Holyoke Gas & Electric (HG&E), formally known as the City of Holyoke Gas & Electric Department (HGED), is a municipal electric, gas, and telecommunications utility primarily serving

Holyoke Holyoke is a city in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States, that lies between the western bank of the Connecticut River and the Mount Tom Range. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 38,238. Located north of Springfield ...

and

Southampton, Massachusetts Southampton () is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It was established first as a district of Northampton in 1732. It was incorporated in 1775. The name Southampton was given to it during its first town meeting in 1773. It ...

, one of two in Massachusetts which provide all three services. Founded in 1902 with the purchase of gas and electric plants from the

Holyoke Water Power Company Eversource Energy is a publicly traded, Fortune 500 energy company headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut, and Boston, Massachusetts, with several regulated subsidiaries offering retail electricity, natural gas service and water service to appro ...

, the municipal corporation launched its first fiber optics communications services in 1997. On December 14, 2001 the City of Holyoke purchased the majority of the remaining assets and operations of the Holyoke Water Power Company from

Northeast Utilities Eversource Energy is a publicly traded, Fortune 500 energy company headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut, and Boston, Massachusetts, with several regulated subsidiaries offering retail electricity, natural gas service and water service to appro ...

and as a result the municipal utility assumed control of the

Holyoke Dam The Holyoke Dam, also referred to as the Hadley Falls Dam, or Hadley Falls Station is a granite dam built in tandem with the Holyoke Canal System at Hadley Falls on the Connecticut River, between Holyoke and South Hadley, Massachusetts. The water d ...

and

Canal System Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or river engineering, engineered channel (geography), channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport watercraft, vehicles (e.g. ...

and an electric distribution system serving industrial electric customers in the flats neighborhood. The utility discontinued district steam service to conserve energy used in aging infrastructure in September 2010. Using hydroelectric power generation in tandem with a series of solar panel facilities, the utility has among the lowest rates in the Commonwealth, and as of 2016 between 85% and 90% of the city's energy output was carbon neutral, with administrative goals in place to reach 100% in the next decade. Holyoke_Dam_and_Solar

In 2010, the utility worked with affiliate institutions

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...

Northeastern The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...

, and UMass to set up special infrastructure to power and connect the

Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC) is an intercollegiate high-performance computing facility located in Holyoke, Massachusetts, connected to that city's municipal fiber grid and powered by Holyoke Gas and Electric via ...

to a

point of presence A point of presence (PoP) is an artificial demarcation point or network interface point between communicating entities. A common example is an ISP point of presence, the local access point that allows users to connect to the Internet with their ...

and the

Internet2 Internet2 is a not-for-profit United States computer networking consortium led by members from the research and education communities, industry, and government. The Internet2 consortium administrative headquarters are located in Ann Arbor, Mi ...

network. Among its other initiatives the municipal utility worked with French multinational

Engie Engie SA is a French multinational utility company, headquartered in La Défense, Courbevoie, which operates in the fields of energy transition, electricity generation and distribution, natural gas, nuclear, renewable energy and petroleum. ...

in 2018 to create the largest energy storage facility in Massachusetts, reducing the need for peaking units and allowing more economical distribution of its portfolio of renewable

hydroelectric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and ...

and solar despite variations in generation and demand.

Notes

References

External links

Official site
:
2018 Annual Report
Holyoke Gas & Electric Department 1902 establishments in Massachusetts Municipal electric utilities of the United States Public utilities of the United States Telecommunications companies based in Massachusetts Companies based in Holyoke, Massachusetts Government of Holyoke, Massachusetts {{Energy-company-stub