The Freetown area is chosen as one of six regions in Massachusetts that need electric system enhancements to maintain reliability and enable distributed energy resource (DER) facilities to safely interconnect and operate.

The upgrades needed in this area include:

• Assonet substation reconstruction
• Bell Rock substation upgrade
• Industrial Park substation upgrade with fence expansion
• New 115-kV transmission line between Bell Rock substation and Assonet substation
• New 115-kV transmission line between Bell Rock substation and Industrial Park substation

If all six groups of projects are approved, that would enable the integration of approximately 1 gigawatt (GW) of solar energy needed to help Massachusetts achieve its net-zero carbon emissions goal by 2050.

This DPU docket is pending.