PEABODY — A controversial 60 megawatt peaker plant is now online on Pulaski Street. But developers behind the $85 million plant won’t share how often it’s running — or if it’s running at all.
      The natural gas and oil-powered plant is operated by the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Energy Company and sits on a Peabody Municipal Light Plant site at 58R Pulaski St. The site is owned by the city of Peabody.
    It’s meant to operate only during “peak” energy use times. Typically, to prevent the power grid from becoming overstressed on especially hot or cold days.
    The plant is expected to run for 239 hours annually, well below the cap of 1,250 hours per year as regulated by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, according to PMLP’s website. It supplies capacity to 14 municipalities across the state who signed on to the project, including Peabody, Marblehead and Wakefield locally.
    The peaker went online June 1.
    When asked by The Salem News how often the peaker has run since then, or if it has operated at all, developers behind the project said they cannot say. Doing so violates rules designed to protect “competitively sensitive information” by grid operator ISO New England, MMWEC spokesperson Kate Roy said.
    “It is not that MMWEC ‘won’t release the data,’ it is that MMWEC can’t release the data,” she wrote in an email. “The electricity market is competitive and … the (peaker) can be called upon by the ISO when needed.
    “If suppliers of electricity to the competitive market knew what units were supplying power when, then there is the clear danger of market price manipulation,” Roy continued. “So the ISO requires the confidentiality of this information.”
      ISO does release aggregated data on the types of fuel used to power New England’s grid each day and how many megawatt hours of energy they produce. Just nothing on individual generators.
    “This policy is designed to maintain a fair and competitive energy market by protecting generator-specific data to prevent unfair advantages and by ensuring electricity prices are driven by supply and demand — not strategic exploitation,” ISO spokesperson Mary Cate Colapietro said.
    The Peabody Lighting Commission itself is not privy to when the peaker runs as it is an MMWEC owned and operated project, Commission Chair Raymond Melvin said.
    “It might have started once or twice, but I don’t believe it’s fully operational,” he told The Salem News Wednesday. “When it does run, I’ll issue a press release.”
      Peabody resident Susan “Sudi” Smoller, founder of Breathe Clean North Shore and one of the loudest voices against the project, said the ISO’s rule “is a convenient way to not tell people what’s going on.
      “Do I have to organize a viewing party to see when the smokestack is running? At this point, yes,” she said.
      Smoller already hosted a handful of protests against the plant in 2021 and 2022, around the time construction started on the project, with other environmental groups in the state and was featured in the documentary “#StopPeabodyPeaker,” released over the winter.
    Facilities such as the Peabody peaker are typically required to submit annual CO2 emission reports to the DEP each January, a MassDEP spokesperson said.
      Peabody Health Director Sharon Cameron asked MMWEC this spring if the city’s Board of Health will receive air quality testing results from the peaker, along with notice of when the plant will run.
      Revealing when the plant operates violates “trade secrets,” Cameron was told, and emission data would later become available through MassDEP and also Form EIA-923 reports on the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s website.
      MMWEC is required to report operation data through this form annually for its plants that provide capacity to the grid and can produce at least 1 megawatt of power, according to the EIA. These plants can also be selected to submit this data for less comprehensive, monthly versions of this report released throughout the year, as was the case for MMWEC’s Stony Brook Plant in June.
      Purple Air monitors operated by the city track air quality data around Peabody. However, the one on Pulaski Street near the peaker hasn’t been working properly and Cameron had to apply for a new device from MassDEP in May. She has yet to hear back on the request, she said.
    As of now, there’s no public source for real-time data about Peabody’s new peaker.
    “You’d think (plant developers) would be eager for people to know how well it’s going, right?” state Rep. Sally Kerans said.
    Kerans, the Peabody Board of Health, state Sen. Joan Lovely and Wakefield Town Councilor Julie Smith-Galvin have been critical of a fossil fuel plant being built in an environmental justice area with higher rates of health disparities among residents and without any environmental or health impact studies done before the construction of the plant.
    The project wasn’t required to conduct the studies during its approval process, though it would have to if it sought approval today under the state’s Climate Policy Roadmap passed in 2021.
    The peaker is more energy efficient than the two existing generators at PMLP’s Pulaski Street substation. The oldest, built in the 1970s, will be delisted by June 1, 2026, PMLP General Manager Joe Anastasi said.
      The peaker is also capable of burning hydrogen, a green energy source. But the original equipment manufacturer is still testing the use of hydrogen in similar units and it is unclear when or how much hydrogen will be used in the peaker, Roy said.
    “MMWEC has supported efforts at the federal level to develop green hydrogen sources in the region,” she said. “Unfortunately, the federal government has not selected the region for a green hydrogen hub.”
      Nearly a decade on, the approval process of the plant itself remains a sore spot for opponents.
    Originally named Project 2015A for the year it went into development, discussions about the peaker started locally in executive sessions of the Peabody Lighting Commission in June 2015.
    The peaker’s name was changed to the Northeast Reliability Center earlier this year.
    The commission voted unanimously in late 2015 during one of these executive sessions for Peabody to participate in the project’s early development stages. The project was brought before the public by the commission for the first time at a regular meeting in October 2016.
    This was to keep the bidding process and other aspects of the deal that could be considered trade secrets confidential, Commissioner William Aylward, who was on the commission at the time of the vote, told The Salem News last year after the minutes of these 2015-2016 executive sessions were released.
    “(MMWEC) was still in the process of getting bids on who was going to do the build and who was going to do the equipment, where they were buying all this stuff from,” he said at the time. “That’s why some of these things have to happen in executive session.”
    Outcry against the project began in late 2020, when the state issued an air quality permit for 2015A. While the project had been discussed in general Lighting Commission meetings prior, residents hadn’t been adequately notified of the project, Ward 3 Councilor Stephanie Peach said.
    Peach represents the neighborhood where the peaker is situated and lives nearby. She told The Salem News she didn’t know until a reporter’s phone call this week that the peaker had been operational as of June 1.
    “We should be able to know when it’s running, not just as neighbors to the plant but as consumers in general,” Peach said.
      “People who pay PMLP for these services, it’s good for us to know when we’re peaking so that we know to conserve energy.”

WGBH July 05, 2024

The new Peabody power plant will soon start up for the first time, but it won’t be running on clean fuel as officials once assured. It will burn diesel and natural gas.

The Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company initially proposed using fossil fuels for the so-called “peaker plant.” The nonprofit utility said in its 2016 proposal that the $85 million project would only operate at peak times of energy demand, typically the coldest and warmest days of the year, when the energy grid is otherwise overdrawn. The goal was to keep the power on without having to raise energy prices on those high-demand days.

But after activists and healthcare providers raised concerns about increased air pollution and carbon emissions, MMWEC changed course. In 2021, the utility announced it would operate the plant with a blend of green hydrogen and natural gas fuel, and eventually shift fully to hydrogen.

That plan now seems to be on hold. Joe Anastasi, manager of the Peabody Municipal Light Plant, said the plant is equipped to burn natural gas, oil and hydrogen — but, in part due to supply chain issues, the utility has not been able to procure any green hydrogen to burn.

And the plant is near opening. Spokeswoman Kate Roy said in an email that it is waiting to be dispatched by the regional electric grid, which she said could happen “any day now.”

The news has disappointed climate activists.

“[Peabody] could have been the first in the state to say no to burning more fossil fuels,” said Sudi Smoller, the founder of Peabody environmental advocacy group Breathe Clean North Shore. “We would have found a way. That’s what people do.”

Apart from a brief notice MMWEC published in the local paper in 2016, the peaker went largely unnoticed by the public for five years.

Then, in March 2021, the local Sierra Club urged members to oppose the natural gas and diesel plant. Activists questioned the timing: By 2050, Massachusetts’ electric grid must reach net zero carbon emissions, according to a 2021 state law. They wondered why the utility would put a new fossil fuel plant on the grid when cleaner alternatives were available.

That May, 87 Massachusetts healthcare professionals signed a letter calling for “an end to this misguided project,” citing air quality concerns and health inequities. The plant would emit 51,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, the letter said, which would be equivalent to adding 11,000 cars on Massachusetts roads.

“The residents of Peabody currently have higher than state average rates of air-pollution related illnesses, and the air pollution associated with the new plant will increase mortality within the Peabody community,” the letter said.

State officials, climate activists and Peabody residents also spoke out against the plant, voicing anger about its proximity to a daycare and small businesses. 

In response, MMWEC announced a 30-day “pause” to address the concerns. MMWEC noted it was “an unusual step” for a project permitted years earlier, but they acknowledged technology had advanced since 2016. “Can we find a way to develop a needed capacity resource that isn’t fossil fuel-fired but still reliable in times of need?” said Ron DeCurzio, MMWEC’s chief executive, in the statement.

In June 2021, MMWEC announced a new plan. In a public meeting, Ed Krasinski, a project consultant, said the goal was to open the plant the following year with a blend of 75% natural gas and 25% green hydrogen. He said that Mitsubishi, the company that manufactured the plant’s turbine, was “aggressively pursuing” this target.

Krasinski also said that Mitsubishi hoped to increase its turbine’s capacity to a blend of 80% hydrogen by 2030.

“With regards to the project, we’re looking at converting to 100% green hydrogen post-construction,” said Brian Quinn, MMWEC’s director of engineering and generation assets. “The whole goal is to have green hydrogen refuel our future, and we’re on the way to doing that.”

On paper, MMWEC proposed a more measured shift. In a November 2021 bond offering, MMWEC stated the plant would begin operating with a 10% hydrogen blend, and achieve up to a 20% hydrogen blend by 2030, rather than the 80% suggested at the meeting. Depending on “advancements in technology,” the document said, “the green hydrogen mix may increase before and after 2030.”

Anastasi said MMWEC told him recently that the plant is equipped to accommodate a maximum 30% hydrogen fuel blend. 

When asked about the differences in projections, Roy said that because the technology and process was new, “expectations can change throughout the research and testing process.” 

Roy said that Mitsubishi was still testing the use of green hydrogen, so “we’re not exactly sure what percentage of green hydrogen will be incorporated and when.” She said MMWEC is committed to using green hydrogen “when it is feasible to do so.”

MMWEC recently updated its website to remove previous posts about the peaker plant and created a new page calling the plant the Northeast Reliability Center. The site says it will be online in 2024, and will be “fueled by natural gas, with oil as a backup, retro-fitted for green hydrogen.”

https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2024-07-05/new-peabody-peaker-power-plant-prepares-to-go-online-less-green-than-promised?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0XUmC5yitPYWVr9Kvr3rXoJi9cbMMi2OANUW5nmLwjKsXQtGCYnCuUTbA_aem_G3yz7nRMSUDn6NzywoYLSw

– BCNS/Sudi Smoller – I agree with Commissioner Lazares. We are only trying to get more information. Can’t you see how you come across as being untransparent? Because, when we ask you things, you don’t tell us. And, that has long been the history of our relationship….I’m thrilled that we are involved in the battery project. I feel like you haven’t told anyone about it. The fact that it is one out of 14 communities.…Where exactly is it going? How will it impact Peabody? We haven’t heard any of that. And people want to hear that. And, when you say, send me an email and I’ll email you back, people don’t hear that.

– Commissioner Thomas D’Amato – At the risk of extending this, I get your point. This a cultural change….

-Audience Member – We can’t hear you. Use your microphone.

(D’Amato turns on his microphone and the sound in the room improves, but not on video, because the mics are not connected to the mixer.)

– D’Amato – It’s become a cultural thing. I used to remark that we liked to fly under the radar, great service…(inaudible)… You want us to be more public or higher profile. I don’t know if that can happen overnight. We have a new board; we have more tolerant board members. I understand but we’re not in the business of (inaudible) taking it public. We’re in the business of …(inaudible) service… and in due time, you’ll hear all that. But questions around an empty lot and wanting to know what that is, I don’t know what to say to that.

(referring to a question raised by Stewart Lazares earlier in the meeting.)

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – We want to make sure that you are taking action towards a sustainable future that does not involve greenhouse gasses.

– D’Amato – Yea that’s part of it. That’s not our complete mantra. What’s going on today… is not going to happen overnight….

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – It has to be part of all of our mantras.

– D’Amato – It’s part of our mantra… The federal government is writing checks it can’t cash. It’s part of our mantra. We can’t write checks that we can’t cash. I get it, but it’s not going to happen overnight.

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – We have to keep chipping away at it…I think you have the best rates and great service. But, I think your mission statement has to be expanded. In today’s world, it has to be more than that. You have to give leadership to the future on

sustainability…(inaudible)….People are feeling like you’re not telling us the good or the bad.

– D’Amato – I think we’re doing as good as anybody. Do you think we’re not doing a good job?

– Commissioner Tracy Valletti – To Sudi’s point about emailing and people not hearing it because it is internal, can we treat that as correspondence and address it publicly?

-Joe Anastasi, PMLP Director – We can do a number of things but that is one of the reasons why we created and transitioned to the Energy Awareness Forum online – for that exact purpose to contain a list of questions and answers that the public has asked.

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – The deadline (on the PMLP website) still says January 21.

– Anastasi – So, it’s out of date. You can still submit a question.

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – And then, when will we see the answer? And then, once you publish it after 60 days, where does that answer go?

– Anastasi – Right there on the energy awareness age.

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – Well, I can’t seem to find much information on that page. (BCNS checked the page on 3/30 and found the deadline has been updated to: If you ask a question and wish to follow up, please use our Contact Page or call Community Relations at 978-531-5975. https://pmlp.com/229/Energy-Awareness-Forum)

– Anastasi – It’s only because there’s only been two questions asked in two-and-a half ears.

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – It’s a bit disheartening when we have to make a deadline and the latest deadline is last January for several months.

– Audience Member – If you don’t answer our questions, then we are really in trouble.

– Anastasi – In my opinion, actions speak louder than words. And, we have made every action in the right direction. If our words are not up to date then we apologize and we’ll be better at that. But, our actions have been unanimously fantastic for the last 50 years and no one is going to make us feel that we haven’t done enough because we’ve done more than almost everyone. We are ahead of the curve.

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – And I’ve said you have, but for the one part: lack of public and community engagement. It’s about the future.

– Anastasi – I am very sorry that you feel that way but I disagree that we are not doing enough. I believe we are. I will always try to be better and that’s something that I take on every day of my life. So, we will be better but I don’t accept that we’re not good enough.

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – The question that immediately comes to mind: Why are there three pages of public notices in the Weekly News this week from this board and you don’t say one word about it before this meeting or at this meeting. What any of that means,

people don’t understand. (Go to pages 12-14.

– Anastasi – Because a lot goes into those decisions and we barely got it out in time. You’ll find out more information is going to be available tomorrow.

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – That’s like saying to me ‘you can see the budget once we pass it.’

– Anastasi – The newspaper article today is about Monday. So it’s not live until Monday.

– D’Amato – Can I add one thing because you have a feeling like we’re not forthcoming or whatnot – not public enough. I have a feeling sometimes like you are looking to trip us up. That we’re under the microscope, that you.. say nice things but it comes across….I can feel that we’re under the microscope with you guys within the last year and a half.

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller = Can I be frank. That’s because…

– Commissioner ? – asks “of 2015A?” (the new 60MW peaker)

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – Because, you don’t share anything with us. You turn off the microphones. The way you treat us and treat public engagement is not very welcoming. So, we’re constantly feeling – we better get there early to make sure the microphones are not

missing again. We better get there early, so we can record this and then people don’t use their microphones so we can’t hear it. It seems no matter what we do, you all are trying to nix it. I’d like to get past that too but that’s been our history since we first found out about the Peabody Peaker. That’s been the history of our interactions. You still have not released your budget. You are publicly elected and you don’t let us see it or talk about it until it’s

been passed?

You ask why we seem to be resisting you? Because other boards don’t do that. They publish their budget. They have a way of communicating. They publish minutes in their entirety, not just a tweaking of the agenda. They record their meetings not necessarily on video but on audio.

– D’Amato – What if everything is the way you wanted and our rates were terrible and our service was terrible? Would that be good?

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – I’d be here working to address that.

– BCNS: Ron Smoller – Regarding the forum, I truly believe that you are not aware…I’ve sent questions well ahead of what’s shown as the Jan 21 deadline. It’s March 28, there has not been a question posted, including questions that I did send you last September. There should have been a posting in December, it’s a quarterly forum. There should have been answers to questions in December, maybe there weren’t any, mine was before December but it was shortly after. There should been another one (posting) this month, March 21 would be the (traditional) deadline date. It should have been a posting of my questions I submitted before Jan 21. There’s nothing there.

– Anastasi – Every question that has been submitted through the forum is posted on the forum. If you send a question in another fashion it doesn’t …

– BCNS, Ron Smoller – I submitted through the forum, two questions, prior to Jan 21 and they’re still not there. That’s over 60 days. (The two questions, as of 3/30, were not on the update on the Energy Awareness Forum page.)

– Anastasi – I remember seeing them there.

– Audience member – Maybe they are gone now.

– Anastasi – Potentially, that is when we cut over to our new website, maybe.

– BCNS, Ron Smoller – They were meant to be on the Forum…

.Everything I have ever submitted to you ….. I have always followed your rules. I’m always trying to follow all of your rules. I don’t think they’re all great but I get it.

Peabody TV – 8:03 is where BCNS “remarks” begin. Stewart Lazares spoke just prior to 8:03.

Both MMWEC and PMLP officials stated during public meetings that batteries are not a feasible replacement for the proposed plant because batteries are expensive, require more space than is available and would fail to provide adequate reliability to the electric grid.

“MMWEC said that batteries would not work for Peabody because there was not enough room on the site,” said Jane Dye of CHEF, Citizens for Holden’s Energy Future. “Our response was “What? Batteries don’t have to all be in the same place. Spread them around to different MLPs (muncipial light plants).”

That’s what’s happening. Fourteen MMWEC communities, including Peabody, have partnered wiith MMWEC and Delorean Power LLC (Delorean), a Virginia-based, energy storage project developer, owner and operator. The first 5MW battery energy storage facility is planned in Holden Mass.

PMLP’s website includes information about a utility battery storage facility. “Battery Storage reduces our bulk power costs by allowing us to store power when it is cheaper for us to buy (during non-peak times), and then to use the battery to shave the peak which helps to reduce stress on the bulk power system and reduces PMLP’s transmission and capacity costs. This will be a collaborative project with MMWEC, and is targeted to be installed on PMLP’s property at 201 Warren Street Ext.” https://pmlp.com/224/Current-Projects

The resulting shift in energy demand from on-peak to off-peak hours will lead to significant cost and environmental benefits for customers in the 14 communities involved. But, Peabody’s customers will also see a reduction in air pollution since our three oil-and-gas burning peaker plants should run less.

The energy storage project is the first in a series that Delorean has developed with facilitation from MMWEC. In late 2022, Delorean won an exclusive partnership to build similar energy storage projects across the state with many expected to finish construction by the end of 2024.

https://www.salemnews.com/…/article_7e98ab0c-d97c-5ea0…

(Psst – Seems our spectral visitors are infatuated with the audio of PMLP meetings. Who’s controlling the mics? No volume?! We’re working on it! Stay tuned!) On Halloween, 10/31. the audio was restored. Thanks PAT!

According to applications for permits, Special Project 2015A will emit nearly 51,000 tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year—the equivalent of adding 11,000 combustion engine cars to Massachusetts’ roads each year. Furthermore, the peaker plant will require installing a natural gas compressor to increase natural gas pressure, a 90-foot smokestack and a 2,500-7,500 gallon new tank to hold aqueous urea.”

This view of the plant was revealed recently when parked vehicles were moved at the 58R Pulaski St address.

photos by Sophie Noelle Hartley

“So far, there’s been no penalties for Peabody,” PMLP Manager Joe Anastasia said. He explained that problems moving forward are “administrative” and involve an issue between MMWEC and PMLP regarding ownership of the common hardware being used for the plant.

As proposed, the new plant appears to rely heavily on sharing PMLP resources. In addition to sharing .6 acres of the City’s land off Pulaski Street, the facilities to be shared include:

– provide the new plant with natural gas via the Waters River site’s connection;

– allow the new plant to connect with the regional high voltage transmission system by connecting to a PMLP substation

– share a new, 200,000 gallon oil storage tank with both facilities

Another “arms-length” agreement to share facilities includes maintenance support from PMLP for the new plant. The project will share (and pay PMLP for the use of) some ancillary facilities at the site, such as the oil unloading facility, and MMWEC planned to contract certain “routine maintenance” activities to PMLP.

The new plant was first proposed 8 years ago and was originally to be completed by Summer 2021. That deadline was extended by two years to Summer 2023. That means, ISO-NE expects the new plant is ready to provide electricity to the energy grid. If it calls on the new plant and it does not provide the back-up energy requested, IS0-NE can issue a fine. Is that fine charged to MMWEC? Will they pass that cost on to the 14 communities invested in the plant? Peabody is responsible for 30% of the plant’s cost. Could we see a bill for 30% of any fine that might occur?

The city owns, but PMLP controls and operates the two existing peaker plants at the Waters River station. The new plant is owned by MMWEC.

PMLP’s website announced they will soon re-name the new plant, eliminating SP2015A (Special Project2015A).

Coming Soon: #2 – Status of Generators 1 & 2

Caption:  Wondering if the new smokestack at the plant is complete?  This photo was taken October 10.  Is the smokestack 90 feet high as proposed?  The red box is a 31-foot-tall rectangular stack installed 52 years ago.