PEABODY — The Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company (MMWEC) is holding a community meeting Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at the Peter A. Torigian Senior Center at 75R Central St.
MMWEC will share information with the public and solicit feedback on Project 2015A, a plan that proposes to build an $85 million peaker plant in Peabody. The project was put on hold by MMWEC last month following opposition from community groups.
The meeting will include a presentation by MMWEC, several municipal light plant officials and subject matter experts on MMWEC’s findings regarding available alternative energy sources. A question-and-answer session will follow. Masks are mandatory and will be provided.
The meeting will be live-streamed on the Peabody Municipal Light Plant (PMLP) Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/PeabodyLight. The meeting will also be recorded by Peabody’s public access television station and will air the next day.
MMWEC says that, as a capacity resource, Project 2015A is expected to run just 239 hours per year, all of them during times of peak energy use. Because it will utilize the newest and most efficient resources, it will produce fewer emissions than 94 percent of similar resources in the region.
Without this resource, local municipal utility companies, which are required to maintain capacity, will continue to rely on older, less energy-efficient power plants through the ISO – New England markets. ISO is an independent, not-for-profit corporation responsible for keeping electricity flowing across the six New England states and ensuring that the region has reliable, competitively-priced wholesale electricity today and into the future.
Project 2015A will also help its participating municipal light plants maintain stable rates for their customers. MMWEC says it is expected to result in a significant reduction in carbon emissions, producing approximately 7,500 tons of emissions per year, less than half than what is produced by the city of Boston in one day.
The project has been under development and public review for more than three years and has secured state permits.
As proposed, the 55-megawatt plant is expected to provide required capacity for more than a dozen nearby cities and towns — including Peabody, Marblehead and parts of Lynnfield (serviced by PMLP).
As the state’s not-for-profit agency for municipal light plants in Massachusetts, MMWEC assists Massachusetts’ municipal light departments in developing a diverse resource mix while they serve their load and meet capacity requirements in the New England market.
Anne Marie Tobin can be reached at [email protected].
