ESC Residential Consortium Minutes 13119

ESC Residential Consortium Minutes from January 31, 2019 Meeting was called to order at 2:03 pm Eastern Time Attendance: Black Hills Energy Ruth Hietbrink Columbia Gas Joe Codispoti Enbridge Gas Susan Cudahy MDU Amanda Sargent National Fuel Marti Sawyer National Fuel Ashley Butera New Jersey Natural Gas Craig Trautweiler NW Natural Carollyn Farrar NW Natural Brenda Hartzog NW Natural John Frankel UGI Kim Geder TMAF: Barb reminded everyone that registration for TMAF was open and there was still time to register to attend. The location is Miami, FL at the Marriott in Biscayne Bay. The dates are February 26 – 28. It was noted that the hotel block at the Marriott has been filled, but there are still rooming options available if you would like to attend. You can still secure a room at the Marriott for a price of ~$400/night. You also have an option of staying at the hotel next door, a Double Tree by Hilton Grand, for around $230/night. If you have any questions you can contact Barb or Stephanie Moran. Also, there is a supplemental CHP workshop being held from February 28 – March 1. Please keep in mind that you must register for the workshop if you plan to attend; registering for TMAF does not include registration for the workshop. There is also an additional fee to attend the workshop. IBS Consortium: Prior to the holidays, ESC found out that AGA would no longer be supporting the International Builder Show (IBS) through its booth. AGA has been an active participant at the International Builder Show for decades. In an effort to maintain a natural gas presence at this key event, ESC decided to take over the AGA booth provided we received adequate support from members. We announced just after the New Year that we had garnered that support and we would be forming the IBS Consortium. The kick off for this new group will be held at TMAF in Miami. If any company is interested in learning more about this effort or if they want to join, please contact Barb. New members can join at any time and your company does not have to attend the IBS in order to be part of the consortium. Discussion of vendors who display in the booth to which messages to share from the booth will be on-going events. Barb will be attending this year to gather as much knowledge as possible from Tracy Burleson before ESC officially takes over. DOE: On our last call, we discussed the latest developments with the ongoing saga of the proposed residential furnace ruling. It was relayed that AGA has supported changes in the DOE minimum efficiency product classes for vented gas-fired space and water heating appliances that would establish different product classes for equipment based on whether the products were non-condensing types or condensing. The different classes could have different efficiencies. AGA’s thought is that the main differences in venting characteristics and installation practices between non-condensing and condensing appliances and equipment merit the separation. AGA (and others such as APGA and Spire) filed a petition asking DOE to create separate classes, that petition was filed in the November 1st Federal Register. However, the DOE received two requests from interested parties asking for an extension of the comment period to develop additional data relevant to the petition. As a result, the comment period has been extended by 30 days; DOE will accept comments in response to the notice of petition for rulemaking until March 1, 2019. AGA also noted that the petitioners for the 30-day extension are typically organizations that support elimination of non-condensing types of gas fired heating and water heating equipment (as well as support for “electrification” or the elimination of natural gas appliances in homes and businesses). We will keep you up-to-date on any new developments. Talking Points on Emissions: During the month of January, a New York based economic research firm, the Rhodium Group, released a study that revealed that after three years of decline, U.S. CO2 emissions rose by approximately 3.4 percent in 2018. As a matter of fact, the release of these preliminary findings caused some industry observers to question the role of natural gas in helping to drive future emission reductions. In response, Richard Meyer, AGA, posted a blog noting that there is a key element from 2018 that had not been fully investigated. Based on 2018 data, it is clear that the primary reason for the rise in CO2 emissions is increased energy use associated with weather and economic growth. In addition, natural gas played a considerable role in meeting the resulting increased energy needs. To assist with your outreach efforts, AGA has developed talking points that both respond to some of the preliminary findings of the Rhodium Group study as well as speak to the role of natural gas in a low carbon future. The talking points are posted with the minutes. Open Discussion: In an effort to maximize the time allotted during the Residential Kickoff session in Miami, ESC would like to gather some topics of discussion beforehand. Craig Trautweiler from New Jersey Natural Gas will be pulling all the topics of interest together and ranking the most repeated topics to discuss. Even if you are not planning on attending TMAF in Miami, please submit your topics anyway. We will discuss what we can in 30 minutes and the balance can become agenda items for our monthly phone meetings. Please provide the following: List up to three challenges/concerns you or your company has had over the last year? List up to three success/breakthroughs you or your company has had over the last year? Examples: Application Process, CRM, CIS, Energy Efficiency Programs, Search Tools, Conversions vs. New Construction, Social Media (Facebook, Google, etc.) Please provide the above information by the end of business on Thursday, February 14th to Craig at [email protected] Barb asked if any members have been facing competition from ductless mini split systems. She shared that UGI Utilities had recently mentioned this to Eric Burgis as they have been losing out to these units. Specifically, they have come across units manufactured by Mitsubishi and Fujitsu. The Mitsubishi unit claims Hyper-Heating performance down to -13° F outdoor ambient and 100% heating capacity at 5° F outdoor ambient. The Fujitsu units claims savings of 24%. Barb has reached out to GTI to see what they know about these units and if their claims are accurate. Marti Sawyer, National Fuel, which has a location in the northwestern corner of PA noted she has seen these units installed in their service territory; especially in areas where there aren’t gas lines. She also mentioned that National Fuel will be doing a “case study” with an apartment complex in the area. National Fuel will be installing gas furnaces in half of the complex and the other half will have an electric heat pump. National Fuel plans to gather info and do their own comparison of gas vs electric. Marti noted that National Fuel had worked on a previous project (town house/apts) with the developer where they installed gas furnaces as a replacement to electric strip heating. Marti will keep us apprised of the results of this case study. Ashley Butera, National Fuel, asked if any members on the call had any successes with social media that they would like to share? Craig Trautweiler shared that NJNG had spent about 1 ½ years using Google and analytics. While he agreed it is important to have a presence on social media; he did feel that if you want to get results with a call to action (like a conversion to gas) in his opinion a postcard mailing is the way to go. NJNG recently did a postcard campaign and it was a huge success. Barb offered to do a member survey for Ashley if she wanted more info on this subject. With no further discussion topics the meeting was ended at 2:35 pm.