Under the fixed-price contract, First Wind will sell around 75% of the Hancock Wind plant’s output to MMWEC, which will resell the power and capacity to 17 of its member municipal utilities in Massachusetts, while the remaining output is being sold to Burlington Electric Department in Vermont.
The utilities are based in the communities of Boylston, Chicopee, Groton, Holden, Holyoke, Ipswich, Mansfield, Marblehead, Paxton, Peabody, Russell, Shrewsbury, Sterling, Templeton, Wakefield, West Boylston and Westfield.
Located near the 34MW Bull Hill wind project, which is operating in Hancock County, the project will include 17 wind turbines of 3MW each.
MMWEC CEO Ronald DeCurzio said the contract brings competitively priced energy from the project to the MMWEC power portfolio and to the customers of its municipal utilities.
"It also brings a valuable measure of diversity and price stability to the MMWEC resource mix at a time when the region’s reliance on natural gas is of concern," added DeCurzio.
