With help from federal dollars and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) students, the Montachusett Regional Planning Commission (MPRC) will develop a regional energy assessment and a modeling tool to assist the 22 towns of the Montachusett region, including Harvard, in planning future energy needs and resources.
At a press conference at Evergreen Solar Friday, Oct. 22, MRPC director John Hume announced receipt of a $66,000 award from the federal Economic Development Administration for the energy planning project. The grant will be used to assess current residential, commercial, and transportation energy needs and to compile an inventory of existing and proposed renewable energy development in the region. Using this information as data in a simulation and modeling tool that WPI students will build, the MRPC will be able to develop a variety of future energy scenarios and recommendations.
Four state representatives from the region attended the press conference at Devens. Harvard’s representative, Jen Benson, highlighted the importance of the MRPC Energy Advisory Committee and the energy plan, which, she said, doesn’t “just sound good, but is absolutely necessary. [It] will help the region become more attractive to business.”
According to Hume, the project has origins in the 2008 ice storm, which painfully revealed the area’s vulnerability to energy shocks when it left some communities without electricity for as long as two weeks. After the storm, the MRPC formed an Energy Advisory Committee with representatives from the utility and private and public sectors. The committee’s charter is to study the strengths and weaknesses of the electrical power distribution system within the Montachusett Region and to identify locations where it would be feasible to construct renewable energy systems.
The MRPC, an advisory body formed in 1968, is charged with making policy and priority decisions about growth in the district and transportation and economic development. The committee also hires professional staff to provide technical assistance to member communities and carry out comprehensive regional planning.
The MRPC Energy Advisory Committee will oversee the energy planning project, and WPI professor Michael Radzicki will advise the students.
