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River advocates and scientists urge excluding pumped hydro from Massachusetts ‘clean energy’ definition
Summary
Multiple environmental scientists, river stewards and local residents testified in favor of S.2237, which would exclude existing pumped-storage hydropower from the statutory definition of clean energy because of river impacts and the cost of procuring existing storage.
Scientists, river advocates and western Massachusetts community members urged the committee to narrow the statutory definition of “clean energy” so that existing pumped-storage hydropower does not qualify for the state’s clean-energy subsidies.
Eve Vogel, a scholar of river and electric power systems at UMass Amherst, told the committee that procuring existing pumped storage could cost ratepayers “hundreds of millions of dollars” and that including pumped hydro in the clean-energy definition could divert funds from…
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