Dave Meisinger, CEO of Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative, and other officials recently gathered for a ribbon cutting event for a new microgrid at the U.S. Naval Submarine Base New London, located in Groton, Conn.
“Overall, this project is just the latest in a series of collaborations demonstrating the value of public power,” said Meisinger.
“The flexibility, and local control, we are afforded, allows us to deliver very specific and uniquely-tailored benefits, especially to customers like the Subase, which obviously stands out as a critically important energy user and truly an anchor tenant of our great state, but also one who plays a very specific and vital role in protecting the safety and security of our entire country, as well as that of our friends and allies abroad,” he said.
“So, among other things to celebrate here today, CMEEC’s role in this project is a concrete example of the real and tangible value proposition that public power delivers both inside, and outside, the boundaries of the communities that we serve,” he said.
As local, municipally-owned, public power providers, “CMEEC and its members have partnered with the Navy here in Groton for decades, and we are privileged to share in the telling of this success story,” he said.
“Examples of our collaborations can be traced back at least to the Great Northeast Blackout of 1965, when Groton Utilities personnel found a creative way to direct energy over its electric system from a power plant in Montville, in order to keep the lights on here at the Subase.”
Since that time, and after CMEEC was formed as a joint action agency in the 1970s, “we have supported the Navy’s mission, and helped to ensure its continued presence and tactical operations here in Groton, by constantly improving and enhancing the quality and reliability of electric service we provide.”
At times, “the Navy has returned the favor, like in 1996 when a Millstone shutdown threated energy reliability in our region and, at our request, the Navy shipped a number of diesel units from California, along with a team of SEABEEs, to assemble and operate them during an extended grid emergency.”
Details like those “have largely been lost to history, and yet we gather here to celebrate what is essentially a series of details, that are not typically of note or circumstance, regarding how a customer and its electric provider go about ensuring a secure, and resilient, source of electricity,” he said.
Meisinger added that the 7.4 MW fuel cell project provided by CMEEC and a CT-based developer was designed to supply energy to the Gorton Utilities distribution system under most operating circumstances, but that during emergency conditions the fuel cell output can be isolated to the microgrid for use solely by the Navy at the Subase. CMEEC also contributed to the project by securing a $5 million state grant to help the Navy fund its microgrid, and by paying “rent” to the Navy in the form of an in-kind contribution of more than a dozen transformers for use on the Navy’s internal electric distribution system.
Elected officials participating in the event included Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, Senator Richard Blumenthal, Congressman Joe Courtney, as well as other state and local lawmakers. Participating Navy officials included Captain Kenneth M. Curtin Jr., Commanding Officer of the Subase, Meredith Berger, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and Rear Admiral Carl Lahti, Commander, Navy Region Mid-Atlantic.
CMEEC is a political subdivision of the State of Connecticut created in 1976.
It is a non-profit municipal joint action electric supply agency that provides the power supply requirements, at wholesale, of six municipal electric utilities with retail electric service territories in Connecticut as well as for other customers who purchase power at wholesale.
Its municipal electric utility members are Bozrah Light & Power, Jewett City Department of Public Utilities, Groton Utilities, Norwich Public Utilities, South Norwalk Electric and Water, and The Third Taxing District of Norwalk Electric Division.
