I recently submitted this question to the online PMLP Energy Awareness Forum: “Please tell us more about your plans to add solar panels to your property by Fall 2025. Will the panels be roof mounted? Or, where will they be placed? How much energy will be produced? Is the solar energy produced available to call on when our peaker plants are used by ISO? Is there any solar planned for the PMLP’s former Diesel plant? Panels for the old diesel plant’s new $764,000 PVC membrane roof? Are there any energy efficiency features as part of the new $533,000 windows planned at that site?”

It took a few days to receive verification of their receipt of the question, but my question has never been posted to the forum.

I did get an e-mail reply from John Maihos of PMLP Human Resources. Here is his answer – which again does not appear on the Energy Awareness Forum. “Thanks for your questions. We are researching the feasibility of adding solar panels to our property at 201 Warren Street extension. As opposed to roof-mounted panels, the space under consideration is where the shrubbery is just before coming up the hill to our office. No further details are available at this time, although it may be possible to tie this generation into an on-site battery.

“These assets would not be available for ISO New England as solar panels are not a substitute for on-call demand needs at this time.

“The windows recommended by the architectural engineers are a translucent panel, UV protected on both sides, with a Solar Heat Gain Coefficient of .39 to allow natural solar heat to condition the building.”

Why is the Energy Awareness Forum not updated?

The Forum was originally a live opportunity to ask questions of PMLP administration – although our request was for involvement with the PMLP Commission. No commissioner ever attended the forum when it met live. PMLP then opted to move the forum opportunity online and posted it to the front page of their website. It is now found at the bottom of the PMLP About Us/Getting to know us webpage – three link from the front page.

Why continue with this lack of transparency? Why not publish ratepayer questions and answers as done before? Even though PMLP alloted 60 days to answer a query.

The photo is an aerial view of the former PMLP diesel plant on Warren St. Ext. It is receiving a new roof and windows at a cost of $1.3 million.

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

Peabody: Green Communities and Beyond 5/16/24

by Mark Dullea

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance that you’re someone who is concerned about the earth’s rising temperature and all of the devastating results of that heat gain: wildfires, many declared out of control, near and far; rising sea levels; unbearable levels of heat where people have always been able to live before; drought conditions; reduced agricultural production; the decline of necessary species, such as bees and other pollinators; and much more.

Here in Peabody, we’re giving credit to the City for joining the ranks of some 300 cities and towns in Massachusetts who have become, over the last dozen or so years, designated Green Communities. That’s a fine accomplishment, and we ought to give credit where credit is due.

But. . . . . . .we can’t stop there. There’s still so much to do at the City level to get us up there with the leaders in municipal climate action. We need a number of official City responses to the situation that we in Peabody, and everyone around the world, have to face and to overcome. Such as: a Declaration of Climate Emergency would be a good start. We need specific goals which quantify How Much, and By What Year. We need someone, knowledgeable of the multiple issues involved – a Sustainability Director of Climate Planning Coordinator – to be employed at the highest levels of City government, and given a staff. We need an officially appointed Citizens Climate Advisory Committee or Task Force as major participants. We need to develop and to officially adopt a broad-based Climate Action Plan, with input from all of Peabody’s elected offices, boards, and authorities. This Plan would hopefully be put together in recognition of the already completed climate plans of our neighboring communities. The Peabody Plan needs to contain clearly stated goals and targets; it needs to have the data needed for sound decision-making and prioritizing; It needs a program of specific efforts to be carried out, along with strategies and funding sources – that sort of thing. A wider array of what city governments around the world have been doing to fight climate change – some going back as far as the early 1990s – can be found on my website: www.climateplanning.city

But all this may take a while to put into place, even if we start early tomorrow.

So here’s something that we can do right away. There is a federal grant program – part of the multi-hundreds-of-billions of dollars Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 – called Solar For All (SFA). SFA has just committed $156,000,000 (that’s 156 million) to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. You can read the details at www.epa.gov/greenhouse-gas-reduction-fund/solar-all These funds can go to public, private, and nonprofit entities that submit a winning grant application. The money is to be used for rooftop and other onsite solar installations and for community solar projects. A special emphasis of any proposal needs to be placed on low-to-moderate income, multi-family housing complexes. Battery storage of solar power, and microgrids are not yet specifically included, but advocates for each are currently having discussions with Mass DOER officials to try and add them. I hope this happens. I’m following it closely. Peabody should be actively pursuing a share of this money. Why should we just sit back and let it all go elsewhere?

Over the last few days I’ve been emailing outlines of this proposal to the Mayor, to the members of the City Council’s Committee on Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, to the Peabody Municipal Light Plant, and to the Peabody Housing Authority, which owns and manages over 500 of the type of housing units that are targeted by Solar For All funding. It’s vitally necessary that these 4 entities – Mayor, the Council, PMLP, and the PHA – all sit down together and come up with a plan to bring clean solar power to these and possibly other comparable housing complexes. Among these offices there are enough smart people to figure out how to craft a successful plan and grant application. If asked, I can suggest companies who do this kind of work, who can become involved at the appropriate point in the proceedings. If you believe that’s it’s time for Peabody to put real boots on the ground, climatically speaking, I’m hoping that you see the value of my proposal, and that you’ll do what you can to bring it into the open and move it forward.

I’m Mark Dullea. My wife, Donna Qualters and I live at 8 Longview Way, right opposite Tilly’s Farm. We believe our house was the first in Peabody to install solar panels, way back in 2012. We’ve since removed all of our home’s fossil-fueled heating equipment and appliances, replacing them with heat pumps, electric water heating, and an induction stove. I’m a retired urban planner with a long involvement in renewable energy and, more recently, climate planning at the local government level. I do some climate journalism, mainly for city and regional magazines. I volunteer several hours each week as a kind of climate technical advisor to an organization called Mass. Interfaith Power & Light. MassIPL is a nonprofit that assists churches, dioceses, and various other religious – run entities to decarbonize their building stock and their entire operations. I’ve helped them establish a Geeen Fund, and am working on MassIPL’s own Solar For All program and grant application. Please feel free to contact me with any comments, suggestions, revisions, etc., to the proposal I’m introducing here. 978-314-3301 markd9x9@gmail.com

Lightshift Energy and MMWEC deploy “first-of-its-kind” program for grid-scale battery energy storage in Massachusetts. (Pictured: Lightshift Energy project in Danville, VA) (Photo: Business Wire)

The Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company (MMWEC), the Commonwealth’s designated joint action agency for municipal utilities, and Lightshift Energy, an energy storage project developer, owner, and operator, announced a “first-in-kind” program for the industry to deploy the state’s first jointly implemented fleet of grid-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS).

Lightshift will build up to 50 MW of BESS across MMWEC’s growing utility membership, which represents half of all the municipal utilities in the state, serving nearly 200,000 customers. Lightshift said the partnership could provide over $200 million in cost savings for municipal customers while enabling effective management of generation and load to help the Commonwealth reach its goals of net zero emissions by 2050.

GO DEEPER: Check out the Factor This! energy storage podcast playlist, including episodes on battery storage, long-duration energy storage, gravity storage, and more. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

As part of the agreement, participating utilities within MMWEC’s membership will host one or more Lightshift energy storage projects. The initial wave of projects will commence operations this summer, with four projects already under construction in the towns of Groton, Holden, and Paxton. Late-stage development activities are already underway in the towns of Peabody, Shrewsbury, Wakefield, Chicopee, Ipswich, and Princeton, with mid-stage development activities moving forward in several other communities. Groton and Wakefield projects, among others, will provide backup power to critical infrastructure. The growing portfolio is scheduled to come online throughout 2024 and 2025.

“MMWEC is pleased to partner with Lightshift Energy on this battery energy storage system project,” says MMWEC Chief Executive Officer Ronald C. DeCurzio. “The project demonstrates yet again how the municipal utilities are leading the way in decarbonization in Massachusetts, in alignment with the Commonwealth’s emissions reduction targets.”

Cost-savings will be driven by “peak shaving” activities. Lightshift’s systems will be charged during periods of lower energy consumption and discharged during times of peak energy demand.

“This is a significant milestone for Massachusetts and for the participating utilities which are demonstrating leadership in grid modernization while prioritizing cost reduction for their communities,” said Rory Jones, Lightshift Co-Founder and Managing Partner. “And MMWEC has been pivotal in facilitating this first-in-kind program that other states will look to as a means to achieve major impact through community-based storage, at scale. Our partners in Groton, Holden, and Paxton have demonstrated particular leadership in bringing this program to life.”

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Lightshift will build up to 50 MW of BESS across MMWEC’s utility membership, which represents half of all municipal utilities in the state.

https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/…/first-in…/…

– 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.

Anastasi presented a detailed and informative summary of the budget. This is a transcription from the PAT video recording of the January 25 meeting.

“PMLP is proudly in its 133rd year in service to our great community. Every year of that rich history, we have succeeded in many endeavors. Since 1891, every endeavor we ever have undertaken has one singular purpose: to provide power. As few as 5 yrs ago, providing power was fairly straight forward. Since 2019 however the electric industry has seen unprecedented change bringing volatility to all aspects of our business, from fuel sources to generation, from emissions to transmission, from storage systems to renewable technologies. Not to mention, an ongoing pervavsive shift toward electrication with ev cars, heat pumps, and even lawn care tools.

“Add to that drastic evolution, on a timeline, smack dab in the middle of those recent five years, add a global pandemic. The fall out from COVID 19 is still affecting our people, our economy and our industry – ushering in radical changes to workforce structure, and talent, severe supply chain issues and monumental rates of inflation. And, as if this wasn’t enough, new federal and state mandates are dictating extremely rapid road maps to somehow, miraculously, get to net zero carbon emissions in less than 30 years while at the same time ramping up reliability and resilience requirements. Frankly, this is an impossible situation in mathematics this is referred to as an indeterminate form. In life, we call this a no win scenario. We can’t possibly hope to win. But that’s okay. We can hope to achieve goals. That’s what we intend to do to the best of our ability and with a never quit approach.

“All of these factors that affect the industry. PMLP and our ratepayers, cost money. Yet in an effort to keep costs low for our customers, PMLP has raised rates only once in the past 14 years This year, we faced many of the previously mentioned problems, primarily 300% inflation for transformers and other critical infrastructure supplies. Milestone 2023 winter and summers equated to a 3.4 reduction in electric sales and work force demand and retention challenges.

“In the face of these adversities, PMLP’s budget for 2024 needed three revisions to avoid showing losses. In the end, this meant we had to cut $13 miliion, which is nearly 20 percent of what we planned.

“Despite these unfortunate cuts, the budget we will be discussing tonight presents PMLP with a bare bones path to accomplish our prime directive of delivering power while also hopefully providing some insight into how we can initiate a long term, sustainable cost of service study to navigate the future years I hope to have this cost of service study for review in February or March for your discussion.

Some notable projects and initiatives that survived the cuts are:

Rate review and new rate design

Utility scale battery energy storage system

Main building renovations

Active grant pursuit with community outreach

Continued citywide LED lighting conversions

New fleet communications system

Substation infrastructure upgrades’

A mass notification system for outages and other emergencies

Commission Chair Melvin started to reconvene the meeting.

Anastasi asked: “Is there any discussion about the budget? You could choose to vote now or vote in executive session and come back and ratify.”

Melvin: “We’re going to vote on the budget in executive session.”

Anastasi: “That’s your choice.”

Melvin: “I have no further discussion on the budget but, if I could add, we are the elected officials that go through this budget and that’s why we’re elected. This process is really not an open process to the public. However, at some point it will be released.”

A copy of the finished budget arrived to BCNS two days later: go to PMLP 2024 Budget

Newly elected Chairman Ray Melvin announced, “Under my chairmanship, I will always ensure transparency with the public, as my predecessors have done in the past; however, going forward, the board will accept any and all questions pertaining to the light department through e-mail, website, social media or phone.”

Sounds like an improvement – yet, a brief time later in the meeting, Melvin would not allow the board to discuss the light plant’s 2024 budget during the open public meeting.

“I have no further discussion on the budget but, if I could add, we are the elected officials that go through this budget and that’s why we’re elected. This process is really not an open process to the public. However, at some point it will be released.”

Melvin prevented discussion in the open meeting and sent it into executive session, Although BCNS left the meeting when the board went into executive session, we received a copy of the budget two days later. The board voted on it when they returned that night from executive session. We don’t know how commissioners voted or the amount of funding passed,

After the public meeting adjourned, Commissioner Tom Paras (a 20-year member of the Commission) said that the PMLP budget was publicly discussed in the past, but now “it’s all done in-house.”

During the public part of the meeting on Jan. 25, PMLP Manager Joe Anastasi did provide comments on the proposed budget; his remarks begin at 17:43 on the video recording link at https://peabodytv.org/videos-on-demand/?vid=1180: (Note: If BCNS did not provide volunteer support to Peabody TV, the meeting would not have been recorded and we would not have access to Anastasi’s comments.)

During the public participation part of the Jan 25 meeting, Peabody resident and Breathe Clean North Shore co-founder, Ron Smoller, also provided comments about the commission’s continued lack of transparency.

“I want to express my disappointment in the PMLP regarding this year’s budget process. Every other City of Peabody council or committee that has a budget has an open and transparent budget process where a proposed budget is released for review and comment ahead of a public vote. Not PMLP. The budget for ‘our’ light plant is created and discussed behind closed doors and even standard requests to see the proposed budget are declined. ‘No budget for you,’ that’s what we hear.”

Smoller continued, “Even though it’s not a requirement at this time to provide a draft budget to interested owners of the PMLP (it is ours, remember) it would certainly be in line with the stated intent of PMLP to be more transparent… We have heard many times over the last year or two about how transparent you want to be, frankly the problem is, your actions have not matched your words, I ask you again to consider this unnecessarily secretive process going forward.”