What is that Building with the 3 Smoke Stacks? A Pittsfield Peaker Plant Explainer

If you've driven past 235 Merrill Road in Pittsfield, you've probably noticed the building with three smokestacks. But do you know what it actually does?

It's a peaker plant. And until City Councilor Matt Wrinn came on air this morning to talk about it, I had no idea what that meant either.

Here's the deal: A peaker plant is a backup power station that only fires up when electricity demand spikes - like heat waves, cold snaps, or any time everyone cranks their AC at once. It's like a reserve player on a sports team. Most of the time it sits idle. But when the grid gets stressed, it kicks in.

The Pittsfield Generating Co. plant only runs 10 to 15 percent of the time.

So why are we talking about it now? Because the city is pushing to convert it from fossil fuels to a modern battery energy storage system.

The plant is Pittsfield's largest greenhouse gas emitter and sits less than 950 feet from Allendale Elementary School. It burns fracked natural gas and oil, releasing pollutants linked to asthma, heart disease, and other health problems - especially impacting nearby Morningside and Allendale neighborhoods. -berkshireeagle.com

Residents have reported breathing issues and having to close their windows during summer heat waves when the plant fires up.

Battery storage would do the same job, store renewable energy and release it when demand spikes, without the emissions. According to Wrinn, converting the plant would cost "in the millions," but the payoff could be cleaner air, better health outcomes, and lower electricity costs during peak demand.

The plant is 35 years old and employs only two full-time workers. It used to pay the city around $674,000 a year in taxes but successfully appealed to cut that in half to about $350,000.

The plant is definitely profiting, however.

Meanwhile, the plant’s profits are soaring. BEAT recently learned that Pittsfield Generating’s forward capacity payments received (meaning funds paid to electric generation sites by ISO New England, the regional grid operator, whether they run or not) were $4.6 million in the last auction (a figure confirmed by the analyst group Strategen) and approximately $6.5 million in the most recent auction– a 40% rise in passive income before the plants generate any power at all. This makes the fact that they raised and won an appeal to have their tax payment to the city cut in half just galling. -cleanthepeakma.org

Two other peaker plants in the Berkshires, one in Lee, one on Doreen Street in Pittsfield, shut down in 2022 and have been dismantled. Pittsfield Generating is the last one standing in the county.

Now you know what that building is. And why it matters.