High School Building Project: High School Solar and HVAC Recommendations - 2026-10-01

AI-generated summary. Written by gemini-3.5-flash from the transcript below, which is the record. It may be incomplete or wrong; it does not report votes. Every item links to the moment it began.

The advisory team voted on key design recommendations for the Medford High School building project, approving an air-to-water heat pump mechanical system and a solar power purchase agreement.

0:41 Air-Source Heat Pump System Recommendation — The team voted unanimously to recommend the roof-mounted air-to-water heat pump mechanical system, known as Option 3, to the building committee.
9:44 Solar Photovoltaic System Selection — Following a detailed review of financial models and incentives, the team voted to recommend a 100% power purchase agreement (Option PV2) to maximize net-zero energy readiness, contingent on further design and pool-heating compliance reviews.

[Matt Rice]: All right, so we are three minutes in, so why don't we just dive right into it. Um, again, folks that are maybe watching after the fact, this is our 7th advisory team meeting for the sustainability and systems group for the Medford high school project. It is impressive that we are meeting number 7, our last site safety security. We're only on meeting 4. so there's been a lot of input and we appreciate all the hours that folks have dedicated to contributing to the development of the high school design. uh, trajectory that we're on here. So, um, we will move just really quickly into the agenda.

And folks on the estimate team will note that I added 1 agenda item right at the top, which is a recommendation of our system. If for those that were at the last advisory teaming that we had with this group, you'll recall that we got through the discussion on the system. There was a recommendation that was made, but because we did not. Advertise in advance that we would be making sort of a vote on a recommendation here. We decided to table that until the start of this meeting. So we're going to do that right at the outset before we jump into the rest of the topics and just a reminder on what we are voting on here. I know we mentioned this at the last meeting, but it is worth repeating. The process that has been established is that each advisory team for the scope items that are put before them, sort of their areas of expertise. What we vote on for each of those items is a recommendation back to the building committees. The building committee is the entity that is making the decision on whether or not scope gets included, modified, eliminated from the building project moving forward. But the building committee is going to be leaning on the expertise of each of the advisory teams. And I do have some faith that will, there will be trust and appreciation for the thought that has been put into each of those recommendations that comes to the building committee. Um, and I'm not sure if anyone wants to do just a quick summary. I don't have any slides queued up in here. So, and I think that is intentional that we don't want to dwell necessarily. We did send out a quick note summarizing sort of that this was coming to the entirety of the advisory team in advance to see if there was any questions in advance. I don't believe that we received any questions specifically on this particular topic. As we go forward, but certainly wanted to provide an opportunity for any additional discussion. If folks have it. I don't know if if Andy, you want to give just a quick description of what that recommendation is just so that folks that are listening as well understand what we're going to be voting on a recommendation for.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, the. The recommended system was the full air source heat pump system. So that's a roof mounted air to water heat pumps generating both chill water and hot water as seasonally required. This option is, you know, complies with the all electric desire as I understand it. And it also works well with the phasing of the project. It eliminates the need for any temporary rental systems that would have to be in place to support the phased construction. So these air source heat pumps can just be installed, you know, a group of them on phase one to support the phase one scope and then the remaining group on phase two to support that scope.

[Matt Rice]: And maybe just some of the quick points in terms of why we arrived at this decision. I think the biggest things out there are that on the 1st cost side of things, this is the most cost effective system will represent a reduction in the total project cost from what we had assumed in the budget at our previous milestone. It is the most cost effective on the 50 year life cycle cost analysis as well, in terms of the overall operational replacement costs, energy consumption costs over that 50 year life. That's what we presented at the last meeting. And then I'm not sure if it's most importantly, but maybe most notably. by moving to this air to water heat pump system. All of our heat rejection and accepting equipment is up on the roof and avoids locating any geothermal wells on deed-restricted property that would come along with the real Article 97 permitting process and everything that is wrapped up into that. So, there was a variety of benefits that drove us in that particular direction to the recommendation. I guess, are there are there any other thoughts or comments from the advisory team before we go ahead and make a motion to vote on.

[izVdDtzaCdw_SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, Matt. Sorry I missed the last minute. I just have 1 follow up from the conversation that was had and. I know that the pool is represented separately and maybe not part of this, but I'm just curious. If, um, because it will still be 1 building and because it's. Operational use is so extensive if. Incorporating that into a full whole building life cycle cost analysis would. either of the other systems as more beneficial, if that's something that, it doesn't sound like you've done that analysis. I just sort of gut check, wondering if that would be something that you could talk about.

[Martine Dion]: Yeah, it's in progress, but really, Sunny, that would not impact the decision on the air to water heat pump, because for the pool, what we're comparing is really is the pool hot water heating between fossil fuel and electrical. The pool HVAC system is the, you know, it's the same, it's gonna be the same as the school.

[Martine Dion]: Right, right. So it's only the, you know, the pool heating that we're comparing that LCCA.

[Matt Rice]: All right, I'm not seeing any other hands. So I guess we always sort of struggle with our formality. Jenny does this much better at the full building committee. But I guess if our motion or our suggested recommendation that we want to vote on is the air to water source heat pump mechanical system for the project moving forward. I think what number option was that in our?

[Matt Rice]: Yeah, option three. I'm going to lean on Helen to do her roll call because she did a very good job.

[Kimberly Talbot]: But Libby, did you have something to say? Do you need someone to move to make a motion? Yeah, there you go. I move to recommend option three.

[Kimberly Talbot]: Thanks, Ken. All right, I will go down the list. Although it's funny, your names keep moving in the list. All right, I'll go with Ken first because he doesn't say Ken, says Medford Public Schools. Ken.

[Member Paul Ruseau]: Yes, although I'm a non-voting member, so I don't know if I'm a voting member of this.

[Kimberly Talbot]: I think you are. If you're a named person, yes, then yes. Okay, so Paul is yes. Sam?

[Matt Rice]: Brenda was. Great. We're very welcoming here too. We just want everyone to know.

[Kimberly Talbot]: Okay, Sunny. Yes. Okay, did I miss anyone? Because again, names keep shifting in the list. Okay, that was 100% affirmative. Thank you, and I will tally that up for the notes. Thanks, everybody.

[Matt Rice]: Maybe I should have told everyone before we all voted on it, but we will be looking for a member of the advisory team to actually share that recommendation back to the building committee. We can certainly do it if we need to as a design team, but we feel it comes better from 1 of the team members. So those that are both here and also at the building committee, we may tap you to share the recommendation with the larger group once we get there.

[Matt Rice]: We're going to turn it over to Martine for walkthrough some photovoltaic information.

[Martine Dion]: Yes, so I won't repeat everything, like the first few slides are what we already presented briefly last week. So I'm not going to go into details, but we are looking at a mix of high canopy and low for the roof, low ballasted and, you know, the stripped what we call parking cover. parking space cover only in long span for the parking. Next.

[Kimberly Talbot]: I'm not seeing Matt's screen. Is everyone else seeing the screen? Yeah. Okay.

[Kenneth Lord]: Proceed. Up at the top, you might have to flip between. You might be on the meeting tab instead of Matt.

[Martine Dion]: So basically from last week again, we did a preliminary assessment of the site capacity, both at the roof level and at the parking level to see how close we could get to the 100% net zero. And we can be very close with these sort of hybrid, you know, high canopy for a lot of the new construction and low ballasted canopy at those existing roof and then a mix of the, you know, long span and more sparsely covered areas for the parking. So, we are working with Solar Design Associates for these assessments. Next.

[Matt Rice]: I'm just going to point out on this slide as well. I believe these are the red areas. We're showing them as red and we're breaking them out right? Because we do not have the ability to put solar canopies on the deed restricted property as we understand it from DCR because they would not necessarily be directly supporting the recreational use similar to how the bleachers or the toilet rooms are. So, we are working within the other acreage for sort of viable ground mounted canopy areas.

[Martine Dion]: Right and these are going to be continued to be updated as some of the site design progresses. Last week, we talked about the ownership of the PV system, the solar photovoltaic system versus power purchase agreement. There's pros and cons. The PPA owns everything and then provides for a negotiated 20-year fixed utility rate. and but but in you know that sometimes can bring some challenges and getting the um depending on the contract um agreements details and fully obtaining the full commissioning required commissioning documentation from the ppa is sometimes challenging and we've had projects where those points were not approved by gbci

When the school owns, then all of the financial benefits go to the school. So tonight, we're going to show you again on a schematic design level, what does that look like in terms of money, in terms of the life cycle of the solar PV. I just want to note that we learned this week Thankfully, before this meeting, we learned that the City of Medford has an agreement on many of their municipal buildings through PPAs and through power options. So we were able to meet with them, which was great. So some of their

feedback and information is folded into what we're going to show you tonight. It looks like you have a great, Medford has a great sort of established collaboration with this entity. And I think that's going to help if that gets, you know, if they get sort of folded into the process here. So next slide. So last week, again, we presented sort of the high level cost of the system. We only had the kilowatt hours last week, but with some good recommendation, we went back and brought the kilowatt or megawatt sizing. For the project, we need between 5.5 and 6 megawatt to get to 100% net zero energy.

Right now, what we were able to assess at schematic design level gets us up to pretty much 5 megawatts. We're slightly short, but as we go through the design, with PV, what I've seen in most of our projects is things get honed enough that we can expand a bit the capacity. So, what will be important tonight to understand that is that. We're going to show you what the capacity is for the site that the life cycle sort of. Life cycle analysis of, you know, the solar PV system, but we're also looking for you to.

make a recommendation similar to what you did for the HVAC system. Make a recommendation for ownership or PPA for the PV and at what level. In the schematic design, to the right here in the comments column, you'll see three options, PV1, PV2, PV3. In the PSR estimate, we had these three options priced. The first one was basically a low ballasted PV system on the roof. When you look at the allocated area that could be usable for PV, it's probably about 50% of the roof. And that option only brings us 20% of the net zero energy.

Whereas if we optimize to what we've assessed with solar design associate on the roof with a hybrid low ballasted and high canopy, we can go up to 50% net zero on the roof. For the parking, we looked at the majority of the parking, like I mentioned earlier, and then a hybrid again of long span and parking space only. For the PSR estimate, we'd looked at 100%, which that, I'm sorry, that parking assessment brings another 50%. What's sort of is equivalent to that in terms of the pricing, it was the PV2. So the PV2 had 100%

net zero energy provided by a PPA and what the PSR estimate alternate provided was for the structure for the panels at the parking. And that was about 28, almost $29 million. What we found out this week is that the majority of PPAs now pay for the structure. So in the lifecycle analysis, we accounted for that. And I'll show you that in a minute. And we reduced that alternate to what it would be, or would be estimated to be.

So the PPA is PV2, and then the fully owned system would accumulate to about $40 million, and the battery storage, about $5 million. So it's about $45 million more or less to own it. What was priced in the PSR was a bit higher. It was 59 million dollars, which including the battery. Just to explain the difference between the two is that we work with solar design associates and we also just got very recently some systems to be constructed pricing. And so a full design system that's being priced. Oh, that image disappeared, Matt.

And so our price here at 45 million is based on these very recent, recent estimates versus, um, you know, the, the estimators high level pricing next.

[Matt Rice]: Sorry, Martine. I'm just going to clarify. And that's why I pulled this down and I realized I was on mute. So I was explaining it and then you guys couldn't hear me. Um, but I think this is, um, okay. I think this will help just clarify this also for folks that are viewing it afterwards at home. So, let me put this back up. And it looks like our notes down below also need to be tweaked. So, we'll do that for the last one when we post this up.

[Martine Dion]: Okay. So, this is it. So, when we look at PV1, which is only 20% net zero and about one megawatt overall, No battery storage included. The estimated cost of that, about $3 million. The estimated annual savings, and there's a lot of notes below because we were putting some of our estimates. The option one, the PV1, owned as a 8.7 and about nine year payback. The option two, which is a 100% power purchase agreement, to which we have reduced the cost from the PSR estimate, because the PPA would provide for the canopy structure, that has about a 14-year payback.

And then the PV3, which is where the City of Medford would fully own the solar PV system, parking, roof, and battery storage. $45 million. As you can see here, it brings a lot of revenues. It's a high number, because the different revenues from the utility on the battery, peak load management, peak savings, just energy savings overall, and then the state smart programs, some of the state incentives, all accumulate to this estimate. However, it's still quite high as a cost up front, and it's got a payback that doesn't make the life cycle of the system. Most PV systems are 20 to 25 years. The life cycle is 20 to 25 years. Now, that said, many last longer, but

Some of their parts, the panels last, but the inverters, some of the components need to be replaced, and that's all built into what we're going to see in the next slide soon. The one thing I want to mention is these yearly savings would bring some uh, you know, cash flow savings, the debt savings and some communities do calculate that and sort of sort of look at how much that would impact the payback. So that's why I put that there. This is not something that that we do, but that would need to be done at the city level. Um,

And so we just wanted to have this there for you to understand that there could be some more reduction. That said, my understanding is that the CEO of Medford has a really good, you know, like I said earlier, really good collaboration with some PPAs. So next we're going to see the life cycle, the 20-year life cycle. So, the PV1 over 20 years saves It's a small, you know, it's a small, I shouldn't say small, but it's a smaller system. And it brings, you know, some considerable annual savings. And you can see here some of the estimates for the incentives. So it has a saving over 20 years, estimated at $2 million, whereas

The PPA with a bit of cost upfront, but some of the estimated financial benefits are much lower. also comes in at, you know, I would say cost neutral, you know, a bit of savings there. The one thing to note for the estimated 20-year annual savings or revenues for the PPAs, what we learned this week is that our original estimate was much more lower. We learned this week that some of the contractual agreements of recent PPAs are really compelling in terms of providing you for a much lower fixed utility rate for 20 years than your current utility costs, but also than what we've seen in the past.

The 20-year savings are are pretty compelling compared to what we've seen in the past. And then the PV3, the fully owned system, as you will see here, doesn't fully, even with all of the estimated savings, which is a lot, it doesn't recuperate the full amount of the initial cost invested. And again, we've seen other community to do their cash flow analysis and that helped, but there's a 21 million gap here that is quite a challenge to catch up upon.

So this is where we are now. I believe that's the next one is just takeaways, Matt. Next slide.

[Matt Rice]: Yeah, let's go forward and then I want to come back and just because I want to make sure that we touch on the asterisks that are here. Martine, I know you explained the one on the right-hand side in terms of the cash flow debt savings, but I want to make sure that we cover these as well.

[Martine Dion]: I'm sure people will have questions about a lot of the numbers here. PV1 obviously is feasible, affordable to own, What we have here as a takeaway is that I think it's important to consider that if you only do the roof, that the electrical infrastructure is sized for PV readiness for future expansion because of the process to go through with the utility. If there would be more upgrades in the future, you'd probably have to have more upgrades to the infrastructure and have to go through the utility process. What we're recommending for PV1 here is that the whole infrastructure is built for 100% NZE, so you have that flexibility and you don't have to go back through the utility process. PV2, obviously, you do not have, you have a small upfront cost, a little more than PV1, but then you get 100% net zero through a PPA agreement.

That cost that we have, that $4 million upfront cost for PV2, includes everything that has to do with the underground site infrastructure conduits and components that would be needed for the parking canopy. And I know there are options to buy or own following the 20-year contract. Then PV3, most expensive, it's got considerable annual revenues, but again, it doesn't have a good payback. Then it means PV3, you own the system, so you have to maintain and manage all the utility net metering in the peak, the battery storage management, energy management, et cetera.

[Matt Rice]: Okay, so I see there's a couple of hands up and I think it's a great point to stop and have a discussion. I do want to circle back to this. If everyone can see my cursor, the asterisk that's on this number, which is the estimated installation costs associated with PV2. Because while it's not up here, I think what this asterisk stands for is this is where Martine and Matt were haggling. Um, onto like, what the correct number should be in terms of this particular scope that's represented in the 4.3Million dollars. And Martin did note it on the last slide is it's really the infrastructure that would have to get added to the baseline scope. to enable the ground mounted PV canopies to get connected back to the main electric room and additional space allocations and conduit to accept the additional electrical equipment that would be in the main electric room, not the equipment itself, but really the space considerations. So, I think the only thing we can tell you with a complete level of certainty right now is that we don't know exactly what that number is. I'm of the personal mind that it is probably less than 4.3M dollars. I think Martine is thinking it might want to be a little bit more than 4.3M dollars, but we honestly don't have the ability to tell you exactly what it is right now.

It would be will be something that we can estimate once we get to the end of the schematic design phase when we're running the rest of the estimates and give a much harder number. And then that's when the bet between Martine and I will be 1, but I want people to understand that that this is a little bit of an unknowable at the moment. And understand that we could caveat the vote to approve it, given that we may not want to be looking to add 4.3Million dollars worth of initial capital cost to the overall project by making that vote going forward. So I wanted to point out that nuance and happy to talk about that a little bit further if we go.

[Andre Leroux]: I've got a few questions, but maybe I'll just run on what you just said. Is that cost 4.3 directly related to. The canopy project. Or is it stuff that's additional because if it's directly related to the canopy project, that cost is 0.

[Martine Dion]: No, the canopy is out, but the PPA stops their canopy support at the canopy foundation. The project has to bring conduits from the electric infrastructure all the way to the parking lot. And we also need to have certain, like Matt said, there's certain like sizing of electrical rooms and that type of stuff that all have to be part of the, it's part of the owner's cost. And then the structure itself, which was 28 million. So there's 23, 24 million that got reduced from that 28 million. That is the canopy. That was the canopy.

[Andre Leroux]: I guess I would just say, I think, I mean, Everything's negotiable right that that that. I, in my personal and professional experience, I have signed a where we, as as. The owner have have said, we will take it all the way to the electrical room. Right? So I think that that's. That is something that that can be considered. I, I wouldn't. I would view that as hard and fast to the commitment.

[Martine Dion]: I think that's a good point that Matt, we could add as an end note. It's a good point. Everything's negotiable, so it could be negotiated. That's why we have it in italic there. I know it's a small nuance, but I think there's more to be Provided at the with the schematic design estimate in terms of what that would be if it was our costs, and then maybe that would be negotiated as part of the.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, my, my 2nd question, and it's not something that we can necessarily see here, but I'm just wondering if. If we can run some of these analyses and some of these savings estimates with. Some of the electricity rates and some of the other items that Alicia has given to you all. Um, because it sounds like the, the, the. The cost the electrical tariff that the sub that the city would be subject to for this building is is. Maybe a lot lower than some of the modeling here would indicate and so I just want to, or maybe maybe it's not. I just want to see, like, are we comparing. Are we conducting like a pure apples to apples comparison?

[Martine Dion]: So, yeah, if you look at the 1st note. Right now, your rate right now, your current rate with the utility is 22 cents a kilowatt hour. And that's what we were given by Brenda when from the conversation with power options and select. They said that the rates, they gave us a very much lower rate, but they said that was just for the supply, not the peak. So we made a reduction within the blended rate. So their reduction is not affecting the demand charges. It's only affecting the portion of the bill that's the charge per kilowatt hour.

[Director Alicia Hunt]: Martin, can I just, we should just follow up and make sure I'm curious. I'm going to check in with Brenda where the 20 if the 22 cents was supply plus distribution, like the all in 15 cents.

[Martine Dion]: The 15 cents is what I got from the discussion with select their comment about what their reduction was. And then I made a conservative because they said it ends up in the upper teams. And so. I made an assumption at 15 cents for the blended rate. But we can certainly follow up maybe, you know, Alicia and Austin and look at your rates and the cap, you know, which, you know, is it 12, 13, 15, 10, you know, we can adjust that for sure.

[Director Alicia Hunt]: And I just like to be careful because sometimes when we're talking with electric suppliers, they're talking about the supply rate versus the all in. And so I want to check my numbers.

[Martine Dion]: And that's what he mentioned. The select representative did mention that, and it doesn't include the demand charges. And demand charges are often about 30 to 50% of your bill. So that's why I was a bit conservative there.

[Andre Leroux]: And I think those demand charges are going to be a pretty healthy sum.

[Martine Dion]: Yeah, they already are. And remember, we have a 3% cost escalation that's in there over 20 years. Okay, so we can certainly dive back dive into that map. Maybe that's a separate we can follow up Alicia, maybe through emails and then set a separate meeting. Would that make sense?

[Director Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, well, we'll coordinate with Sam and it might be useful to pull some current electric bills to look at these things.

[Member Paul Ruseau]: here. I'll go ahead. Um, so. The micro micro grid means we could use this facility as an emergency shelter for the city, correct?

[Martine Dion]: What is the micro grid, then the micro grid is really the sort of the. The You, you know, you, you take utility and you give to utility.

[Member Paul Ruseau]: Got it. I understand. Sorry. I, um, so for PV2 and PV3, they both include batteries and microgrid or no.

[Member Paul Ruseau]: There- I guess my question though is like, how can we compare those two if that line doesn't include batteries for PV2, but PV3 does? I mean, certain batteries are very expensive.

[Martine Dion]: They are. So the battery in PV3 is $5 million, and the battery brings you a big chunk of that 23 million, There's the battery savings in there, right? But that 23 million with the battery doesn't get you to your 45 anyway. The PPA, it's really, it's a reduction on your utility costs. It's a different financial component, right? It's a different financial sort of setup for the savings. They make their own. you know, pro forma in terms of what their financials are with all the benefits that they get from the incentives and selling the RECs, for example, or not if you own the RECs. But in the end, for the PPA, whether you have a battery or not, it's not going to change that savings, that utility fixed rate that they will give you. What they told us this week is that they've seen, and they're going to definitely consider the battery, but it seems that sometimes the financials and some of the incentive programs are not panning out to be what they looked like they were going to be on their end. OK.

[Member Paul Ruseau]: I guess I have one more question about, so what happens, I mean, I don't know if these companies are 20 years old, but What happens at 15 years from now, they go belly up?

[Martine Dion]: That is a really good question. We have not seen that, Matt, happen. I mean, would you like me to speak to that a little?

[Director Alicia Hunt]: Absolutely, go on. I've actually seen, there was one of the solar companies that we looked very closely at contracting with in 2012, went out of business in 2013. And I really realized we had dodged a bullet there. because there were buildings left with half installed solar arrays at that point. But we had not contracted for better or worse. Usually, what we've been doing in our contracts is that we write in stuff. It's much easier if you've bought it, but if it's a PPA, there are stuff about what happens when a company goes bankrupt, what happens with who buys it out. and who built these things get taken over, like a company will get taken over. And there is also the potential for, if it's a PPA, for the ownership of that to get sold from the company that originally installed it. to a different company. That's actually what happened with DPW. We've seen literally no change because of that, because they contracted with the original company to do the ongoing maintenance and operations of it. But all of a sudden our, like, because we actually pay them for electricity rather than paying the utility company and all of a sudden these invoices were coming from a company nobody had ever heard of because I got notice about the changing company and DPW got the bills. So it happens but that's why we have really good

lawyers who look at solar contracts, and I will say it's one of the expenses my office has been carrying is these high bills for these high, really, really good lawyers, but they'll look at them very carefully. So that is a thing. And the other piece, just to sort of put a little bit more color on the battery thing, It's sort of like what is the end goal of having the battery? And one of the things, so I've actually talked to two different agencies about batteries this week. And what was really interesting is that one of them was pretty gung-ho about like, I have investors who would pay to like finance having a battery at your building so that we could operate it and get revenue off of it. And you could also see some savings through your electric bill. And then the company that does the PPAs that we were meeting with, that is the company that we are doing PPAs with as a city right now, they basically said that all the stuff around solar and PPAs, those are like long-term, right? Smart program, you get in the smart program, 20 years, you know what your payments are, you know what your incentives are. And the state understands that. But the battery programs right now are only five-year programs. So there's some really great incentives to have a battery on your system right now for the next five years. And we don't know what's going to happen to those incentive programs in five years. And that's one of the issues that they're sort of pushing back to the state, is if you really want people to make these investments in things that are 10 and 20-year products, we need to know what the financing structure, incentive structure is gonna be for 20 years, not five years.

[Martine Dion]: And Alicia, to your point about the five years, thank you for bringing that back, because I remember they mentioned that. The system here that we're talking about wouldn't be installed in five years, right? So that whole program may be different in five years pending, because if they only have a program that goes for five years, they'll learn in the next five years what's happening with those batteries and they may modify it, hopefully to the best, but there's a big risk there.

[Director Alicia Hunt]: Right. So that's part of this idea of not shutting off these opportunities, but also not committing to them right now. Because it may be that in three years, the state has figured this out, and there is a 20-year incentive program for batteries. And all of a sudden, it makes complete financial sense. and we can get a PPA with no upfront costs to us that include battery storage. But some of it is how are we going to use the battery? Is it, I'll be a little technical here, but is it for the peak shaving so we lower our demand costs? Is it to play into the battery systems where we discharge the battery every day as part of the peak load shaving? That's what we do with our DPW battery right now. But we don't know if that peak load shaving program will be there in three or four years, let alone 10 years. That's part of it. I thought I could maybe also address what Austin was asking about the structure and the cost, the dollars you have with the PPA. Um, because part of it, if I understand you correctly is literally that our building has a dollar per square foot attached to every square foot and you need a bigger electrical room. If you have a bigger solar array. And so therefore that is part of your literal architecture building per square foot that may, once you do real estimating, making an electrical room bigger might actually be a different cost than making a classroom, adding another classroom, because it's a more, right? Even if it was literally the same square footage. So that's one piece of it. The other piece that we heard from the company that we met with is around the carports is that, yes, they do everything. But when a project is new construction like this and the ground is getting torn up and we are putting in a new parking lot and we are putting in new underground infrastructure, it makes they would want to have us put in the stuff that's underground as part of our general contractor doing that work. And so we would then carry the cost of it, because they would not it would be kind of silly for us to do everything install our parking lot and then have them come back separately after the GC leaves and do the underground work for the soul for the.

meets the structures, whereas if we're not doing the arrays, then we wouldn't be putting that stuff underground. That's where it doesn't quite make sense. It's different because it's new construction than if it was a retrofit situation.

[Member Paul Ruseau]: Very true. I know that the thing we just decided on a minute ago, the other topic, I mean, as a school committee member, I can say, like, number one isn't an option. Like, we want net zero and 20% means where are we going to get the other 80% to get to net zero? We're not. So, I mean, I don't, I'm not speaking for this group, but like, I certainly wouldn't accept this, the number one, but number two and number three, Well, number three is wildly expensive upfront. What's in the original numbers that everybody's talking about out in the public? Is that the 59M? Yes. So, this is already a reduction of 14M from the number everybody's talking about.

[Matt Rice]: No, no, no, sorry. I think, Martine, the baseline assumption of what the PSR project scope covered for photovoltaics is not listed here as a baseline, but the baseline was assuming essentially the PV1 scope through Purchase through a power purchase agreement, right? So we had a solar ready roof, the panels that would be putting on the roof. They had no capital cost built in there. So we were starting versus the mechanical system where we had a very robust baseline assumption. What we cooked in for photovoltaic panels, we were, we were having actually the minimal initial cost. So anything that we're looking at here will be additive to the project costs that are out there right now.

[izVdDtzaCdw_SPEAKER_18]: All right, is option 1. I don't, I guess, Paul, I don't, I don't know that you're, you're completely ruling out future PV, right? Cause the building has to be designed for 100% net zero readiness, right? Which to me says electrical infrastructure, the electrical room, your switch gear is sized appropriately, things like that, such that you could achieve net zero in the future. Is that, is that a, correct assumption?

[Member Paul Ruseau]: I mean, that's not my assumption. My assumption is we open the door and it's net zero, not we open the door and it's someday we could be net zero. Because if we are doing 20%, I'm assuming this building in the winter, the electric bills are going to make our current electric bills look lovely and a nice memory. I mean, I heat my home with heat pumps, and I know they're not the same, but it is expensive. So

I, that's why the 20% scares me is because this is Medford. We never have enough money. So I don't know where we think we're going to get a whole lot more for electric bills. And the answer is going to be, we're just going to take it out of teachers and kids. And I don't know about you all, but I don't want to do this project for all these years to then. Start cutting teachers for our kids and just to jump in the goal is.

[Member Jessica Parks]: Strive to achieve net 0, but it's also focusing on the, with a focus on the long term operating costs of the building. And so that's that part and being that and being PV ready doesn't help us focus on that as well. That's much more.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay, you said being ready doesn't doesn't help with long term. I just didn't hear what you said.

[Member Jessica Parks]: Uh, the other part of the goal is, um. Strive to achieve net 0, but with a focus on long term operating costs. and minimizing those costs from basically day one. And so PV ready doesn't necessarily do that. It just allows us to, at some point, as Paul said, reduce our operating costs in the future when we can get the money to do so. And if we can get, you know, what, I mean, is PV an eligible cost, where does it fall in terms of reimbursement? I know that it's not necessarily what's gonna get us an added percentage because the specialized stretch code basically says that we just have to be PV ready, but can it be squared?

[Martine Dion]: Just to be clear, the stretch code PV ready is not 100% PV ready. the stretch code PV ready would be about that 20%. Right. Right. I know. So so there's that the reimbursement from MSBA does not is relating to compliance with the specialized stretch code. And because we're going to an all electric pathway, then, as you said, Jessica, we don't have to install the PV. Right. And so the MSBA You know, doesn't it doesn't impact the PV system will not impact. The reimbursement positively or negatively.

[izVdDtzaCdw_SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, did you want to chime in happy to once everyone is finished this.

[izVdDtzaCdw_SPEAKER_01]: It's no, no, it's on this topic. I just know that there's a decent back and forth already. Okay. It's on this topic, and I have more thoughts on the back and forth, but I'm also curious about the pool and if that does go toward heating with gas. My assumption is that we will need to put solar on the roof. Yes. Does this 20% cover that? Good question.

[Martine Dion]: We will address that, Sonny, within the poll at CCA when we're going to present it. It's probably close.

[izVdDtzaCdw_SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, based on that, I think we have to go with at least one, right? One plus something, right? Because if the option is to use gas to heat the pool, we have to do this for specialized search energy code, because otherwise then we would forfeit incentive points. So, based on we have to do that, that has to be included in our cost, right?

[Andre Leroux]: You're saying one of them. The option is not none. The option is one of them. No.

[izVdDtzaCdw_SPEAKER_01]: No, what I'm saying is that you can't choose just option two because a PPA doesn't count for the specialized stretch energy code. You have to own the system, which means that in order to include the cost of this, if we were to go gas on the pool, you would need to own 20% of the solar. So that just baseline, we have to add $3.5 million, right?

[Martine Dion]: So, what you're saying is that that 3.2, 3.2 million dollar needs to be in the basis of design. If we select the fossil fuel heating of the pool hot water.

[izVdDtzaCdw_SPEAKER_01]: You tell me that's my assumption. I think if I were designing it, I would say yes, right?

[Director Alicia Hunt]: I don't want to look into that. I've never you had to own it only that the solar had to be on the building.

[Member Jessica Parks]: It does have to be owned. It does have to be owned to meet specialized stretch code. But I think that question, which is one that was brought up at the last meeting, is whether or not the pool being gas basically negates us meeting this. In a sense, requires us to then go do a few. Let me clarify.

[izVdDtzaCdw_SPEAKER_01]: So no, that makes sense, but we, we, I mean, code MSBA is like tertiary to that.

[Martine Dion]: Well, no, but because there's, there is the reimbursement of MSBA that was brought up at the last meeting. Does the pool affect the reimbursement going?

[izVdDtzaCdw_SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I see where you're going with this. Okay. That said, but does do the incentives for mass save get negated?

[Martine Dion]: Well, let's, let's, let's do them separately. So the MSBA incentive focuses on the building without the pool. And that building will be specialized code compliant. Right? Yep. Yeah, that's fine. Then the energy stretch energy code specialized stretch energy code. We just talked about it. We'd have to put the PV if we go natural gas. The incentives have provided us with when we met with them twice, and they told us that the pool, because again, it's not part of the MSBA project, but it is on the site, right? And they told us it would be exempted. It wouldn't affect the whole pool building. But that said,

[Martine Dion]: Yeah. To make sure that this is like, I mean, you know, I want to re relook at the MOU can and make sure that it's in writing somewhere that they won't come up at the end and say, well, yeah, that's great. Thanks. So, yeah. So where it's a really good question. Okay.

[Andre Leroux]: Option Martine in that, in that vein, you don't. You don't have to do a hundred percent cash ownership or a hundred percent PPA, right? You can pick and choose, right? So you could, if you find yourself in a situation where you have to own a portion of it, well then own the cheaper portion, which is the roof, and then finance the more expensive portion, which is the carport.

[Martine Dion]: Well, yeah, or yeah, the roof portion, that's equivalent to the pool fossil fuel. That's all you have to own.

[Andre Leroux]: Or, yeah, whatever it is, right. I think it's probably less than two megawatts because the two megawatts is the entire roof, right. Which assumes a high structure.

[Martine Dion]: It's kind of, it's kind of, it's kind of challenging. I think, you know, it would be much easier if you could just clean, you know, be clean with a PPA and have just the whole, you know, the whole site under PPA versus having to own a piece of it.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, I don't disagree with you. I think you could, you know, you could sign the same O&M contract with whoever is doing the O&M on the PPA portion to have them just do the marginal.

[Andre Leroux]: Yep. You're paying sort of what you have to pay for and being able to take advantage of some of the financing for what, what you can't or what you don't want to.

[Martine Dion]: Right. And the one thing I want to make clear as well is the pool heating, you know, again, I just want to make that clear. The pool heating would be, it's only for the pool water. Natural gas would be only for the pool water. Like the space heating is air to water heat pump. So it's only that pool water, but it's still a considerable amount of energy.

[Matt Rice]: So, I just want to do a quick time check here in terms of overall. So we're at 630. we do have some other topics to get through and there is at least another 1 that we are looking to try to get recommendations go recommendation vote. So, I'm wondering if we can. At least try on a vote here just to suggest the path forward on the PV as a recommendation, even if there are caveats that folks want to add into the PV 1, 2 or 3 options.

[izVdDtzaCdw_SPEAKER_01]: Make a recommendation to go PV 1 with PV 3 as an alternate, I think. Um, though, I respect the desire for this project to be net zero energy and as a designer, I would advocate for that 100%, but I think. I do feel concerned about the upfront costs of this, even though the operating costs are also a big issue. I think. I think this needs to be studied more to really understand, like, can it be. 20, maybe not 100. I mean, honestly, I think, like, I personally believe that not every building should be an island and operating on its own. I think that the city needs to figure out how to manage this as a collective as opposed to every building kind of doing its own thing. So I know that's really hard, but we have to have a plan.

[Director Alicia Hunt]: We can have some offline conversations about that because It's, yeah.

[izVdDtzaCdw_SPEAKER_01]: It's not like, it's not, it's not a dis on the city of Medford. I think like, like, we need the utility companies to do better. Like, like, we can't just expect the taxpayers to just like pay for all of it on these huge projects all the time. I think I'm a little concerned about that. I do want to keep PV three in as an option, because if we can afford it, and that is something we can do, I think we should absolutely go for it.

[Martine Dion]: I just want to make a little something very clear that if you go with PV1, I would, you know, we mentioned how there's going to be a huge process going through with the utility. And it's much better to do it once for 100% net zero to prepare for the future. So I just want to maybe when we talk about PV1, we make sure that the 100% net zero readiness is in the electrical infrastructure. So that because if in five years, as I said earlier, in five years, if you decide to add 20% or 60% or whatever, you'd have to redo the whole infrastructure, which is very expensive. So this has been made clear by our electrical engineer. It's better to do it once because this process is going to take two years with the utility to go through. So, I just wanted to bring that up that with PV1, we should make sure we tag on the 100% readiness.

[Andre Leroux]: I think you can tell that you can tell ISO New England and National Grid to study whatever you want them to study, right? Like, they'll.

[Martine Dion]: Well, they need a load letter to go to start the process. We're going to need to provide for some design level. So that's why I'm.

[Andre Leroux]: I mean, yes, but you're also about to become the biggest payer in the county, quite frankly. So I don't think that that's... It doesn't matter to them.

[Martine Dion]: That's what I was suggesting that you consider so that that's going through and you get the process to address that.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, I think the conditions you know, the environment for battery energy storage is so wildly changing on like a yearly basis, like even like every six months, that by the time, I mean, I think Alicia said earlier, like by the time this building is getting around to being constructed in several years, you know, we could be in a very different environment. So I think that, yes, enabling add-ons later I think is important, but I, I guess I would tend to agree. With sunny that from from the cost perspective, like, being. Being mindful of that, I mean, that's been a that's been a through line for this entire effort. Um, that that sort of looking at that now, and I don't think that that precludes you from from maybe making a different decision later. But, yeah, yeah, go ahead.

[izVdDtzaCdw_SPEAKER_01]: Could we change it instead of it being, like, 20% like, we know that it's not fully designed, right? Like, can can we say that we want to maximize PV on the roof as much as possible and just, like, make sure that that's the thing in there while also planning for 100%. Um, just for that load letter and all of that. I mean, who knows maybe maybe the roofs will change and you'll be able to get. 60% on, I know that's not totally feasible, but I mean, is that an option?

[Martine Dion]: That's what I showed at the beginning. The roof has a potential between high canopies and low ballasted to get to close to 50%. So that's our early assessment. So there's, so I think if I get this right, Sunny, you're suggesting that PV1 becomes 50%.

[izVdDtzaCdw_SPEAKER_01]: I'm just saying not put a percentage on it. I want to maximize the roof area. Okay. Um, we want to be able to have the, the most cost effective system. And maximize that as much as possible, because we know that. Even though I don't believe every building should be an island. It does have to have to participate and be part of the conversation. I think that that's really important.

[Martine Dion]: What we're going to have to price it though. Right? Matt and as the, so we'd have to, we'd have to. Provide for a description of a system.

[Matt Rice]: Yeah, but, I mean, it's, I think it's maximizing the low ballast and roof panels that we can get on the roof. I think if that's what's showing there.

[Martine Dion]: That's that's 20% is if you want. 50%, you need to have high canopies on the roof with a bit of low balance over the general pool.

[Director Alicia Hunt]: So, I want to put forward some stuff. 1 is what I don't know that everybody is aware that I actually firmly believe we should go with PV with 2. And the and I want to be clear that we, and I personally was saying manage solar arrays for the city on multiple buildings, both and rooftop. Um, and that we're contracted for additional ones as our roofs are becoming ready for solar, because they needed new roofs, we're adding additional arrays. The reasoning here is a couple of things. One is, I think we need to prep the building for 100% net zero electricity, right? We need the right size electrical rooms, we need the right electrical infrastructure installed, and we need national grid prepared for it. But two, a lot of the incentive monies that exist right now are with the ITC, the tax credits, and those are still going to exist. and we cannot take them anymore as a municipality. There was a short window where we could take them. We're going to get them on the Andrews School. I would love to think that there'll be new administration and we'll be able to get them again in 2030, 2032, but they're gone as of anything now we're going to contract for. But the solar companies still can. They can do it literally the same project for 30 percent cheaper than we can do it. Granted, they have to pay off their, you know, their investors and everything, but they have that savings back from the government that we don't get. And I think that's a huge piece of what makes it more cost effective for them. That's a piece of why I think we should do it. We should plan for the canopies. This is also for the last 15 years been the largest opportunity the city has had to put solar on any of our buildings. And the reason we haven't done it is the state of the roofs at the high school. I will say that I am extremely nervous about the gym roof and the pool roof without something being done structurally there. we need a structural engineer to tell us we can put solar on those roofs. Because even when we've been pricing it before, we always exempted those two spaces because of our concerns around the structure there. I think that doing a PPA is the most likely way that we can get a good cost. I think we can work with the PPA installer from the get-go without signing any commitments, because of our relationships with power options and with select. I do think we can make it move forward that way because of this, but we won't know the pricing. We won't know it for years because they can't future price something at a good rate because they don't know what all their incentives will be. By the time they're installing, they'll have to come on after the fact and do it. Those are some of my concerns. And I think we need to go for as much solar on this site as we possibly can.

[Matt Rice]: So let me just jump in and say, Alicia, that we are planning on reinforcing the roof structure vote for both the pool and the gymnasium. There's a lot of other issues with the pool roof and the gym roof that need to get addressed, but we're adding additional loads regardless. And so to be able to accommodate the ballasted load of panels going on those roofs is just something that has already been accounted for. So we will have that as an option available to us as we're going. And all of Martine's numbers have assumed that in terms of our available area. I also just want to going back to time and then I'll let us keep going. I think what it makes sense is to not try to squeeze in additional topics after this 1 at this point, the other vote that we were looking for is on mass timber and I just don't think we're going to have enough time to have a good substantive discussion. So I'd like to actually use the remainder of our time here to sort of close out and try to wrap up. But I do want to make sure that we get to a point of sort of running through a vote on the. photovoltaic scope so that we can bring that recommendation and then we'll schedule another advisory team meeting a little bit later where we can handle mass timber and it's less impactful in terms of our design and estimating process as we go.

[Director Alicia Hunt]: Can we clarify what Suni just said about the net zero and selling the RECs? It's actually dramatically cheaper that we buy Class 1 RECs off the market for the building. That's what we did for the library. We bought 10 years of Class 1 RECs up front as part of the construction project and then participated in the SMART program because the SMART program is so lucrative. So, actually, we, we hadn't mentioned that in this at all, but I had discussed that with the consultants yesterday.

[Kenneth Lord]: Yes, a couple of questions. 1, can you clarify. As a schedule of decisions. what our requirements are at this stage for making a decision to be able to keep this project on task, on track with the MSBA schedule. Do we need to make a decision now? Or can we, as some people say, have been asking, continue to search this more? Or we're really up against, I think I know the answer is that we need a decision now.

[Kenneth Lord]: Yeah. And in that case, if we need a decision now, I have to agree with Alicia. Option two would be my recommendation. It meets the school committee's goal. It is reasonably cost of the three and gets us as far as possible as we can with solar. But that's just my point of view.

[Matt Rice]: Tony, do you want to respond to that one? And then I can let Jessica jump in.

[izVdDtzaCdw_SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I think that's great. Alicia. I just want to if that's the plan, we should make sure that that's also included in the cost. If the goal is to call this project net zero energy, we have to know that in order to do that through a PPA, you need to buy us Rex. I just want people to know that.

[Director Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, and so I just put it in the chat. I'd like to ask the consultants to like, for dollars as we're doing these things, to like lay that out and where those are and what's participating. I think the PV3 numbers here might actually have us participating in the SMART program, for example.

[Martine Dion]: It is there. If you look, there's an estimated EOER SMART incentives. That's $800,000. And that was confirmed through our solar design associate consultant. And then everything else of the, you know, the peak, the savings on the electricity and the peak, that's in the 23 million. But what we don't have there is the 3 cents. The $0.03 is going to be fairly small, as you mentioned, Alessia.

[Director Alicia Hunt]: The $0.03 is what the cost of if we bought the class one, and to be clear, for those of you who are in the technical, the class one REX is what we're talking about. That's what we're looking at.

[Martine Dion]: It's about 100, you know, I just did a quick math here, because I know the 6 million kilowatt hour, but it's about, it's 3 cents per kilowatt hour, right?

[Martine Dion]: Okay, so we should, I'm not going to give any numbers, we should double check. But they told us 3 cents, so it's usually per kilowatt hour. But I'm not going to give a number on that. It's megawatt hour?

[Martine Dion]: But is it, but the REC is one megawatt hour, but the cost of that one megawatt.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah. They're 38 bucks a REC right now. So 33.8 cents per kilowatt. If that's how you want to do it.

[Martine Dion]: Okay. Okay. If you want to continue that and I'll do, you said 38 cents per kilowatt.

[Andre Leroux]: 38.25 on SREC trade presently per megawatt, which equates to 3.8 cents per kilowatt hour of generation.

[Member Jessica Parks]: So. Well, it seems like PB 2 is. The direction we're going, we just need to confirm the. Either a, we say that we are not going with gas for the pool, or we need to confirm that we can go with gas. or the pool and still do a PPA per the specialized stretch code, because my interpretation of it is that we cannot. So I just want to make sure that we have that understanding. And then, you know, just looking at it from a maintenance perspective, I think, you know,

One less thing to maintain over time also speaks to me as a benefit from PV2. Obviously, there are pluses and minuses, but there is a definite benefit to not having to maintain the panels and everything else that goes along with it.

[Matt Rice]: So, Jesse, I'm not sure if you saw my wildly uninformed AI probe that I dropped into the chat, but it did feel that or did indicate that we could do solar panels with a PPA on the pool roof to help compensate or address the code requirement for the fossil fuel burning under the specialized opt-in stretch code. And I believe that Alicia and Sam are going to look into that in a little bit more detail so that we're not just relying on AI for a fairly important decision. But their general sense was that we could also do it through a PPA. So, I'm wondering also if we can do a recommendation for PV2 with that caveat qualification that we need to confirm sort of the code compliance paths for the fossil fuel burning offset, if that made sense.

[Kimberly Talbot]: Sorry, can I ask an architect aesthetic question? If we are going for 100% NZE, are we talking about high canopy over the roof? And is everyone good with that aesthetic pursuit?

[Martine Dion]: Yes, it would have high canopy over the roof. Over the whole roof? Over a large, large portion of

[izVdDtzaCdw_SPEAKER_01]: Matt, did you have a diagram you could go back to? Yeah, I think that would be helpful.

[Kimberly Talbot]: I just want to sway us back over to... Good point. I can't follow everything you all are talking about, but I want to be clear about what this is going to look like at the end of the day. And if it's high canopy, does a PPA provide the structure for said high canopy? To establish they'll do the parking canopy. It seems to me that's a bigger endeavor. I don't know.

[izVdDtzaCdw_SPEAKER_01]: Helen, are you inferring that you might need to add more to that asterisk number?

[Kimberly Talbot]: I'm just asking, you know, and I want to be clear that everyone understands that the high canopy would be over the, that bar, the Western bar. That's what you're pointing at, right? Okay.

[Martine Dion]: Right, and it's a very good point. I think we, my understanding was that yes, but I do think we would need to circle back with power options in the clarify that part. So PV2 can, to be clear, PV2 is 100% PPA. The cost in PV2 was only of the parking canopy because that was the, at the time, that was the understanding. But when we're discussing and talking about a PPA, 100% PPA, it has to include the roof and any PPA will, optimize the PV that they can put on the site. So they would consider both the roof and the parking as part of the PPA.

[Kenneth Lord]: Yeah, I'm just confused again. On the screen it says PV2, solar PV, parking, canopy structure. You're saying that option has to have roof as well?

[Martine Dion]: Yes, the reason it's named that is because that's the name that was in the PSR estimate. Because the PSR estimate had priced the PV parking canopy structure and the rest of the system was by the PPA. So the rest of the 100% solar PV system panels, all the panels on the roof and the parking canopy was by the PPA.

[Matt Rice]: We'll rename it, Ken, if that's a fair point, just to make sure it's clear and represents sort of the intent of the scope in a concise manner.

[Kimberly Talbot]: And I think Jessica just put in the comment something along the same vein of the high canopy being needed. We did just ratify a decision to go with full air to water, which we know has more equipment on the roof. So presumably it's some combination of a ballasted system where it's not indicated in the diagram. and plus some high canopy, but of course, we probably don't know exactly yet.

[Martine Dion]: So in our diagram, we just had put hybrid high and low. Okay, okay. And the high on the bar, like you said, Ellen, and the low more in the, you know, horizontal. To the east. To the east. The east-west, yeah, okay. But to Jessica's point, between the CTE program and the air to water heat pump, there is going to be a lot of equipment, which is why we would have to go to a mixture of high canopy and low ballasted.

And we found out that even with a hybrid on our other project, we're finding out that large schools such as this one end up even with a hybrid geothermal and air to water, between that and the ventilation and everything else, it's still a lot of HVAC on the roof. And therefore, that's why we looked at the combined high canopy and low canopy and the low ballasted on the roof.

[Matt Rice]: I just, I want to bring us back with 6 minutes here. So, I think technically for following the order of motions and things, I think, Sonny, you had made an initial. Motion for PV 1 and PV 3, I don't know if you want to retract or modifier exactly how all that works, but.

[izVdDtzaCdw_SPEAKER_01]: I, you know, I, I, I, I'm grateful that Alicia's here to talk about how the city manages it because I think that's really helpful to understand. I'm not opposed to the PV too, but I think with this school committee goal of net zero energy, it's important to then also include purchasing those in this. So I think. If I were to amend any of that, it would honestly, I'd still like to see us on some, because I know that that. Like, financially works out better, but if I understand why it's better on a municipal level, sometimes to do anyway, so I think TV 2 is fine. However, I think it should also include the. I don't know for how long, maybe it's the same as the, uh, the library so that there's some. Similarities there to manage that so that this community could call this net zero energy, but I think that that's important. Sounds like that's important.

[izVdDtzaCdw_SPEAKER_01]: That's right. That's a good point. And then I guess I'd also love that the city make a plan to help manage that after the 10 years is up to, because we know this isn't 60 year building. So it'd be really helpful.

[Director Alicia Hunt]: Then it becomes a political budget issue. We need support of residents for that to happen.

[Matt Rice]: So, I know we have, this is not nice and clear like our mechanical system selection in terms of a topic. So, I do feel with whatever we end up with, we probably want to put some caveats on it, some asterisks so that there's some associated bullet points either additional follow up that needs to go forward with, but it would. Really be great to get a direction to proceed in even if we have homework to do back on our end and or the city is going to do a little bit on their end as well. And we're happy to wrap in those specific caveat points so that we can convey that back to the full building committee. Can you have a thought?

[Kenneth Lord]: I want a shot at this as a motion that we want to include a solar array system that gets us as close to 100% net zero as possible, including the necessary SRECs and that PV2 is the direction we want to go in, but that further design and I don't know what you want to say is necessary to make that happen over the next whatever. It's not a very clear motion, but it seems like I'm a little uncomfortable myself at this point, just saying PV2 is it and then trying to go to the building committee next week and explain this. That's just not going to work.

[Matt Rice]: I was going to nominate you, Ken, two presenters to the building committee for us.

[izVdDtzaCdw_SPEAKER_24]: Yeah, this is a super small point, but it would help me and it might help someone else. It would help if you uncouple the ownership of the system from the percentage of NZE in that column so that maybe the ownership is part of the system type or its own column. I was getting a little confused with between 100% PPA owned and 100% NZE. Those are separate concepts, right?

[izVdDtzaCdw_SPEAKER_01]: Can I add just something to Ken's motion about confirming with the pool and adding that into the. Yes, the base bid as well, please.

[Matt Rice]: That would be great. So Helen, do you want to? Vote? Oh, sorry. Call the roll. Geez.

[Kimberly Talbot]: Jessica? Yes. Did I get you Libby? Yes, you did. Yeah, when you speak, that's when the name pops up. That's what's going on here. This is not the way to do it. I apologize. And Sam?

[Kimberly Talbot]: And Sunny? Yes. Did I get everybody? If so, you guys have it unanimous.

[Matt Rice]: Thank you everyone for the time. I know it. Everyone's had a little bit less than enthusiastic. I'm guessing that's more just because we are late into the evening and it's not because people are not excited about, um, photovoltaic panels or or any of the above. But really do appreciate the detailed discussion. We have a lot of confidence in the fact that this group got into all the necessary details there and there's just an intense amount of detail and nuance to all this.

And we will need to find some way of distilling it. I think for the building committee, so that we don't delve into a similar level of time or. Content, but that will be our charge for next Tuesday when we get to the full building committee. Again, thank you everybody for the time and we will pick up the rest of the topics at a meeting that will schedule in the not too distant future. Hi, everyone.

Paul Ruseau total time: 2.47 minutes total words: 425	Jessica Parks total time: 3.06 minutes total words: 364