4th Meeting of Hanover’s Largest Energy Consumers

Sustainable Hanover convened the fourth meeting of Hanover’s Largest Energy Users (LEEK) on Friday, January 23, in partnership with Robin Tindall of Hypertherm Associates. Previous meetings were hosted by the Town of Hanover, CRREL, and Dartmouth College.

We were delighted to have representatives from seven of our eight member organizations. Participants included Robin Tindall (Hypertherm Associates); April Harkness (Coop Food Stores); Mary “Abbey” Swiderski (CRREL); Jeanne Kornfeld (SAU 70); Frank Roberts and Marcus Welker (Dartmouth); Dean Sorenson, Margaret Clark, and Scot Drysdale (Kendal); Pete Kulbacki (Town of Hanover); and Yolanda Baumgartner and Judi Colla (Sustainable Hanover).

Robin led an excellent tour of Hypertherm, beginning in the Reliability Lab, where Kaly Gadgil demonstrated environmental chambers, vibration testing, tumblers, and rapid temperature-change equipment used to push products to failure. We then toured customer training and testing areas before concluding with a look at Hypertherm’s impressive zero-waste recycling system.

The group discussed sustainability topics of shared interest, including waste reduction (especially composting), renewable energy and solar installations, CO₂ refrigeration, and C-PACE financing to support clean energy, resilience, and reduced energy and water use.

Kendal generously offered to host the next meeting, tentatively planned for April. Participants agreed to extend the time of future meetings and suggested occasional virtual meetings focused on specific topics.

Many thanks to Robin and to everyone who made time to attend. We hope those who couldn’t join us will be able to participate next time.