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2020, October 29

FSEC Advisory Board Meeting

October 29, 2020
9:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Remote Meeting via GoToMeeting

Agenda

Time Description Speaker
9:30 a.m. Welcome Chris Castro, Chair, FSEC Advisory Board; Director, Office of Sustainability & Resilence, City of Orlando
Introductions (Roll Call) Sherri Shields, Communications Director, FSEC
9:40 a.m. Approval of April 16, 2020 Meeting Minutes Chris Castro, Chair
9:45 a.m. Status of FSEC Programs [PDF, 4MB | Recording] Jim Fenton, Director, FSEC
10:05 a.m. Florida Energy Office Report Kelley Smith Burk, Director, Office of Energy, FDACS
Florida Legislative Session Report Louis Rotundo, Principal, Louis Rotundo and Associates
10:20 a.m. Strategic Plan Update [PDF, 521K ] Bill Grieco, Vice Chair, FSEC Advisory Board; CEO, RAPID Manufacturing Institute™
10:35 a.m. City of Satellite Beach Energy Study
[PDF, 2M]		 Nick Sanzone, Environmental Programs Coordinator, City of Satellite Beach
11:00 a.m. Energy Outlook [PDF, 607k] Tom Lawery, Manager, Wholesale/Renewable Energy, Duke Energy
11:25 a.m. State of the Solar Industry [PDF, 3M] Justin Vandenbroeck, 2nd VP FlaSEIA
11:55 a.m. Date and Agenda for Next AB Meeting (TBD)
12:00 p.m. Adjournment

 

DRAFT Meeting Minutes

Attendees

Jacob Atalla, Chris Castro – Chair, Peter DeNapoli, Jill Dvareckas, Michael Faas, Bill Grieco – Vice-Chair, Scott Grieves, Michael Hess, Justin Hoysradt, Thomas Lawery, Louis Rotundo, Susan Schumann, Kelley Smith Burk, Jennifer Szaro

Invited Guests

Justin Vandenbroeck, Nick Sanzone

FSEC/UCF Staff & Faculty

Jim Fenton, Rob Vieira, Winston Schoenfeld, Colleen Kettles, Philip Fairey, Sherri Shields, Jeanette Holder, Rich Raustad, Dylan Colvin, Karen Fenaughty, Hubert Seigneur, Eric Martin, Susan Schleith, Bereket Nigusse, Safvat Kalaghchy, Susan Schleith, Kevin Schleith, Susan Schroen, Jody Cummings, Doug Kettles, Debra Reinhart, Yara Watson Colon

Meeting

  1. Chris Castro, FSEC Advisor Board Chairman, called the meeting to order at 9:31a.m. and introduced himself and thanked everyone for attending the virtual meeting.  Chris Castro introduced Vice-Chair Bill Grieco and asked that he give a brief statement of his background.  Chris Castro recognized and asked to have this meeting in memory of the late John Anderson who was an Advisory Board member for many years.  Chris Castro reviewed the meeting agenda.  Sherri Shields proceeded with a virtual roll call by asking everyone to respond when she calls their name by answering with their name, title and affiliation.
  2. Chris Castro asked that the minutes from April 16, 2020 meeting be approved.  The meeting minutes had been previously forwarded to everyone by email.  No one suggested that any changes were necessary and Chris Castro moved to approve the minutes. Mike Fass approved and Jim Fenton seconded the motion and the minutes were approved.  Approved minutes will be available on the FSEC website.
  3. James Fenton gave a presentation, Status of FSEC Programs [PDF, 4MB | Recording], which included: FSEC In-the-News, current programs, new contracts and submitted pending proposals/contracts.  Several collaborative partnerships that work with FSEC were also reviewed.
  4. Florida Energy Office Report – Kelley Smith Burk:
    • The Florida Energy Office is in the final stages of putting together the EV roadmap report, in which they are working with Doug Kettles and the Central Florida Cities Coalition on.  Some interim reports are up on the website and are open for comments or feedback. They encourage everyone to take a look at those and provide comments or feedback. They plan to gather the feedback by November second, so that they can start putting together the final report for the EV roadmap, which should be released at the end of this year.
    • The Alternative Fuel Resiliency Plan was kicked off over the summer.  This plan will look at how our state can maximize existing alternative transportation fuels and identify new ways to use alternative fuels during a natural or man-made disaster.  Some of the information in this report will be used in the hurricane exercise that is held every year, so that those who work at Emergency Support Function #12, Energy (Transportation Fuels) will have more of an understanding of alternative fuels, and alternative fuel technologies. Also in July, a $1M low-income residential energy efficiency grant program was launched to help counties reduce energy burden to vulnerable Floridians.  Applications are being reviewed now, and awardees will be announced within the next couple of weeks or a month.
    • In August, a $2 million grant program was launched to upgrade publicly-owned wastewater treatment plants with Energy Efficiency technologies. That grant program closes on 10/30, and then the applications will be reviewed. Award announcements are expected by the end of the year.
    • Due to COVID-19, some grant programs have been pushed back a little bit, but they are working diligently on those.  They are also looking at any open grant programs that are coming out of USDOE and finding partners to apply for those, to make sure that they are capitalizing on those opportunities to bring as much research dollars to Florida as they possibly can.
    • The Florida Energy Office  has met frequently (almost every other month) with the Florida Advisory Council on Climate and Energy, their “face” group.  The next meeting, and probably last meeting this year, will be on November 5th. That meeting will look at the water/energy nexus, as well as agriculture. This group explores and discusses topics that are important to the state, such as energy and climate.
    • The Florida Energy Office is in a holding pattern regarding legislation as they wait to see what some of the impacts are from COVID.
  5. Florida Legislative Session Report – Louis Rotundo:
    • No additional Legislative update since last meeting.  Since this an election year, nothing is going on. COVID it’s going to have a significant impact on the legislature, starting the third week of November. There are uncertainties on whether the Capitol Building will be open for committee meetings in December or the Swearing In ceremony. It will have a significant impact on how the session does business and what it’s going to do to the budget.  Florida is down a significant amount of money.  Some of it was made up with reserves from last year’s budget, but those reserves will not be available going forward to keep the state government operating, so it’s going to have an impact.
    • The City of Altamonte Springs has completed a one megawatt floating solar facility adjacent to one of their wastewater treatment plants.  It‘s not turned on yet, as it is pending additional equipment purchases. The photovoltaics have all been installed, and it is ready to go.
  6. Bill Grieco provided a review of FSEC Strategic Plan [PDF, 521K] by the task force to address the concerns from the committee members to strengthen the strategic plan.
  7. Chris Castro introduced and thanked each of the presenters for attending the meeting and providing their presentations:
  8. Chris Castro indicated that an email would be sent out with next meeting date suggestions for Spring 2021.  Chris Castro adjourned the meeting at 12:06pm.

 

Respectfully submitted,

Chris Castro

Chair, FSEC Advisory Board