FirstLight Power and Energy New England Expand Landmark Power Purchase Agreement to Advance Massachusetts’ Clean Energy Goals for Municipal Utilities

FirstLight Power, a leading clean provider of renewable energy and energy storage resources, announced the expansion of the company’s landmark municipal electric department purchase agreement with Energy New England (ENE). As part of the agreement, thirteen Massachusetts-based municipal public power entities have agreed to purchase over 110 gigawatt hours per year of hydroelectric power produced by two of FirstLight’s hydroelectric facilities in Connecticut. The industry-leading agreement will help participating communities continue to make progress toward meeting Massachusetts’ requirements for municipal utilities to obtain 50 percent of their supply from carbon-free sources by 2030 under the climate legislation passed into law and signed by Governor Baker in 2021.

Recommended AI News: Calumino Announces Series A Funding Round to Scale First-of-its-Kind Intelligent Thermal Sensing Platform

“We are pleased to build on our successful collaboration with Energy New England by expanding our power purchase agreements with Massachusetts municipal utilities. These thirteen communities are showing tremendous climate leadership by choosing locally-produced, cost-competitive, and clean hydropower to advance their own clean energy goals”

“We are pleased to build on our successful collaboration with Energy New England by expanding our power purchase agreements with Massachusetts municipal utilities. These thirteen communities are showing tremendous climate leadership by choosing locally-produced, cost-competitive, and clean hydropower to advance their own clean energy goals,” said Alicia Barton, President and CEO of FirstLight Power. “Long-term clean power commitments such as these agreements not only bolster our region’s ability to decarbonize the electric grid, but they also lock in affordable energy supply for Massachusetts homes and businesses at a time when fossil fuel prices are driving customer bills up.”

Recommended AI News: CloudFabrix Announces the Availability of Composable Analytics, Dashboards and Pipelines to Accelerate AIOps and Observability Adoption

Working in collaboration with ENE, the new power purchase agreement will run from 2024 through 2030. In addition, it expands on the successful partnership with ENE and power purchase agreement that FirstLight entered with 21 municipal utilities in 2020, which at the time represented the largest renewable energy purchase by municipal utilities in New England to date. In 2021, FirstLight extended many of these agreements with several participating utilities including Middleborough Gas and Electric Department (MGED) and Taunton Municipal Lighting Plant (TMLP).

“We are excited to expand our collaboration with FirstLight Power, and we are incredibly proud that our members continue to lead the way by aggressively procuring new sources of clean energy to meet Massachusetts’ 2030 requirements for municipal utilities,” said John Tzimorangas, President and CEO of Energy New England. “Not only have our members made major strides in meeting the state’s goals, they have also shown that these long-term procurements help deliver safe, reliable, and cost-competitive electricity to ratepayers across the Commonwealth.”

The public power entities participating in the contract include: Belmont Municipal Light Department, Braintree Electric Light Department, Concord Municipal Light Plant, Danvers Electric Division, Groveland Municipal Light Department, Hingham Municipal Lighting Plant, Mass Development Finance Agency (MDFA)/Devens Utilities, Merrimac Municipal Light Department, Norwood Municipal Light Department, Reading Municipal Light Department, Rowley Municipal Lighting Plant, Wellesley Municipal Light Plant, and Westfield Gas & Electric.

As part of the latest agreement with ENE, FirstLight’s Shepaug Generating Station (in Southbury, Conn) and Stevenson Generating Station (in Monroe, Conn) will supply the energy and renewable energy credits. One of the largest hydroelectric facilities in Connecticut, Stevenson Station was recently qualified as a Class I (in Maine) renewable energy facility. As Connecticut’s largest hydroelectric generation station and the second largest source of carbon-free electricity in the state, Shepaug Station is a Maine Class II renewable energy facility.