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Date: 2/1/2023
WESTFIELD — Jupiter Power is touting its proposed Streamfield Energy Storage project as a good neighbor to the city’s North Side, boosting the local power grid and generating tax revenue while producing no emissions and minimal noise, traffic or demand for city services.
“It’s safe and reliable energy that has a small footprint in an existing industrial area,” said Ellen Fryeman, a lawyer with Shatz, Schwartz & Fentin in Springfield.
At a public information meeting on Jan. 24, Fryeman and other company representatives said city residents won’t have to take their word on it — they can look at the other battery banks now in operation throughout the country, particularly in California, and they can depend upon state officials to give the plans a thorough examination, as it has to pass two intense environmental reviews.
Jupiter is proposing building banks of batteries on almost 14 acres on two parcels of land off Medeiros Way (Summit Lock Road). One set of outdoor cabinets containing batteries would be built on the south side of the street directly west of the existing Bucks Pond electrical substation, where the project would connect with the electric grid. Another would be slightly north of Medeiros Way along Timberswamp Road.
Tracy Adamski, with the engineering firm of Tighe & Bond, said the project faces “a lengthy process” of environmental permitting. In addition to the permits it needs from local boards, the project will be reviewed under the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act and the state’s Energy Facilities Siting Board, the same board that approves new power plants.
The batteries themselves are “just larger versions of what he’s got in his laptop, what you’ve got in your phone right now, a lithium-ion battery,” said Noah Ryder of Fire & Risk Alliance, the project’s safety consultants. Battery units are sealed into modules with cooling systems and stacked in weatherproof cabinets that can range in size from a large wardrobe to a shipping container. Ryder said each component — the battery cells, the modules, the containers — is tested for fire safety. The metals and plastics used to build the batteries and structures are “the same basic compounds you have, that you are sitting on now and surround you in your house,” Ryder said.
He said they produce no emissions and “tend to be pretty quiet. … If you’re standing on the road, the road noise is going to be louder than anything you might possibly hear from there.”
The battery bank would help even out the spikes and valleys in electrical demand on the local power grid. During times when power usage is low — such as at night — the batteries would draw power from the grid, charging up. When power usage is high — such as the afternoon of a hot day, with air conditioners running — the batteries would sell their power back to the grid.
Using more battery banks like this would allow power companies to shut down their “peaker” plants — often their most polluting fossil fuel power generators, which only run at times of peak demand. A grid with battery banks can depend more on renewable sources such as solar and wind, which have the drawback of producing power only when the sun shines or the wind blows.
Jenna Burns, senior permitting manager at Jupiter Power, said Westfield was chosen because this is a location where the electric grid often needs help meeting peak demand. Streamfield would not sell directly to consumers or affiliate with any particular power company, but would buy and sell directly from the electric grid.
Burns said Jupiter is a rapidly growing company. The company was founded in 2017 and had 15 employees as recently as 2020; it now has 75, she said. She said the company builds and owns all its facilities, and focuses solely on battery storage facilities, so Westfield residents shouldn’t be wary that additional facilities would be added to the site in the future.
“We will be a member of the community if this project gets approved,” Burns said. “That’s something I’m really proud of.”
Answering a question, she said Jupiter has no plans to install solar panels on its properties, or any kind of power generation system.
At the Jan. 24 meeting, former City Councilor Maryann Babinski noted that the Timberswamp parcel is close to an aquifer, and asked whether the company plans to take any special environmental precautions during construction.
Burns said Jupiter purposely stayed outside the Aquifer Protection District boundaries when choosing sites for its battery banks, and that state agencies will look closely at the aquifer when considering Streamfield’s permit applications.
State Rep. Kelly Pease, who also attended the meeting, asked what would happen when the batteries reach the end of their operational life. Project engineer Sean Kelleher said the company replaces batteries after 15 to 25 years — as soon as their capacity declines to about 75 percent — and has a “very extensive process” for recycling them, with about 90 percent of the components able to be recycled. He said the company would also have a responsible plan for decommissioning the site, if that time comes.
The Jan. 24 meeting was solely informational, company representatives said. As both state agencies and local boards examine the environmental and neighborhood impacts of the project, several public hearings will give neighbors a chance to register their opinions.
Anyone with questions for the company can email streamfieldenergy@jupiterpower.io.
Should the project be approved on time, groundbreaking is expected to begin in 2024, and the facility would be operational by the middle of 2026, according to a company website.