[ad_1]
LOWELL — Almost 168,000 gallons of diesel fuel will be stored at the Markley Group’s data center in Lowell’s Sacred Heart neighborhood if the company’s most recent application for fuel storage is approved by the City Council Tuesday night.
The fuel powers the facility’s backup generators that provide emergency power to the state-of-the-art data-storage and cloud-computing company in the case of a grid failure.
“As part of this phase of construction they [Markley] are proposing to install additional emergency generators, each with an aboveground diesel fuel belly tank,” Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. PE Senior Project Manager William Taber said in a letter dated Sept. 5. “This will increase the on-site diesel fuel storage from 71,100 gallons to 167,800 gallons.”
The storage of greater than 10,000 gallons of combustibles in Massachusetts requires a license from the City Council, a permit to store combustibles from the Fire Department, and the fuel storage must also be registered with the City Clerk. All emergency generators have already gone through the appropriate Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection air quality permitting process before being presented to the council for consideration.
Markley purchased the former Prince pasta plant parcel for $4 million in 2015 and embarked on a dramatic renovation of the foreclosed property that had been vacant since 1998.
The company started its operations with four diesel generators, but as its mission-critical operations have expanded, the plant’s energy infrastructure has, too. Its systems power and provide routing to a wide variety of private companies, state and local governments, universities and internet companies.
Drone footage shot by Lowell residents John McDonough and William Palermo show the scope of the work being done on the 14-acre site in what is zoned as light industrial.
At its June 24 meeting, a majority of councilors approved Markley’s license for four diesel-powered generators holding 24,000 gallons of fuel, despite resident and community concerns around ongoing construction projects, equipment noise and air pollution.
But several councilors stated approval of future fuel storage applications would be weighed against Markley meeting with the city’s Sustainability Director Katherine Moses to explore non-fossil fuel alternatives for backup power generation, as well as better communication with the neighbors living on its vast periphery.
Moses presented a report to the Sustainability Council at its Aug. 28 meeting, where she said it was important for the city to have conversations with Markley to “make sure we’re all going in the same direction.”
“I had an initial conversation with them,” Moses told the Sustainability Council members. “I felt a little better after that conversation. I think they do recognize that they can’t indefinitely bring diesel generators on site… .”
The Sustainability Council’s function is to advocate for green design, construction and development practices in the city of Lowell that will increase sustainability and reduce the environmental impacts of building and other development activity.
Moses told the Sustainability Council that the biggest emissions category in Lowell are buildings, “and it is split almost half and half between commercial industrial kinds of buildings and residential buildings.”
Reducing carbon emissions has proved challenging as the city has also embarked on an economic development plan that embraces large-scale technology-driven companies like Draper Labs that relies on data centers like Markley to power its work. And UMass Lowell continues to build out its microelectronics program that also relies on Markley’s technology.
Resident Mary Burns, who is chair of the UMass Building Authority, told the council in June that the university’s Lowell Innovation Network Corridor project depends on a data center presence in Lowell.
“In order for LINC to happen, we need Markley,” she said. “They store the data that these companies looking at coming to our campus – it’s required. They can’t come here if we don’t have Markley.”
That development is both in contrast to and aligned with the city’s selection as Frontrunner City by the Urban Economy Forum, an international organization that collaborates with the United Nations, municipal leaders, partners such as the World Urban Pavilion, and the private sector to reshape urban economies through the implementation of the U.N.’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
UMass Lowell Chancellor Julie Chen met the UEF delegation when they visited Lowell in July and addressed the group via a remote link during an August signing ceremony at the United Nations Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Academic partnerships are integral to UEF’s develoment goals in Lowell.
Although the MassDEP greenlights Markley’s diesel generators based on compliance to its regulations, the city is working other angles to move toward a carbon-free emissions future.
The City Council sent a letter to the state and federal delegation to encourage the availability of sustainable non-fossil fuel alternative to diesel for use in emergency backup power generation to help Lowell meet its climate goals.
Moses said Markley has agreed to meet with her on a quarterly basis.
“I also encouraged them to think about creating a plan to move away from all this onsite diesel storage and find other ways to provide the backup generation,” she said.
[ad_2]
Melanie Gilbert
Source link
