1. Energy Efficiency on Maine Islands
Benjamin Algeo
Island Institute
Rockland, ME
NEGEF Sustainability Summit
September 17, 2016
- Introduction
Quick summary
Background on the Island Institute (who we are and what we do)
Energy challenges across the islands
Strategy we use to address those challenges
How this strategy might work in other situations

2. ISLAND INSTITUTE  
The Island Institute works to sustain Maine's island and remote coastal communities, and exchanges ideas and experiences to further the sustainability of communities here and elsewhere. 
Quick overview of the Island Institute
Mission statement
“in Maine and elsewhere”
33 year-old membership-driven organization
Constituent communities
Penobscot Bay
Casco Bay
Remote Coastal Communities
5 key program areas
Marine
Community Development
Economic Development
Education
Energy

3. The Island Institute Community Energy Program
We partner with communities to reduce energy costs on Maine’s year-round islands.
Community Energy Program Overview
Work to lower energy costs on Maine islands
EE (will talk about in this session)
Education
Planning
RE project support
Work on a community level

4. Steps to Address Energy Challenges within a Community
Build Capacity
Identify energy leaders in the community
Planning
Identify unique community energy needs, create goals to meet those needs, and a plan to meet those goals
Action
Take steps to meet goals identified in Step 2
Energy efficiency first!
Renewable energy
Policy changes
Strategy we’ve adopted to address high energy costs
3 steps
Idea is to take care of the lowest hanging fruit first, and maintain buy-in
The rest of this session is going to focus on the strategy we’ve adopted to address the first step

5. Island Energy Challenges
High energy costs
Old housing stock
Oil dependent
Old, inefficient technology
Common issue identified across communities is high energy costs
Maine islands pay high rates for electricity and heating fuel. Electric rates as high as $0.70/kWh, and significant fuel delivery premiums.
Maine has some of the oldest housing stock in the nation, and the islands are no exception
Talk about staying at Allie’s in the winter
Maine also has a high level of oil dependency for heating, and this is more true on islands where there’s no access to NG, and electric heating can be too costly
Logistical challenges related to shipping and disposing of large appliances reduces the incentive to buy newer, energy efficient heating systems, re.frigerators, washers, etc..
With these challenges, efficiency makes a lot of sense

6. Barriers Limited awareness of programs Contractor/vendor availability
Additional cost – up to 30%
Logistical challenges
Efficiency
To understand why we’ve adopted this strategy, we first have to look at some of the common barriers to investing in energy efficiency goods or services
List barriers, and describe with examples
Limited awareness: incentive structures can be difficult to understand and change from time, and often people’s primary source of information is a vendor (what are they trying to sell me?)
Contractor availability: no qualifying contractors on Maine islands, few are willing to travel
Additional cost: reason most contractors don’t want to travel, hard to justify cost increases
Logistical challenges: what happens when equipment breaks and you have to keep a crew on an island for an extra day
How do we overcome these barriers?

7. Collective Purchasing
Purchasing Power Costs Vendor/Contractor Interest Impact/Participation Quality Information
Pooling purchasing power across a community to facilitate the widespread adoption of energy efficiency services and products
Efficiency
Define collective purchasing
Explain benefits
Takes advantage of economies of scale
Collective purchasing is collective action, with a collective impact
If one person wants to weatherize their home, they have to pay for the barge themselves, convince a contractor to come out to an island and risk cost overruns, and do all the necessary research themselves, and pay for the whole thing themselves.
If that person goes in with their neighbors they can split barging costs, have more jobs for a contractor (which makes the work more attractive), devote more time to researching options/contractors, and leverage additional financial incentives through grants, fuel assistance funds, etc…
Also increases the impact of efficiency work, and civic engagement around energy in the community.

8. Weatherization Week 355 homes reached on 13 islands
15% of island housing stock
$118,884 in annual savings
4,867,800 lbs in annual avoided CO2 emissions
Weatherization Week is exactly what I just described
Island Institute has been working with local partners since 2012 to get 4 – 10 homeowners together to go in on assessments, air sealing, and weatherization services.
Have a contractor come out for a week
We coordinate logistics and scheduling, help with targeted outreach, and vendor selection
Caught on pretty quickly
Go through results

9. LED Bulk Purchase Groups
2,300 bulbs delivered to Monhegan
900 bulbs delivered to Matinicus
4,047 gallons of diesel fuel saved annually
$22,000 in predicted annual ratepayer savings
90,571 lbs. of CO2
LED bulk purchase groups are another example of collective purchasing
Purpose of the program was to replace old, inefficient incandescent light bulbs with LEDs
Piloted on two islands, Monhegan and Matinicus
Unique because they aren’t connected to the mainland electric grid, and use diesel generators for their power source
Very dirty, very expensive ($0.70/kWh)
Worked with a local electrical supply distributor to get a volume markdown on light bulbs
Used grant funds to mark down the price even further
Went out to the island and held an initial information session
Handed out order forms and gave people a few weeks to sign up
Brought the bulbs out en masse, using grant funds and volunteers to cover shipping costs
Results

10. Other Examples Talk through the other ways that this model is used
Solarize
Could be used for any other project where costs could be cut and access increased by going in together
Community composting
Heat pump bulk purchase groups

11. Questions? Island Institute Community Energy Program
Efficiency Maine Collective Purchase Video
Don’t forget to plug the website and EMT video!
Benjamin Algeo | Community Energy Associate | Island Institute |