Public hearing set for large Tewksbury battery storage project

TEWKSBURY — Officials from the Energy Facilities Siting Board will be at the Tewksbury Memorial High School auditorium Thursday for a public hearing for a large lithium-ion battery storage project on Hillman Street that has seen some protest.

The hybrid meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. as officials seek direct public input for the energy storage project, which was filed with the board by Hillman Energy Center LLC on April 1.

The project design features 125 megawatts of battery storage, a new electrical substation and other related infrastructure on 4.3 acres of industrial land, along with a 1,200-foot transmission interconnection across three parcels of nearby land owned by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and National Grid.

The project website for Hillman Energy Company, a subsidiary of the Virginia-based East Point Energy, claims the 125 MW of storage is enough to power nearly 125,000 homes for four hours, and that the project will generate more than $1 million in local property taxes each year. The company also looks forward to “partnering with the town on a community benefits agreement to further demonstrate our commitment to being a quality long-term community member.”

The battery cells will be held in enclosures with interior climate control, and the project will be surrounded by security fencing, with a sound fence on the south and east side to limit noise pollution from the site. The location, the company says on its website, was chosen for its proximity to existing electrical infrastructure, the fact that it is a previously developed industrial zone and because it is expected to have “minimum environmental impacts” there.

The battery project has not been without pushback, with a series of small weekend protests having been held throughout the year by residents of the nearby Emerald Court neighborhood, who have expressed concerns over traffic, safety at the site and the potential impacts to the surrounding area if any of the batteries caught fire. The residents of that neighborhood have held some small protests on weekends near Town Hall after the project became known to the public earlier this year.

“They’ve been known to explode and go on fire, and when they do you can’t put the fire out,” said one Emerald Court resident, Mary Ann Buczak, during a protest on April 26.

Though consideration for the project is not under the purview of the Select Board, project proponents attended board meetings earlier this year to talk publicly about the details, and to try to ease safety concerns. In the Select Board’s March 9 meeting where the project was formally presented to the town for the first time, East Point Energy Project Developer Tyler Rynne touted how highly regulated the battery storage industry is, and said first responders in Tewksbury and other nearby towns would be trained to handle the facility before it is online.

“This project will have a custom emergency response plan that [Energy Safety Response Group] is helping us develop in coordination with the Tewksbury Fire Department,” said Rynne to the Select Board in March.

The hybrid public hearing for the project is Thursday, but the deadline for written public comment is on Oct. 24.

For more information about the project and how to provide comment, visit mass.gov/info-details/tewksbury-battery-project.