Where We Get Our Energy

BED-Owned Generation Facilities

McNeil Generating Station A 50 MW wood-burning facility located in Burlington’s Intervale. McNeil   Forestry

Winooski One Hydro Plant A 7.4 MW Hydroelectric generating station located on the Winooski River. Winooski One

Solar Power Output from 0.6 MW of solar projects in Burlington including Burlington International Airport and 585 Pine Street.

Gas Turbine

Our 22 MW gas turbine is primarily used as a peaking unit and for emergencies. Though it is currently fired by fuel oil, Burlington Electric Department is in the process of converting the turbine to use renewable biodiesel.

Hydro Power Contracts

Great River Hydro

Great River Hydro is a 7.5 MW unit-contingent contract from January 2018 through December 2024 from hydro facilities on the Connecticut River. BED is entitled to power from 7am to 11pm daily.

NYPA (New York Power Authority)

NYPA provides power from hydroelectric stations on the Niagara and St. Lawrence rivers. The energy BED receives is based on an entitlement of 2.558 MW of power from the Niagara Project and 0.059 MW of power from the St. Lawrence Project (2.617 MW in total).

Hydro-Québec

BED has a long-term contract to buy 5 MW through October 2020, 9 MW from November 2020 to October 2035, and 4 MW from November 2035 to October 2038 from Hydro-Québec. BED is entitled to power from 7am to 11pm daily.

Wind Power Contracts

Vermont-grown power from Sheffield and Georgia as well as from Hancock in Maine. These three contracts amount to 39.5 MW of Wind.

Sheffield Wind

Sheffield is a 40 MW wind farm located in Sheffield, Vermont.  BED is entitled to 40% of the output (16 MW).

Georgia Mountain Community Wind

GMCW is a 10 MW wind farm located in Georgia, Vermont.  BED is entitled to 100% of the output.

Hancock Wind

BED is entitled to 13.5 MW of energy and capacity from the output of the Hancock Wind facility in Hancock County, Maine.

Solar Power Contracts

South Forty Solar

South Forty Solar is an 2.5 MW solar array located in northern Burlington. BED purchases all of the energy from this facility under long-term contract.

Multiple Smaller Rooftop Arrays in Burlington

BED purchases energy from multiple smaller rooftop arrays in Burlington under contracts ranging from 5-20 years. In aggregate these 4 contracts represent 414 kW of solar capacity.

Additional Purchases

Distributed Generation

BED supports 5 MW of distributed generation from customer-owned solar and wind. Read more about distributed generation.

Short-Term Purchases

After the power received from resources is accounted for, BED may make short-term purchases from a number of counterparties. Short-term purchases would be assumed to come from the mix of fuels used to generate residual (i.e. non-renewable) power in New England (generally natural gas, oil, nuclear, etc.). Because of BED’s contracts for long-term resources, we have not needed to make any short-term market purchases since 2019.

ISO-NE Exchange

Differences between sources available and load are settled by ISO-NE and show up as a net exchange. Positive values represent net purchases of energy; negative values represent sales of excess power across the specified period, though hourly values may vary according to resource output and load.

Our Energy Portfolio

Learn more about which resources provided BED’s energy supply and how BED uses sales and purchases of Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) to mitigate costs to ratepayers while demonstrating that the energy used by its customers is renewable.
Our Energy Portfolio