West Springfield Generating Station

The West Springfield Generating Station, also known by its corporate name EP Energy Massachusetts, LLC, is a fossil-fuel-fired power plant located in West Springfield, Massachusetts. The station is a "peaking" facility, meaning that it primarily operates during peak electrical demand. The facility consists of two 49-megawatt combustion turbine generators fueled by natural gas or ultra low-sulphur diesel fuel, one 18 MW jet turbine that is fueled by kerosene, and one 107 MW simple-cycle steam boiler unit burning no. 6 fuel oil, ULSD or natural gas. The station also has a small auxiliary boiler for process and building heat and an emergency back-up generator. The station's management also operates several small remote power generators including two other jet turbines identical to West Springfield 10 which are the Doreen Street unit in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and Woodland Road unit in Lee, Massachusetts as well as five run-of-river hydroelectric power stations located on the Chicopee and Deerfield Rivers.

The station is located south of the Memorial Bridge in West Springfield, Massachusetts. The power plant and the adjacent West Springfield Substation were built in 1949 by Western Massachusetts Electric Company, a subsidiary of Northeast Utilities. The original station consisted of two simple-cycle steam units which burned both oil and coal at different periods of their existence. Unit 3 was added in 1957 and the jet turbine was added in 1969. In 1999 the Station was acquired by Con Edison and the plant's corporate name became Con Edison Energy Massachusetts, Inc. By that time, the plant had become a reserve facility only used at times of very high system load. In 2002, Con Edison converted the plant into a peaking facility by replacing the original boiler Units 1 and 2 with the current combustion turbines. The facility does not operate often and is primarily used to maintain grid reliability in the area. Due to the current New England market conditions, none of the plant's units have fared well revenue-wise in recent years, but in 2005 it was determined by ISO New England that the station was needed for reliability purposes and CEEMI was awarded Reliability Must Run agreements in 2005 from ISO New England for the station's units. In RMR agreements, the electricity market agrees to subsidize the costs of operating units which are deemed necessary but are unable to make enough revenue to pay operational costs. Generally these are paid for by increasing electricity rates to customers. In 2008, Con Edison sold CEEMI to North American Energy Alliance, Inc. now known as Essential Power LLC, which is a joint venture owned by AllCapital and IFM.

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