Have ideas for Concord clean-energy goals? Monday evening session is for you

By DAVID BROOKS

Monitor staff

Published: 05-20-2023 4:00 PM

When Concord takes stock Monday on its progress toward the city’s clean-energy goals, there will be one bright accomplishment to celebrate, some moves on the horizon to anticipate and a whole bunch of important stuff that is, to say the least, slow to develop.

“This is daunting in many ways,” said Rob Werner, regarding the city’s goal to have 100% renewable electricity by 2030 and renewable heat by 2050. “That’s the tension that we face in terms of trying to think anew … and let’s do something different than we have done in the past. It’s not easy.”

The program, starting at 6 p.m. on Monday at the City Wide Community Center, 14 Canterbury Rd., is called a “stocktake,” as in taking stock of where things are and where they need to go. Such events are encouraged under the Paris Climate Agreement to help communities follow through on their goals to cut greenhouse gases. It will be the first of many such programs.

The two-hour event will feature city representatives talking about progress toward renewable energy goals followed by a roundtable discussion that can include comments and suggestions from anybody who attends. Food and drink will be provided to lure people to attend because the city’s goals require widespread participation. To RSVP, search for “Concord NH Climate Action Community Stocktake.”

“The focus has certainly been on the municipality side the last couple of years but we really need to be engaged in the community, to shift the emphasis to be greater on the overall community side,” Werner said.

That need is underlined by a 2020 study done for the city that estimated the city’s carbon footprint. It estimated that Concord as a whole emits “495,905 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent” each year: 50% from the commercial sector, 48% from the residential sector and just 2% from local government operations. In other words, even if local government became totally net-zero tomorrow, it would only make a small difference.

The study estimated that fuel used to heat and cool buildings was the largest source of emissions (35%), followed by transportation fuel (28%), electricity use (18%) and industrial processes (15%).

This helps explain why the city has given itself an extra two decades to transfer all heating and cooling to renewables.

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The most obvious change that has happened so far is the replacement of the city’s more than 3,000 streetlights with LEDs, greatly cutting electricity use and saving an estimated $600,000 in power bills over the next decade. A couple of electric vehicle charging stations have also been installed for city vehicles, public charging stations are being considered and Concord has just put out a request for proposals to install a large solar farm on the Old Turnpike Road landfill, just as Manchester has done, and has grants to help install solar at the wastewater treatment plant.

There is also the possibility of resurrecting a private solar farm on West Portsmouth Street rejected in 2018 because of existing regulations about the amount of “impervious surface” allowed in a development.

The city also points to a power purchase agreement for hydropower from the Penacook Lower Falls dam.

Werner pointed to two major possibilities that could go a long way toward meeting renewable-electricity goals. One is the construction of large offshore wind farms, which will sharply raise the percentage of New England electricity that is renewable, and the other is the possibility of Concord having a community power agreement that will give it more ability to buy power from renewable sources.

A subtle but important change involves adjustments in the city zoning code to encourage mixed use of housing and commercial buildings to cut down on people’s need for car trips, reducing transportation emissions. Those changes are still in the works, having been slowed partly by staff shortages in the Community Development Department.

Among the obstacles are the state government’s lack of sympathy to clean energy, such as the Public Utilities Commission’s gutting of the NH Saves program just as Concord was about to launch a city-wide weatherizing program to reduce heating costs.

And city actions don’t always line up with clean-energy goals. Two small examples: Beaver Meadow Golf Club decided it couldn’t wait for electric golf carts to be delivered so the city bought gas-powered ones instead, and when the police department used a grant to beef up patrols on city trails, it bought gas-powered ATVs rather than e-bikes or other electric off-road vehicles. In both cases the gas-powered version was cheaper and easier to get but will be adding to the city’s carbon footprint for years to come.

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