Regional planners report Hubbardston met Green Communities criteria but warn missing data and utility delays could affect grants

Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission staff reviewed Hubbardston’s progress under the state Green Communities program on May 5, reporting overall energy reductions since the town’s FY2019 baseline while cautioning that gaps in fuel data and utility delays complicate certification and grant work.

The MRPC presentation covered the five Green Communities criteria, annual energy and emissions trends, and energy conservation measures (ECMs) such as heat pumps, LED retrofits, and pump replacements. MRPC staff said the town’s weather‑normalized data show a 20.6% reduction in total municipal energy use from the FY2019 baseline, but they warned that missing fuel data — notably for some oil‑heated municipal accounts and the highway garage — and one‑time changes to field irrigation schedules make year‑to‑year percentages volatile.

“Utilities upload the electric and natural gas automatically,” said Zach Kaye, a regional planner with MRPC, explaining how the agency compiles the datasets and which fuel accounts are manually entered. Kaye and other MRPC staff described two data sets used for the program — a weather‑normalized set and a raw set — and said auditors at the state will evaluate both when confirming whether the town has met the program’s 20% energy reduction target.

MRPC identified several municipal projects that contributed to efficiency gains, including heat‑pump installations at the Jonas Clark Public Library, interior and exterior LED lighting retrofits and VFD additions at Hubbardston Center School, and reset/optimization of outside‑air controls. The presentation highlighted that building energy use fell most sharply in FY2024 — including a roughly 41% drop in building energy — but presenters noted that those figures are “explained by the missing oil” data and thus likely to be revised when complete accounting is available.

Town staff and board members raised specific data questions during the presentation. MRPC staff explained that open‑space energy use is a small account and therefore sensitive to changes such as reduced field use or a nonoperational irrigation pump. Board members also pressed MRPC about how fuel use for municipal vehicles, private oil, and propane are collected and added to the inventory.

Select Board members and MRPC staff discussed grant opportunities tied to Green Communities status. MRPC listed competitive funding windows and caps currently available through the program, including up to $225,000 for certain Green Communities grants, up to $250,000 for expert grants, and multi‑year decarbonization grants up to $500,000. MRPC also described the “Climate Leader Communities” pathway — a higher‑tier program that requires a municipal decarbonization roadmap and use of the state stretch energy code — which would open additional funding for municipal electrification, solar plus storage, and coordinator seed funding.

Several speakers described operational hurdles that affect local project timelines. Board members and staff said National Grid delays have prevented heat pumps from being fully operational in one recently funded project; MRPC staff said the town would need a supplemental energy reduction plan to add a newly acquired building to the program baseline. MRPC recommended checking and correcting missing fuel uploads, and the presenters said they will follow up to bring updated data to the town.

The presentation closed with MRPC encouraging further project planning and grant applications, and with MRPC and town staff agreeing to review outstanding fuel and irrigation data before the state audit.