Will Brownsberger — State Senator, Democrat, 2d Suffolk and Middlesex District

The Senate passed a bill that generally forces greater accountability on utilities for keeping costs down. At the same time, it extends our commitment to transition to more use of renewables in electric power generation.

In 2010, we did a deep energy retrofit on our home in Belmont. We tracked energy use in 2011 and found that we were 85% below the New England per person average. In so doing, we helped meet the “Thousand Home Challenge.” Check out the Thousand Home Challenge website and read about the challenge and [...]

Will, I recently moved to Belmont and had an energy audit done through the Mass Save program. The auditor told me that because I live in Belmont I was not eligible for several Mass Save programs, including free efficient light bulbs and no-interest loans for energy improvements. Can you explain why Belmont residents are excluded [...]

Is Governor Patrick reversing his progressive position on “trees to energy?”   An August 31 Boston Phoenix article (http://thephoenix.com/Boston/news/126080-devals-green-blues) says he is.   The independent Manomet Report (www.manomet.org/node/322) was unequivocal in its conclusion that large scale forest biomass energy production is not a “carbon neutral energy source.”  The only woody biomass, aka trees that should be burned [...]

Builders can do good and make more money through green building. It’s not so hard to get started.

On Wednesday, June 8th 2011, at the Joint Committee hearing on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy, many bills were presented mainly relating to the high costs of utilities state wide, their burden on large industrial companies as well as individuals, the leakage problem with natural gas and the need to replace the outdated pipe system. State [...]

By Audrey Schulman You can look up your neighbor’s house value, what their mortgage was, how much they paid in taxes, what their home looks like from the street and from above. In many municipalities, you can look up how much water they use per month and if they are behind in the payments. Why [...]

This is a set of thoughts for builders seeking to become more green oriented. The thoughts may also be helpful for homeowners thinking about green projects.

A meeting tonight in Belmont will consider adoption of the stretch code. The local option to adopt the stretch code comes out of the Green Communities Act that we passed in 2008. In communities adopting the stretch code, new homes and major renovations will have to meet lower energy use targets.

I am working on a portfolio of bills to further a clean energy strategy in this session.

This post continues the sharing of learning from the “deep energy retrofit” of our home. It summarizes a financial analysis of the project.

What is the net environmental impact of a deep energy retrofit (DER)? We know that adding insulation, a more efficient furnace, modern windows and leak sealing foam to an older house will reduce the energy required to maintain a given temperature. We can calculate the cost savings and GHG reductions. But what of the environmental [...]

Building Sciences Corporation has published a case study of our super-insulated home project.

Jon Stewart’s framing of this question is as powerful as it is amusing, although his answer is only more humor.

We are doing a “deep energy retrofit” of our home. It’s a nice time to drive by if you are interested in the insulation process — different parts of the structure are at different stages.

Yesterday, like thousands of others, I wasted much time in a fruitless effort to log into the state’s web site for the appliance rebate program.   Of course the telephone option did not work either.   This to me is just another example of poor government planning and execution.  As someone who has been in the systems work [...]

I think that BMLD should consider using more transformers, rather than two 50 megawatt units.  This would enable us to match the on-line capacity to the actual load more closely. Consider the savings in the cost of the iron loss in a 50 megawatt transformer not needed to meet demand: Iron loss at 0.25 % = 125 [...]

Conservation and smart load management are, indeed, very important elements of the business startegy for Belmont Light. As Chair of the Municipal Light Advisory Board, it is important to point out that outr Board is pushing for more and better load management and conservation. We fully intend to be more aggressive on thaty front as [...]

I was wondering what people think about the Belmont Municipal Light Dept. proposal to build a new substation to handle the increasing peak electricity demand in Belmont (http://www.town.belmont.ma.us/public_documents/BelmontMA_LightNews/Announcements/WC%20packet%20for%2010-14-09%20meeting.pdf; the presentation was video’d at the Oct. 14 Warrant Committee meeting, http://www.belmontmedia.org/public/new_shows.html#warr).  As I understand from the BMLD materials, the project would cost $34 million and be [...]