Reimagining Brayton Point: A Guide to Assessing Reuse Options for the Somerset Community

Clean Water Action
Coalition for Clean Air South Coast
Toxics Action Center
Project completed March 2016

The Brayton Point Power Plant in Somerset, Massachusetts will retire by June of 2017, and give the town an opportunity to influence the fate of the 234-acre waterfront site. On behalf of a coalition of environmental advocates, Synapse has set the assessment in a regional context and reviewed several future options for the site to determine their pros and cons. Options analyzed included building a new natural gas plant on the site and installing a variety of clean energy generation and battery storage units – referred to as a Clean Energy Hub. The resulting report explores the impacts on the local economy in terms of jobs and tax revenues, the Commonwealth’s ability to comply with its Global Warming Solutions Act, and the perceived need for locally generated electricity.