I'm still catching up on events from the food-addiction summit over at fisherblue.com/blog, and tomorrow I'm leaving for another week away (I'll be blogging in a third place for that, and though I know it sounds beyond dorky, I can't say where).

But I did want to get in this mention from Paul Eldrenkamp about an "insulation slam" that's being given by a handful of local contractors at 7:30 p.m. on May 14 at 3 Church St., Cambridge.

The state has decided to move ahead with two of the three zero net energy projects recommended last week by the Zero Net Energy Task Force.

I reported previously that the governor had asked for one such recommendation, and that the task force had recommended three, in Westborough, Danvers, and Lowell, so this step is both a doubling of the state's original commitment and short of the panel's recommendation. 

The Westborough project is the headquarters of the Department of Fish and Game's Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. It is about 34,000 gross square feet.

There are 14 recommendations in the commercial sector, a catch-all category excluding public buildings and residential buildings of less than five units.

Among them:

Establish energy performance standards for new construction and major renovations.

Improve the building code for energy requirements.

Require solar readiness for all new construction and major renovations.

There were two forks of work, an interim standard and for a demonstration project, as the governor requested in his charge to the group.

In the former:

Adopt prescriptive standards, such as optimizing building orientation or requiring solar-ready roofs.

Require advanced metering for both energy and water in new buildings or major renovations.

Require buildings to report their performance over time. 

Paul Eldrenkamp, chairman of the residential task force, introduced the recommendations saying that some people in the room will be challenged by them, and some will be threatened by the. They represent "a dramatic shift, and it's not going to be easy and it's not going to be comfortable."

Some of the recommendations: Amend the residential building code with a maximum HERS (Home Energy Rating System) rating of 70, with a "stretch" code of 50. HERS is a predictor of energy usage, and 100 represents a standard home today.

The topic is worth more than I can devote right now, but the governor's Zero Net Energy Task Force reports its recommendations this morning, one year to the day since Gov. Patrick announced his intention to form the group at last year's NESEA show.

I'm seated at the back of this year's show right now, as events get underway. I gather that it will be discussed at this plenary session this morning, but I got an embargoed copy of the report; here are the bare bones. The state should: