ESC Residential Consortium Minutes 031419

ESC Residential Consortium Minutes from March 14, 2019 Meeting was called to order at 2:03 pm Eastern Time Attendance: Atmos Bridget Wallace Black Hills Energy Joe Terick CenterPoint Energy Ryan Duggan CenterPoint Energy Kathryn Knudson DTE Energy Rosana Laurain DTE Energy Jim Leidel National Fuel Marti Sawyer National Fuel Ashley Butera New Jersey Natural Gas Craig Trautweiler NW Natural Carollyn Farrar Piedmont Natural Gas Beth Potts Puget Sound Energy Mari Davenport TMAF: Barb reminded everyone that registration for the next TMAF is now open. The location is Montreal, CA at the Hotel Omni Mont-Royal; from June 4 – 6. Don’t be alarmed when you see the rate for the hotel, it is stated in Canadian currency. Barb noted that there will also be a foodservice track at the Montreal TMAF. DOE: The DOE recently announced up to $42 million will be spent on projects to support R&D of innovative residential and commercial technologies geared toward energy efficiency. The projects that pertain to the natural gas industry are: Michigan Technology University: This project will focus on developing a next-generation dessicant-based clothes dryer that will simultaneously dehumidify and heat the vented drum air at elevated temperatures. Gas Technology Institute: This team is to develop a grid resilient, self-powered, fuel flexible drop-in thermoelectric generator integrated advanced burner. This will be for both residential and commercial structures. Stone Mountain Technologies: This research group will look into the use of aluminum for the evaporators in an ammonia-water absorption heat pump. This would result in a significant reduction to the weight of the unit and its cost. Oak Ridge Labs (ORNL): This project will work on the use of a highly porous material to develop a next generation natural gas-driven commercial boiler. This new unit would be about half the size of current boilers. Suggestions from TMAF: During the residential discussion on Thursday, February 28, it was discussed that members thought it would be useful to share the marketing materials that were being used to communicate with customers. ESC had done this quite a few years ago. If members would like to start this again, we can have a discussion during TMAF in June. In light of the fact that not all members can travel to TMAF, anyone who wants to share their marketing materials with others can send Barb a pdf file and she will post them to the Residential Consortium members only section of the ESC site. Craig Trautweiler, New Jersey Natural, commented that he heard several people mention at TMAF that they would be interested in materials that address low income as well as safety in one brochure (ie: serving a low income senior resident home). If your company has anything along those lines, please share! Sharing Successes and Failures: Prior to the February TMAF, Craig Trautweiler, New Jersey Natural, proposed that we poll ESC members who were responsible for residential customers and ask them to share the top success/breakthroughs and challenges/failures that they have been faced with. The plan was to gather this information prior to TMAF and discuss these items during the residential kickoff at TMAF. We also felt that the most popular topics could become discussion items for future residential consortium calls. We did hear from 3 companies and the topics mentioned were similar: labor shortage for installation of gas lines; incentives used to generate conversions; messages being sent to customers, especially to encourage conversions; managing starter homes and the higher first cost associated with gas appliances; heat pumps. If anyone would like to start a discussion on any of these topics, or any other topic, please share with Barb and we can arrange to discuss on a future call. Open Discussion: Beth Potts, Piedmont Natural Gas, shared that she felt the AGA Playbook (which is available for download on the AGA site at aga.org ) was nicely done and contained some great information that could be used for customer communications. Bridget Wallace, Atmos Energy, asked when was the last time that the CO tool was updated by OpSolve. Barb mentioned that she had reached out to the ESC contact at OpSolve prior to TMAF but had not heard back from them. Bridget also felt the tool needed a “facelift” to have a more contemporary look. All on the call agreed! Barb suggested that she would attempt to contact OpSolve again and also ask if they would supply a quote to update both the data and appearance of the tool. Barb will also look to gather other quotes as well so the consortium could make an educated decision on how to move forward. If anyone wants to access the current tool, it can be found here. http://www.energydepot.com/ResidentialEnergyCalculator/ Craig Trautweiler mentioned that he would like to hear about how members are using GIS systems. Both Bridget Wallace, Atmos Energy, and Marti Sawyer, National Fuel, shared how GIS assisted their companies in seeking which properties to solicit for conversion to gas. Barb offered to do a member survey for Craig is he wanted more info. Anyone who wants to share with Craig can contact him at [email protected] Barb shared with the group that we will have a webinar during our next two meetings. April’s webinar will be presented by Shannon Jackson, Southeast Gas and Carollyn Farrar, Northwest Natural, will provide May’s webinar. Watch your email for more info! With no further discussion topics the meeting was ended at 2:45 pm.