 100 I think we estimating just around 200 people attended the event uh which was our largest one to date uh we had vendors there representing Energy Efficiency electrification and renewable energy technology and services uh every year we've hosted this we've seen more people coming out uh and we've seen uh more feedback from the vendors saying that they've been getting um you know
115better engagement better conversations uh that are leading towards you know more um more people uh transitioning getting quotes and all that kind of stuff uh so hoping to do more in the future um based based around that and the last thing I have and then I'll finally stop talking here um did want to note that we um we have officially surpassed 5 megawatts of installed solar through the solarized program uh collectively we're now at 5.2 megawatts from that and that's across 690 homes in uh in was County um noting that too because around 27% of those installations have actually taken place outside of an arbor but in the county as a whole uh just to throw some quick number at you um through solariz just the discount from solariz residents have saved 2.3 $2.3 million
116in upfront installation costs in an estimated $22.8 million in energy costs over the lifespan of the systems um when you combine that with a 30% investment tax credit from the inflation reduction act uh the average person who goes through solariz sees around a $9,000 in upfront cost savings on their solar installation so a lot of great work coming from that and looking forward to uh what comes next there we got groups that are constantly running so people more than encouraged to uh to sign up if interested that's all I have thank you Joe that was um fantastic thanks again for the updates and for um all the work and putting this together too um next we'll move on to reports from working groups other commissions and from Council and I don't think there are any
117updates from the working group um as of as of this moment so we'll just move on to the other commissions I believe um are there any updates for the from the environmental commission uh no update the last meeting was a working session we have a new chair and we set priorities for the next 12 to 18 months okay thank you and any updates from Council none y uh Council M Rina yeah I can just give a brief update and Erica feel free to jump in um at our last council meeting we did approve um a plan to convert uh an arbor street lights to LED um there were some considerable back and forth on that over a period of weeks um so that we could uh make sure that we weren't over lighting and uh
118overusing energy on our neighborhood streets um credit to uh council member breaks for really digging in on a lot of that over a couple of weeks and um I know I was involved in a couple of conversations that we had jointly with DTE and with others um but uh ultimately we were able to get to a bit of a compromise where um I know that there were some folks in the community advocating for 29 watt LED lights on on neighborhood streets which unfortunately probably wasn't feasible at this time for us um but we were able to get to a place where um the fixtures that we are purchasing are um dimmable and allow for two different uh options so our major streetway uh will be illuminated at 58 and using 58 watts and our neighborhood
119streets will be at 48 watts um so they'll be uh slightly uh less bright and using less energy um and and I think the important piece to note here is that all of these will be dimmer and us less electricity than what the DTE standard would be when they convert to LED lights throughout their region so um this was some progress that we were able to make and I think uh in a one a positive direction credit to OSI for securing uh a grant alongside our folks with in in public services um in order to to accomplish this work more quickly and for us to be able to to get to a better standard than what DTE would have offered us if they were just rolling it out on their own um you question from
120commissioner hunt or vice chair did that again for council member Rina um just a a quick followup for the uh traffic uh sorry street lights um do are we have also a decision on Full Spectrum versus uh like low blue light uh that sort of thing Erica do you want to jump in there yeah yeah sure so um one of the pieces that came out of this as well is that instead the color temperature um the standard for DTE would be could be higher than 3,000 actually but it the color temperature will be 2700 for all of the street lights that go in except for um at very particular locations around crosswalks where I think the color temperature is actually um higher there as is the um um bulb wattage so but it will be
1212700 which is um and some of these at least with the 58 watt with the 2700 color temperature you can you can go and see that there's a few places where we've piloted those street lights um so I could send folks that information and yeah thanks council member Rina for bringing up this very important Point apparently I go on vacation and like everything is just this was a big deal big one to update on um uh and I also want to mention that commissioner mki was definitely um engaged in this conversation behind the scenes as well um so thanks for that engagement um and OSI the office of OSI had secured this carbon reduction Grant um that transitions over not only the city street lights but all of dte's street lights that haven't transitioned over
122as well so um you know what's important about this is we are not going to cdt's lights um transition up to much brighter than we'd like to like to see them um they will also be shielded um and um front Shields can can also be requested we're going to try to make that process a little bit um uh very easy for folks to understand how to to request all of the shielding that they might want to see one of the things that has not come out of this discussion yet but I think it's worth following up some of the LED lights that have actually been installed right now as we mentioned or a higher higher wattage a higher color temperature um I'm wondering and I have not answered this question yet but I'm hopeful that
123we might be able to request that some of those lights also if folks would like to see them reduced um the DT might be amenable to change anable wattage on that but I don't have an answer for that yet but I would anticipate that might be next also an option as we move forward yeah uh and Echo thanks to commissioner Mery I know that he was reaching out to me also from SE and so even when he is across the country he is uh following Council and and getting engaged so thank you okay that's all from Council we will move along in the agenda thank you um everyone for for that um that's fantastic we'll move to the second uh time for public input and this will again be an opportunity for people to speak
124for up to 3 minutes if you're watching on CN please call 888 78899 or 877 853 5247 and enter meeting ID 956 7876 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed City staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number to electronically raise your hand and indicate your desire to speak please press star n on your phone you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak and when speaking please to move to a quiet area and mute any background sounds and so that we may hear you clearly and please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments Joe do we have anyone on the line we do uh caller ending in 134
125thanks Mr Lang and chair har it's Ken Garber again um thank you to the entire commission for uh your work and uh for the excellent discussion tonight on geothermal um also thank you commissioner Hans for taking on the thankless job of Vice chair and um yeah I guess both of us who were watching probably learned a lot um and CTN indicated two viewers uh I'm not sure why there aren't hundreds but um that's the reality um also I want to thank um council member Briggs for her energetic advocacy on the streetlight issue um and uh commissioner Mercy who I hadn't known had been involved but should have suspected and uh I'm sure thanks to both of you we got a better outcome than we were going to get originally although um this is another instance
126of DTE digging its heels and when it could have had an easy win with the community and um apparently decided wasn't worth its time um which brings me to um commissioner overc's remarks that he's going to try to work with DTE to get them to do more distributed energy well good luck with that um I listened in on dte's quarterly earnings calls and in the April call CEO Jerry noria uh talked to this issue told the analyst that he's absolutely committed to Long power and not distributed power as you know in 2022 DT replaced its St Clair Co coal plant with fossil gas plants to convert the Bell River coal plant to gas by 2028 Monro coal plant which DTE has agreed to close in 2020 2032 um nor said that he's hoping to go
127with natural gas conversion there with carbon capture and storage so DTE is utterly committed to the centralized power distribution model it does a little distributed uh generation but mostly its efforts are focused on hampering them especially residential um so uh you know I think talks with DTE are worth doing but we really need to look at alternatives to DTE um and I hope that can be a subject of a future energy commission meeting but um so those are my final rantings and again I want to thank everyone for participating uh on the commission and Mr Lang for uh your work coordinating and also your work um at OSI so have a good night everyone thank you um no further callers thank you again um really appreciate the the feedback and the comments um I know
128all the Commissioners uh council members do as well um so much appreciated um let's see last on the agenda are items for the next agenda um I know there are a few that are sort of um we've been holding off on um for for variety of different reasons um some of you may uh refer to an email that I forwarded had Joe forward on Commissioners just thinking about um housing affordability and electrification um which we may try to have a further discussion on in the future um I know Green rental housing is still um uh uh to be looked at at a future date um and so I'll just uh open it up for other other comments as well or um suggestions um pleas chance oh yeah just before we get into that discussion I
129just wanted to ask for the record um I went back through recording from earlier tonight and I couldn't find the um location for the um form that people need to fill out for the seus um seminars Joe uh would you mind just mentioning for the record what what look where they can find those um let's see yeah I mean if you go to the The OSI website um there we have an events page and it will be on there I also send it out to the commission here um and I can attach it to the minutes as well thank you shki um I hadn't realized uh that the the greenhouse gas inventory um had been completed and posted I think it would be appropriate if we reviewed that as we have done in years past
130here in the commission and I would request that at the same time we uh review The OSI performance measures dashboard which has been up now for several months the two sort of go hand in hand so I think that would be appropriate um hopefully next month uh I also so will be a broken record uh on green rental housing program it's been three and a half years since it was considered here in this commission it's 25,000 housing units in an arbor and if we're going to do anything on Energy Efficiency that's one of the biggest levers we've had and it's behind the schedule that was put out in the a20 plan so uh I know it was supposedly illegal I just simply Frank I can't understand why it's taken as long as it has so
131I I hope it comes very very soon to this commission and goes on to city council and that it's a strong ordinance um one other thing I'll be a broken record on as well I think we're still short two Commissioners that's also been 15 months uh if we really want Community Voices here then we should be filling those positions and I might add that uh Mr Garber applied for a commission opening about three or four years ago and he's probably the most engaged person uh in the community and it would be great if he could participate in our conversations and not just comment on them at the beginning and the end of meetings so I really really would encourage the leadership to act on filling those positions whether it's Ken or anyone else we have
132a lot of great people in the community including people at the University that would be great additions to this commission thank you thank you other items for upcoming agendas either uh in the next month or in the months ahead got one thing um uh I was reading about the city's benchmarking requirements and my understanding is that um it's a essentially almost at the phase of U like full implementation and that maybe not all the data will be publicly disclosed I think until next year I forget the timing on all these things in the different like building classes but maybe an update on that or if it's not ready publicly until next year that's cool as well but just making sure that's on the radar somewhere there's supposed to be a report issued every year and
133we haven't had one yet as far as I know okay um other agenda items from commissioner members council members we'll take a look at at these and and and work up a plan and and try to share that out with you as soon as we can um and try to get the agenda to you um and and any materials to you as early as we possibly can um save some time to repair we know that September can be a busy time with the launch of of school semesters and and all of this so and general excitement because it's fall so um okay um I think with that it's uh 7:48 and um we'll move towards adjournment and so as chair uh I declare this meeting adjourned thank you everyone look forward to