We believe that clean air is a right.
For the health and well being of our communities and the climate, we are demanding that fossil fuel powered peaker plants across Massachusetts be shut down and transitioned to clean alternatives, such as energy storage and renewable energy.
For too long, power plants have been polluting our air by burning polluting fuels. Peaking power plants are some of the worst offenders, relying on the dirtiest fuels that produce tremendous amounts of harmful emissions when burned. Located in our communities, pollution from these plants is released directly into our air, causing serious respiratory and cardiovascular issues, premature birth and premature death. These plants are mostly located in environmental justice communities of color and low-income neighborhoods. Thus, already vulnerable populations are unjustly forced to breathe dirtier, more dangerous air.
Adverse impacts are not limited to nearby communities: they affect every person who pays for electricity. Peaking power plants generate the most expensive electricity, the cost of which falls directly on ratepayers. Consumers pay millions of dollars every year to peaker plants just to remain available - even if they’re never called on to run.
These health and economic impacts don’t even account for these plants’ contribution to the climate crisis. These plants run on fossil fuels that produce greenhouse gasses, so their continued operation runs directly counter to our state’s climate commitments in the Global Warming Solutions Act.
Clean alternatives already exist to conventional peaking power plants: reducing peak electric demand and replacing facilities with solar, wind, and battery storage. With the falling cost of renewables and storage, and Massachusetts’s goal to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, shutting down these plants now makes both economic and environmental sense.
We believe that clean air is a right.
No one should have to live in a community where their health is at risk simply from the air that they breathe. Therefore, we demand that peaker power plants across the state be shut down and, where necessary, replaced with clean, non-emitting resources, such as energy storage and renewable energy.
