The high cost of energy efficiency

Proposal for county buildings draws criticism

By FRITZ MAYER

SULLIVAN COUNTY, NY — Is it bad form to seriously criticize a proposal put forward by a consultant just minutes after the plan was presented to the county? That seemed to be the opinion by lawmaker Leni Binder, who said that such criticism could have been made privately to lawmakers rather than have them be surprised by it at a public meeting.

The proposal presented was prepared by a company called Wendell Energy, based in Amherst, MA, that was presented to lawmakers at the government center on January 7. The person doing the criticizing was Dick Riseling, one of the founders of Sullivan Alliance for Sustainable Development (SASD), which has had a contract for the past six months to advise the county on sustainability issues.

The proposal was the result of energy audits of three county-owned buildings in Liberty: the community services building, the Robert B. Travis Building and the shared health building. The proposal suggested that the county undertake a number of building retrofits that would increase the buildings’ efficiency in the areas of lighting, heating and cooling, water conservation and energy consumption.

The general manager of Wendell, Scott Smith, gave a presentation regarding the proposals. The recommended retrofits would cost the county about $660,000, after government incentives were subtracted, and have a payback period of 21.5 years.

After Smith left, Riseling distributed a memo seriously questioning various aspects of the proposal. He noted, for instance, that the management fee for Wendell would be $220,000, or 35 percent of the county’s cost, which he said was not warranted.

Another major concern was a solar system proposed for the Travis Building, which would come with a cost of $248,000. Riseling said that SASD had assisted a school system with a system twice as large as the one proposed for Travis that was only a few thousand dollars more expensive, and 90 percent of the cost was being paid by grants, so the cost to the district would be $28,650. Riseling pointed out that Wendell’s proposal called for Wendell to receive a management fee of $64,000 on the solar system; Riseling said the county could do the work in-house for $1,000.

Riseling further said other retrofits proposed could be performed by local contractors, and that would keep the money in the county.

Binder objected to the way Riseling’s evaluations were presented, and said it would have been better to let lawmakers know about them privately before unveiling them without warning at a public meeting.

Lawmaker David Sager said that, while he admired Riseling’s “passion” on the subject, he thought Riseling’s performance at the meeting was a bit “strong.”

Lawmaker Ron Hiatt, the chairman of the sustainability policy committee, said, “this is open government,” and he saw no problem with discussing the matter at the meeting.

The cost of the report was $30,000, with the county’s share being $15,000. Before Scott left, he said that the three buildings that had been studied did not present as many “opportunities” for savings, as other buildings might, such as the government center itself.

It was not decided whether the county would move forward with Wendell in the performance of an energy audit on the government center, or whether the county would move forward with any of the proposed retrofits.