The log from another solid Radio Boston webchat. Read on to find out why there is one kind of audit you need not fear…

10:04 Radio Boston Frank Gorke, with the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources, thank you for moderating the Radio Boston webchat today.

10:04 Frank Gorke Glad to be here.

10:07 Radio Boston What is the state's major initiative to improve energy efficiency ?

10:09 Frank Gorke Well it's hard to single out any one initiative. There are many moving parts right now, and we're going to be working to strengthen them all.

10:10 Frank Gorke Probably the first thing many people think of and everyone should make use of is the energy audit offered by your utility company.

10:10 Radio Boston What is Mass Efficiency — the program you run ?

10:11 Frank Gorke Mass Efficiency is the new energy efficiency office at the Commonwealth's Division of Energy Resources.

10:12 Frank Gorke DOER is a part of the Patrick Administration, and our focus is on "Creating a Greener Energy Future for the Commonwealth."

10:12 Radio Boston What are the goals of Mass Efficiency?

10:12 Frank Gorke That will include expanding the delivery of clean renewable energy and boosting energy efficiency.

10:13 Frank Gorke The goals of Mass Efficiency will be to tap all cost-effective energy efficiency in the Commonwealth.

10:13 Radio Boston How do you do that ?

10:15 Frank Gorke The other thing to keep in mind is that energy efficiency is cheaper than other kinds of energy. It's cheaper to save energy than it is to build new power plants and transmission wires.

10:17 Radio Boston But things like solar panels are expensive.. very expensive..

10:18 Frank Gorke, www.mass.gov/doer Well, a couple things about that. First it's useful to distinguish between energy efficiency and renewable energy. Both are commonly placed under the green umbrella, and rightly so. But they are different.

10:22 Frank Gorke There's a great website we've got sumarizing the Commonwealth Solar program, www.commonwealthsolar.org.We're offering significant incentives to people who want to install solar on their own rooftops.

10:24 guest389303 How do I find out about retro-fitting aspects of my home–I'm in the market for roofing, then the heating system in the coming years.

10:26 Frank Gorke Good question. The first step is usually to get an energy audit. Have you done that?

10:26 guest273403 How do we as citizens help our cities and towns turn to energy conservation and efficiency in our public buildings/

10:28 Frank Gorke Another good question! Some cities and towns are already taking steps in the right direction, but given budget constraints right now we need to make sure every city and town has the tools to save energy. Couple things on this:

10:28 guest389303 I had an audit 8 years ago….We have natural gas heat, country home with numerous additions. We replace windows a section/room at a time. but that was a different time. I'm in Acton, MA.

10:36 Frank Gorke First, cities and towns may be able to get help from their own utility company, although the utilities have only mixed offerings for municipalities.

10:36 Frank Gorke One option is to look at what's called "performance contracting," where a town contracts with an Energy Service Company who will upgrade buildings to save energy, and pay for the work out of a share of the energy bill savings.

10:36 Frank Gorke DOER in the past has also offered to pay for energy audits for city and town buildings through our Energy Audit Program; there are lots of cities and towns in the queue for that right now, but we hope to be able to serve everyone in the queue.

10:36 Frank Gorke When that bill gets finalized (sometime before the end of July we hope) we'll probably have a lot of new tools in the toolbox to help cities and towns.

10:36 Frank Gorke Hi Acton. Missed your additional comment there.

10:36 Frank Gorke I'd be interested in hearing morea bout your experience with the audit. Also, it might be worth doing again, as prices and technology have both changed a lot since then.

10:36 Frank Gorke Did you change out any lighting or appliances, or just dothe windows?

10:40 Radio Boston So the energy audits are free ?

10:41 listening-at-work s/free/free to the homeowner/ ?

10:41 Frank Gorke Yup.

10:42 Frank Gorke There's more to it obviously – there's a small surcharge on every electricity bill, and that money gets pooled and spent on efficiency programs for all classes of energy user – residential, commercial and industrial.

10:43 listening-at-work Which makes some sense – somebody has to pay for this.

10:45 Frank Gorke And this gets back to the key piece about energy efficiency: because it is so cheap (relative to buying power from the energy grid), we can pool the money and run the programs and save far more money than we spent.

10:45 listening-at-work (and frankly, as compared with the oft-nebulous and sometimes simply sneaky surcharges on say, phone or cable bills, a surcharge on a power bill to promote widespread energy efficiency is not something I'm likely as a consumer to complain much about)

10:45 Atramu Hi Frank. Glad you're doing the work that you do.

10:45 listening-at-work Sure. and that scales downwards as well as upwards; there are plenty of examples of homeowners who sell back to the grid during peak hours because they have active at-home generation.

10:45 Frank Gorke Thanks Atramu.

10:46 Frank Gorke Listening at work: Let me make a further distinction between the energy efficiency programs and whatever charges you're concernecd about on your phone bill.

10:47 Frank Gorke The energy programs are established by the legislature and overseen by the state, right here at DOER, so there is a good deal of careful review and thinking that goes into the programs.

10:48 Frank Gorke They're not perfect, but we'll be improving them and expanding them in the near future we expect.

10:48 listening-at-work Somethings *far* better than nothing, in this instance. I'm certainly glad DOER is doing it.

10:48 Radio Boston Frank — your cell isn't picking up — how should we reach you ?

10:48 Frank Gorke On the at-home generation – we need more people to decide to do that. Have you set it upt? Do you know others who have? We need to hear about obstacles to that.

10:49 listening-at-work I'm not currently a homeowner, so I'm not in a position to do so, though in the next eighteen to thirty-six months I'm trying to change that.

10:50 listening-at-work What's really attractive to me about wind generation on the very small scale is that there are lots of examples of DIY turbines using cast-off items that may otherwise be hitting landfill. That's a big win.

10:52 listening-at-work there may be certification issues there in order to meet zoning requirements – it only makes sense to ensure that a turbine is safe, given its potential to spin so darn fast.

10:57 listening-at-work Also: Thanks, Frank, for taking time out of your day for all of this.

10:59 Radio Boston Thank you Frank for being with us today ..

11:00 Frank Gorke Thank you! Signing off….

11:03 guest5891 Is it still available to ask questions?

11:05 Radio Boston That is the end of the Radio Boston webchat today… Thank you to everyone for participating. If you have more questions, there is information on the website Frank mentioned during the webchat today.