Copyright © 2017 The Westfield News Group. At the time, MMWEC had developed a balanced power supply system with both nuclear power and Wyman’s fossil fired power generation. 11 Power Plant jobs available in Maine on Indeed.com. But Rich Silkman points out that most offshore wind projects are proposed for midcoast Maine, too far away to make Yarmouth a practical landing. FPL paid $845 million for all of CMP’s generating assets back in 1998 when CMP’s stock market value was $509 million. WESTFIELD- The Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company (MMWEC), of which Westfield Gas and Electric was once a part, announced that it sold its ownership stake in the W.F. “It’s hard to imagine a world in which [Wyman Station] has long-term viability,” says Silkman, whose company helps business and industry manage energy costs. David Adams, a cardiologist, was one of the residents who led the successful effort in the 1990s to get the Maine DEP to reduce the amount of nitrogen oxide emissions Wyman was allowed to release. Until Maine and New England construct an adequate system of natural gas pipelines, there will still be a need for oil backup. NextEra declines to say how often Wyman actually runs or how much power it produced last year. In the blue distance of inner Casco Bay, the smokestacks of the Cousins Island power plant could be seen poking into the sky. For that reason, ISO New England has directed the region’s oil-fired generating plants to increase the storage of oil this winter. All revenue bonds related to MMWEC’s Wyman Project were paid off in 2008. “In 2012, the region’s natural-gas-fired generators produced 52 percent of the electricity generated in New England,” says ISO New England spokesperson Marcia Blomberg. 327 Moody Street NextEra has solidified the fly ash in a 2.6-acre lagoon by mixing it with a slurry of concrete, but it is unknown whether there might be environmental hazards, such as PCBs, mercury, and asbestos, to deal with. Turn left onto Wharf Road. MMWEC’s Wyman Project was established in 1976. Apply to Avionics Technician, Operator, Laborer and more! The Wyman 4 plant produces electricity by burning oil, a practice Stowe said WG&E would rather avoid. “They probably overpaid by $300 million for that facility,” says Silkman. Wyman Station has been relegated to the role of a “peaker,” a plant that only runs a few weeks a year when the New England electric grid experiences peak demand due to heat waves and cold snaps. “It became clear that it was no longer profitable, because it is an oil burning electric plant that was rarely used because they don’t want to burn oil,” said Stowe, “We would rather burn natural gas, which is cleaner than oil, or use renewable sources of energy.”. In 2001, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) required Wyman Station to install pollution controls designed to reduce the plant’s emissions of nitrogen oxide by 800 to 1,200 tons a year, an action hailed by the Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM) as “Maine’s biggest air pollution victory in thirty years.”. Currently, NextEra is paid about $2 million a month to maintain the four generators at Wyman Station as backup through 2017. The short answer is probably not. The remaining 15.7 percent of the unit is owned by five other utilities. We can move to renewable resources rapidly.”. “By comparison, the oil-fired generators in New England, in aggregate, produced less than 1 percent, and the coal-fired generators produced less than 3 percent.”. By Edgar Allen Beem The view from Portland’s Eastern Promenade and from Cumberland and Falmouth Foreside is a soulful vista of Casco Bay, islands, sailboats, and, oh yes, the massive oil-fired electric power plant at Birch Point on Yarmouth’s Cousins Island. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. When it came online, it marked a milestone for MMWEC and its project participants. The view from Portland’s Eastern Promenade and from Cumberland and Falmouth Foreside is a soulful vista of Casco Bay, islands, sailboats, and, oh yes, the massive oil-fired electric power plant at Birch Point on Yarmouth’s Cousins Island. “I don‘t think converting to gas is a good option,” says Richard Silkman, founding partner in Competitive Energy Services, former director of the Maine State Planning Office, and a former Yarmouth resident. Pulseline: to submit your thoughts click here, Light Board to fully fund student technology program, Light Board votes for pandemic customer forgiveness program, Light board discusses providing financial assistance to city amidst pandemic, Solar farm moratorium on Blandford agendas. Even more ironic is the fact that the Cousins Island plant is for sale; a buyer has been located and has likely scheduled demolition for next summer to clear the … “In evaluating the role of our assets in our portfolio,” NextEra spokesman Steven Stengel said in an email message, “we concluded that our Maine fossil assets no longer strategically make sense for the business.” MMWEC owned approximately 3.7 percent, or about 22 megawatts of the unit’s capacity, until it sold its ownership interests in 2019. When it came online, it marked a milestone for MMWEC and its project participants. Stowe noted that the sale should have little impact on the utility customers in Westfield, adding that WG&E has a “diverse” portfolio of other power sources. Converting the Wyman Station property to a use more in keeping with the modest residential nature of Cousins Island and the littoral beauty of Casco Bay would please a lot of local people, even if it meant fewer tax dollars for Yarmouth. In July 2019, after 43 years, MMWEC sold its ownership interests in Wyman Unit 4. Revenue bonds issued by MMWEC to finance the Wyman Project totaled $9.42 million. Continue down Wharf Road. Back when FPL purchased Wyman Station, the company announced it would convert the plant to natural gas. That never happened, but might someone buy Wyman and convert it to natural gas today? “The big picture, positive story,” say Voorhees, “is that we don’t need to produce power with oil anymore. The Wyman plant, located on Cousins Island in Yarmouth, was built on a 122-acre site in 1978, as a base-load generation unit. “The Wyman Station provides capacity to the New England electric grid and currently runs in a limited peaking mode,” Stengel writes. Marketing and Communications Specialist for Westfield Gas and Electric Lisa Stowe, said part of the reason for the sale was that the plant had lost profitability. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. WG&E is no longer a member company of MMWEC, but it had retained its ownership stake in the plant until now. As soon as Yarmouth town officials heard that Wyman Station was up for sale, the town manager and the town’s attorney flew down to Juno, Florida, to ask that NextEra partner with the town in planning an exit strategy and the future of the town’s largest taxpayer. Currently, NextEra pays about $2 million a year on an assessed value of $95 million, but Wyman’s value is expected to keep depreciating. “The plant assessment has already decreased over the past fifteen years, so I would anticipate that trend continuing,” says Yarmouth town manager Nat Tupper. New England’s heavy reliance on natural gas is problematic. Though Wyman’s value, says Tupper, is “certainly not going to go anyplace near zero,” whether it ends up being revalued at $50 million or $25 million is up in the air with the plant on the market. That’s good news to David and Pamela Adams. Put another way, NextEra Energy Resources, America’s largest owner-operator of wind and solar generating facilities, is getting out of the oil business and out of Maine. The Wyman plant, located on Cousins Island in Yarmouth, was built on a 122-acre site in 1978, as a base-load generation unit. Groves Farm (now Power Plant) had an ice pond. So NextEra has power purchase agreements that commit it to producing power or purchasing it elsewhere into 2017. IBEW workers report that prospective buyers have been touring the plant, but, Dunn says, “Even though we consider ourselves partners, we can’t get any information at all.”. Phase 3? Since the electricity industry in Maine was deregulated in 1998 and Central Maine Power (CMP) was forced to divest itself of generating plants, selling them all to Florida Power & Light, the value of Wyman Station for tax purposes has declined markedly, from close to half of Yarmouth’s total valuation to less than 8 percent. Stowe said that she is unsure how much the sale of the Wyman 4 stake was for, and how much of that money will be seen by WG&E. “This is a 120-acre industrial parcel with  deepwater access and a licensed fuel-receiving terminal, direct connection to the transmission system, a long-standing, already-sited industrial use, and relatively quick access to the interstate highway system,” says Tupper. “MMWEC is always looking to re-position the power portfolios of the MLPs for their benefit, and this sale is consistent with the trajectory of the evolving hybrid grid, and is in lockstep with the Commonwealth’s Clean Energy Standard goals,” said MMWEC CEO Ronald C. DeCurzio. (If you go any further you will see signs for the power plant.) The Wyman plant, on Cousins Island, was built on a 122-acre site in 1978, as a base-load generation unit. Wyman, which began operation in 1978, is the largest unit in the four-unit Wyman Station. YARMOUTH — Firefighters spent an hour Tuesday morning controlling a fire that broke out in a panel of electrical panels at the Wyman Energy Center on Cousins Island. “I’m fine with them as a corporation making a decision to divest,” says Yarmouth Town Council chair Steve Woods, “but I’m not fine with them doing it in a way that is callous toward a community and state that has been a welcome home to Wyman Station.”, Woods, a marketing executive and candidate for governor in 2014, scoffs at the NextEra website promise to “maintain an ongoing relationship with the community long after our projects are completed,” saying, “Their refusal to engage in reasonable discussions about the future is an insult to Yarmouth.”. Wyman Station, with its towering 421-foot smokestack, has been a local landmark and eyesore since it was built in 1957, even more so since the big two-tone 620-megawatt number 4 generator was added in 1978. Littlejohn also had its own post office and could sell ice cream because they had a generator. From U.S. Route One in Yarmouth, follow the signs to Route 88 and Cousins Island by way of Gilman Road. The lawsuit was thrown out of court after only two hours. Between the 12 municipalities, 3.7 percent of the plant’s electrical output, or 22 megawatts, were taken from the plant. So selling Wyman is not just a matter of getting out of the oil business, it’s also about NextEra cutting its losses. “It basically means that the power we use in Westfield will be cleaner,” said Stowe. “Our hope is that someone buys it and runs it as a power plant,” says Bill Dunn, business agent for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents fifty of the employees who keep Wyman Station ready round the clock. For the first time, participating municipal light plants purchased power at cost from a unit financed with lower cost MMWEC revenue bonds and owned by MMWEC, their own power supply agency. And since owner NextEra Energy Resources, a division of Florida Power & Light (FPL), put Wyman on the market this spring, many people are wondering whether this artifact of the old oil economy has any future in the twenty-first- century energy market.

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