It’s been nearly a decade since SP2015A entered our purview.  While in the early days there wasn’t much information, we now have a boatload of info about MMWEC’s new peaker and, for the first time, cumulative statistics that include PMLP’s two gas-and-oil burning generators located next door.
    The Waters River Power Station has grown to include the city’s two old generators and the new peaker owned by Mass. Municipal Wholesale Electric Company (MMWEC) on the same city owned lot. The state views this arrangement as two separate owners and therefore the project did not have to meet some requirements (i.e., full environmental and health review) because, individually, the owners’ generators create less than 100MW of power.  Cumulatively, the site creates 128MW of power. 
      PMLP, with approximately 26,000 customers, is the third largest of 40 municipal electric utilities in the state. Its power supply comes from a variety of sources throughout the Northeast, including : two generators in Peabody owned and operated by PMLP as well as three exhaust emission stacks, three aboveground fuel oil storage tanks (110,000 gallon capacity each), and a 115 kilovolt (KV) substation whose interface with the transmission system is controlled by REMVEC, a satellite of the Independent System Operator-New England (ISO-NE).
      Last month, the PMLP Commission approved $2.5 million dollars to upgrade their 115 kilovolt substation equipment at Waters River and Bartholomew Street substations.  PMLP Manager Joe Anastasi said the required improvements at the 48-year-old, high-voltage substation were needed before the MMWEC project was added to the site.  The arrangement means the city pays for it and MMWEC rents space.  The amount of “rent” was not provided but to get  MMWEC’s generation through Peabody’s  substation and out the door to the transmission system, it goes through some of this new equipment.
      In 2023, while MMWEC’s new peaker was being built, a  20-gallon, #2 diesel oil spill resulted from work on the new peaker plant. Thirty cubic yards of contaminated soil was removed from the Pulaski Street site.  The release affected crushed stone and two catch basins that daylight into a nearby stream.  A boom was placed into the catch basins. Not sure which entity paid for the clean-up or if the cost was shared.