Apr 15, 2022
When it comes to New England’s base-load power supply, the minimum amount of total power we need to keep our electric grid running each day, there is an alarm sounding. Unfortunately, we cannot afford to just hit snooze and go back to bed. We have to wake up. We must protect all New Hampshire’s power...
Apr 15, 2022
CONCORD — Without passage of Senate Bill 271, the Burgess BioPower biomass plant in Berlin would be forced to close, company officials told members of the House Science, Technology, and Energy Committee on Tuesday. Many people testified about the plant’s importance to the North Country and the state’s timber industry. But others argued the plant...
Mar 24, 2022
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES SB 271, relative to the Burgess BioPower facility. Ought to Pass with Amendment, Vote 5-0. Senator Avard for the committee. SB 271 requires the Public Utilities Commission to revise certain orders relative to the Burgess BioPower plant in Berlin. The Burgess BioPower Plant produces 75 megawatts of base load power from...
Mar 24, 2022
THE FUTURE of our city hangs in the balance. Perhaps this sounds dramatic but that’s how critically important the Burgess BioPower plant has become to the city of Berlin. The 75-megawatt, woodfired power plant isn’t just a major economic driver, power producer and a crucial revenue source — although it is most assuredly all those...
Mar 13, 2022
Back in 2018, I attempted to testify at a NH Senate hearing regarding the state’s wood energy industry. Whereas most of the speakers before me talked about the value of renewable energy; the large number of jobs involved; the benefits the woodchip market provided to forest management programs, I decided to focus on the importance...
Mar 11, 2022
Russia’s brutal attack on Ukraine serves as one more reminder that America’s energy independence is more than just smart economic policy. It is important for our survival. Here in New Hampshire, it serves to underscore our need for reliable sources of energy at affordable costs. (Thank you, Meldrim Thomson, for the Seabrook nuclear plant.) Nuclear power...
Feb 03, 2022
Angeljean Chiaramida The global energy crunch has come home to roost along the Seacoast as commercial and residential consumers experienced sticker shock when they opened their latest utility and heating bills. Some people are opening their bills to find they have doubled. Last fall local utilities and news outlets warned energy prices were on...
Feb 01, 2022
‘These are not hypotheticals,’ says van Welie BRUCE MOHL Feb 1, 2022 THE OVERSEER of the New England power grid warned on Monday that the region is walking a tightrope this winter, flirting with emergency situations that could result in rolling blackouts. Gordon van Welie, the president and chief executive officer of ISO-New England, said the...
Jan 25, 2022
Power plants switched fuels as more natural gas went to heat homes and businesses For most of January, New England has been reliving a piece of our past. Unfortunately, it’s a smoggy, polluting piece. During the recent cold snap, more than a tenth of the electricity generated in New England has been produced by power...
Jan 26, 2021
Tight supply, growing demand have regulators and industry worried about the reliability of power across the region. By Jon Chesto Globe Staff,Updated January 25, 2022, 8:04 p.m. The upcoming retirement in two years of the Mystic gas-fired plant in Everett is one of a number of factors raising questions about the reliability of New England’s...
