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02/16/2021 01:27 PMThe Energy Committee is officially back in action. At a meeting on Feb. 3 the Town Council appointed Paul Gebauer, Douglas Astry, Eileen O’Donnell, Paul Neri, William Greim, Zachary Plourde, and Aidan Moran to the reinvigorated committee.
Clinton had an energy committee from around 2014 to 2017, but that original committee ran into issues after Eversource substantially changed its department devoted to community outreach, which stymied the efforts of the committee.
“We really relied on them for a lot of our outreach stuff and a lot of our projects,” said Gebauer, who chaired the original committee.
Additionally, Gebauer explained the original committee had a small membership and then in 2018 the Energy Committee was converted into the Sustainability Committee, which undertook similar but different initiatives.
“We were a really small committee then and I think with a bigger committee we can get around that. I think we left some things on the table so we have some unfinished business we can fix,” Gebauer said of overcoming the challenges that plagued the first committee.
Now that the committee is reformed, it will look to help with reducing energy costs for residents and businesses and reducing environmental impacts. Examples of the kinds of projects that could be done include cataloging all energy consumption at municipal and school buildings to assess usage trends and then address issues from there, converting the town’s fleet of vehicles to electric, spreading awareness of energy saving programs to homeowners and businesses, and exploring the possibility of turning a landfill at 117 Old Nod Road into a solar panel farm.
The committee hasn’t started meeting yet as of press time since not every member has been sworn in yet. Gebauer said he has already been setting up tasks the committee can work on by reaching out to different partners that can help with the energy use data and looking at different energy initiatives that the committee can help raise awareness for in the coming weeks and months.
“We are hitting the ground running. I think we have a really good crew here,” Gebauer said.