Six Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company (MMWEC) member municipal utilities have been awarded federal grant funding under the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, MMWEC said on Jan. 12.
The funding, under the U.S. Department of Energy’s “Preventing Outages and Enhancing the Resilience of the Grid,” grant opportunity program, is being administered by the Mass Clean Energy Center (MassCEC).
The grant recipients include the Wakefield Municipal Gas and Light Department, Marblehead Municipal Light Department, Paxton Municipal Light Department, Holyoke Gas and Electric, Templeton Municipal Light and Water Plant, and Chester Municipal Light Department.
The grant awards include the following:
- Wakefield Municipal Gas and Light Department awarded $2,867,044 to develop a comprehensive microgrid at Northeast Metro Tech and Wakefield Memorial high schools. The Wakefield Energy Park, which includes a 5-megawatt energy storage system, will also serve as a peak shaving resource to benefit WMGLD customers.
- Marblehead Municipal Light Department awarded $1,328,253 to fortify its 23-kilovolt sub-transmission lines that deliver power to Marblehead from National Grid’s Railyard substation in Salem. The grant, which is funded under the federal 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, will facilitate the conversion of several wooden utility poles to steel poles and enable MMLD to underground key sections of vulnerable supply line.
- Paxton Municipal Light Department awarded $1,180,039 to replace and upgrade a substation transformer and associated equipment to modernize infrastructure. Work also includes the installation of a backup transformer foundation, containment and work area so the existing transformer can be retained as a spare in the event of a failure.
- Holyoke Gas and Electric awarded $460,000 to replace 1.5 miles of overhead spacer cable in their service territory with upgraded cables, and complete related vegetation management work. The project will allow for increased adoption of electrification of buildings and transportation in Holyoke.
- Templeton Municipal Light and Water Plant awarded $397,281 to reconductor and reconstruct a single-phase line and replace an aging transformer at an assisted living facility in Baldwinville. The transformer replacement will improve resiliency. It is sized to handle the full building load of today and future expected electrification loads.
- Chester Municipal Light Department awarded $30,000 to manage vegetation along one of its power lines on a section of Bromley Road especially prone to outages. The funds help cover the costs of tree trimming and removal of dead trees in the small, rural community of Chester.
“The awarding of these grant funds demonstrates the MLPs’ proactive work in upgrading infrastructure to improve resiliency while providing added capacity to enable future load growth,” said Jason Viadero, MMWEC’s Director of Engineering and Generation Assets.
“MMWEC is pleased to have facilitated several of these grant applications, as grant writing is one of its core services. In recent years, MMWEC has delivered over $5 million in grant awards to MLPs supporting a variety of unique resiliency, grid modernization and efficiency projects. We remain committed to supporting MLPs in their efforts to ensure a reliable infrastructure to serve their customers while leveraging grant funding to keep rates stable.”
MMWEC is a not-for-profit, public corporation and political subdivision of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts created by an Act of the General Court in 1975 and authorized to issue tax-exempt debt to finance a wide range of energy facilities.
MMWEC provides a variety of power supply, financial, risk management and other services to the state’s consumer-owned, municipal utilities. It is the largest provider of asset-owned generation for municipal light departments in New England.
