PERC Meeting Fuels New Workforce Initiatives, Ongoing Training, 2022 Marketing Campaign

The Propane Education & Research Council (PERC) met on April 27, 2022, in Nashville, Tenn., to consider a variety of projects to provide opportunities, growth, training and propane awareness.

The Council approved the following projects and programs:

Docket 23360: 2022 Workforce Outreach, $430,000

This docket provides funding for the following projects:

1. The Future Farmers of America

(FFA) Convention. Annually PERC attends the national FFA convention. For 2022, PERC will shift their focus of promoting propane in agriculture to attendees to workforce recruitment. PERC will provide the attendees, mostly students (farm related and not) and teachers, with information on the career opportunities in the propane industry, information on the Technical School Grant Program, the FFA curriculum, Autogas technician training, and PERC will have propane marketers with Generation Next present at our booth.

2. Technical School Grant Program.

PERC will offer the second year of the Technical School Grant Program (TSGP) to community colleges and technical education facilities. This program would provide approximately 20 schools up to $10,000 grants to upgrade and expand the labs of technical schools and career centers interested in teaching propane curriculum to current and future students.

3. Allied Partners Pilot Program

(APPP). This new project for PERC will help bridge the training gap for propane marketers and their allied partners. PERC will develop an outreach program for the industry and create a roster of trainers who will serve as a grassroots network of trainers for the industry. The goal is for this group to be leveraged by marketers and state entities to train builders, architects, engineers, and realtors on propane solutions in the buildings and homes they influence. PERC will create a curriculum from previously developed courses on the Propane Training Academy, which will be complimented by tools for the presenter and students.

4. The business development team has found success meeting one-on-one with Energy Service Companies (ESCOS) to inform them about energy efficiency programs using propane. These ESCOS provide energy system analysis to both public and private facilities to identify operating costs that could be reduced by upgrading specific systems for better efficiency. HVAC and more recently m-CHP have been areas of focus for these upgrades. This program will provide for a trainer to target and train ESCOS on the availability and applications for propane in these projects.

Docket 23380: Performance & Emissions of Propane/DME Blends in Spark Ignition Engine, $110,000

This is a funding proposal to work with the University of Michigan to study fundamental ignition behavior with blends of propane and renewable DME. The study will provide the dataset for designing American Society for Testing and Materials standards for propane/ DME blends.

Docket 23383: Manufactured Housing Sales Center Partnership, $120,000

Manufactured housing sales centers have model homes open for customers to see the home they could live in. These are typically all electric models that are cold in the winter. Our desire is to show customers all the propane options they could have in their home, while also letting them shop in a warm model during the winter. Building on a successful test site, PERC will expand to more sales centers throughout the country. The plans, budgets, and recommendations for this program were developed in concert with the learnings from that pilot.

The program will cost share with propane marketers up to $6,000 for each sales center location to install “live burn” homes operating on propane. The program will cover any increase in the cost of the model home going from an electric model to propane. There is very little difference in the cost of acquiring a propane home versus an all-electric model, but this allows for upgrading appliances to a nicer package, adding a gas furnace, upgrading to a tankless water heater if desired, adding fireplaces and items that wouldn’t always be in the base model package that would be shown. PERC will also pay for technician’s time to convert appliances, connect the domestic tank and leak test

the system. Each marketer (or region of a multi-state marketer) would be limited to two sales centers and a maximum of $12,000 in cost share.

Docket 23361: 2022 Marketing Campaign and Partnership with States, $5,265,623

This project proposes a national consumer awareness campaign for 2022. Complementing PERC’s current integrated communications and marketing activities, this campaign will utilize video, streaming audio, and display banner ads to raise consumer awareness about propane’s key benefits.

A national buy may include an unwired TV buy (airing our ads on both broadcast programming and cable programming), a CBS Mornings buy (airing our ads twice per week for 9 weeks), and a NASCAR buy (airing 50 spots during the NASCAR Cup and NASCAR Xfinity series).

Complementing the national buy is an opportunity for state entities like the Propane Council of Texas to opt in and customize a local campaign that could include streaming audio (airing a 0:30 second spots), web banner ads (airing on hundreds of nationally and locally recognized brand safe sites), and digital video ads (airing on YouTube, Roku, Apple TV, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Tubi, Netflix and others). States like Texas are asked to match $1 for $2 funding to support a campaign in their state(s).

Docket 23164: Market Data & Research Program, $570,000

The 2022 Market Research & Data Analytics Program initiative will not only support conducting new analyses and research, but will also leverage past investments in research, new research, and data acquisition by making those insights and data more available and accessible to PERC and other stakeholder audiences.

Docket 23401: 2022 Learning Center, $458,250

The Learning Center has become the central repository and tracking program for all of PERC’s online training programs. This funding request will support the operations of all of PERC’s online educational programs, upgrades and support, and continue the development of professional, informed, and skilled workforce and trade allies through world-class safety and technical training, by supporting PERC’s educational program’s delivery platform.

Docket 23402: Fire Safety Analysis, $617,000

This project will provide an easy-to-use online tool through a user-friendly web-based application for the completion of the written fire safety analysis (FSA) as required under NFPA 58 and distribution to the AHK. The industry currently has a program that is a PDF. The old FSA compliance program is cumbersome to use and feedback from AHJ’s was compiled with many noting that updating of the program would be very helpful.

Docket 23359: 2022 Industry Engagement, $591,500

The 2022 Industry Engagement docket covers outreach and meeting expenses for 2022 so PERC can participate in state meetings, marketer events and industry trade shows, conduct the Advisory Committee meeting, put on the annual Leadership Summit, as well as hold staff and Council meetings to provide guidance and support of programs and technology development.

The Council tabled the following funding request:

Docket 23373: National Workforce Outreach Scholarship Program, $594,800

The proposal would have provided scholarships for employee prospects to attend the North Carolina Technical Education Center in Graham, N.C. The program would be open to students from across the country, including Texas, and planned to deliver 110 trained employees over 18 months through three program tiers: certified drivers, CDL certified personnel, service technicians.

New PERC Council Appointment

Bill Briggs, Phillips 66 (Houston, TX), was appointed by GPA Midstream Association to replace Jay Furman.

Next Meeting

The next Council meeting will be on July 19-20, 2022, in Lake Geneva, WI.

Find more PERC news and updates at www.propane.com.

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