Project Document
Community Public Forum: Session Summaries
September 30, 2026, Dexter Hall, Charlton Public Library
Published: September 30, 2026
About These Summaries
These summaries were written from the recordings of the two sessions. They describe what was presented and what was raised, in plain language, without naming individual residents or staff. They are not a word-for-word transcript. The full recordings of both sessions are posted in the engagement log. Project figures in this summary are the ones published on this site.
Forum Overview
| Detail | Description |
|---|---|
| Date | Wednesday, September 30, 2026 |
| Sessions | Session 1 at 12:30 PM, which ran about two hours. Session 2 at 6:30 PM, which ended at the 8:00 PM close. |
| Location | Dexter Hall, Charlton Public Library, 40 Main Street |
| Hosted By | ESA Solar project team |
| Format | In person. A presentation, open questions, and a phone activity on Community Benefits Plan priorities. The team was at the library from noon to 8:00 PM for drop-in questions. |
| Attendance | Session 1 drew a small group. Session 2 drew a larger crowd. Attendees included residents from the neighborhoods near the site and members of town boards. |
What the Team Presented
Both sessions opened with the same presentation. Session 1 covered all of it, with the order changed to follow the discussion. Session 2 did not get through all of it before the 8:00 PM close.
- Who we are and where this stands. ESA Solar develops solar and battery projects. Work on this site has gone on for several years, and community engagement began in April 2026. ESA will not own or operate the project. It will be sold to a long-term owner who builds and runs it.
- What changed since July 8. The fire safety webinar on August 19, the Old Home Day booth on September 6, meetings with the regional workforce board and Bay Path, and Citizen Advisory Committee meetings on August 4 and September 10. Notices of this forum were mailed to 1,953 Charlton households on August 31. An emergency response plan is being developed with the Charlton Fire Department. The inventory of nearby private wells is done, and a well survey comes next. A sound screening study is done, and a full sound study follows.
- Design changes. Tesla Megapack 3 units in place of the Megapack 2 XL. 136 units instead of 156. A facility boundary of about 17 acres, with ten acres or less of forest cleared.
- Why Charlton. The Carpenter Hill substation sits where the 345 kV backbone meets the 115 kV lines, and storage has to sit next to a substation that can take it. Land had to be available, with a willing owner. The project is storage only: no new generation and no gas. The one-mile map shows the twelve landmarks nearest the site, including the school, the library, and the parks.
- The proposal. 150 MW and 600 MWh, about four hours of output, enough for about 120,000 homes for those four hours. The system also helps regulate voltage and steady the grid. The site is fenced, with cameras, barriers, fire-code spacing between units, and an emergency plan written with the Fire Chief. Construction would take 12 to 18 months, during the day.
- What it could affect. Sound: the first screening of the current layout shows the two closest property lines, along the transmission line, above the state's sound policy. The screening is preliminary and has not been confirmed by a sound engineer. Fixes are being tested. Water: no wetland fill and no net increase in runoff. Site suitability: the block group scores 80.9 on the state's environmental burden index, above the 75 threshold, with 16 of 29 indicators above the state median.
- Decommissioning. A bond posted before the permit and reviewed on a schedule by an independent engineer, with town peer review. The equipment is modular and comes out. The land is restored toward forest. Batteries are reused or recycled.
- Community Benefits Plan. The state requires a plan. The draft went online for public comment the same day, open through November 30, 2026. Its categories are infrastructure and community, environment and health, jobs and economy, and fairness and equity. The team showed the payment agreements four other Massachusetts towns negotiated for battery projects. Those agreements are in the Document Library.
Session 1 (12:30 PM)
How it went
A smaller group, with questions throughout. The presentation was taken out of order to follow the discussion, and the phone activity on benefit priorities came after a long question period.
What residents raised
- Trust in a future owner. Residents asked how to trust a buyer that has not been chosen. The team's answer: permit conditions are legally binding on any owner, the decommissioning bond carries over, and the Community Benefits Plan and any signed agreement with the town carry over as well. The team said plainly that it cannot guarantee a future owner's behavior and called this the hardest problem in the whole effort.
- Fire and smoke. The team explained thermal runaway, why the industry now lets a failed unit burn out rather than spraying it, and hydrogen fluoride as the serious hazard in battery smoke. Residents asked about an evacuation radius, fire trucks reaching the site when Route 20 backs up on holidays, and the effect on health and property values. The team said a site-specific plume analysis will assess worst-case smoke and will be filed with the application.
- Sound. The noise sources are the cooling systems, inverters, and transformers. Residents compared the project to unaddressed noise from a warehouse on Route 169 and asked about construction equipment noise.
- The parcel. Residents asked about the lease and the land. The team said the equipment area is about 15 acres of the 47-acre parcel, that there is no option to buy the land, and that only two landowners responded to a large mailing when the team was looking for sites.
- Utility work on the road. Residents asked whether recent utility upgrades along the road were for this project. The team said they were National Grid's own planning, and that the temporary substation built for the nearby warehouse is on a separate 69 kV circuit.
- The burden score. The team explained what drives the block group's 80.9 score: the Millennium power plant, gas storage, a closed landfill, a small spill, and impaired Cady Brook. A resident described gas station contamination that affected wells nearby. The team said that site is in a different block group.
- Trees and habitat. Clearing costs carbon storage and habitat. The team said it is looking at clearing fewer trees and at adding habitat. No farmland is in the footprint.
- Why not somewhere else. The team said substations that can take storage are rare, the land has to be available with a willing owner, it found no workable site in Springfield, and other candidate parcels had wetlands.
Requests from a Planning Board member, answered in the room
- A domestic cell supplier.
- One equipment maker for the whole system, with like-for-like replacements tested and accepted as a whole system. The team said unit-level UL 9540A testing is standard, and the whole-system test is best practice and should be included.
- Full containment of site runoff, with the conveyances, basin, and filtering shown on the site plan. The team said this is required for the filing and could be shown earlier. It noted that the soils drain poorly, that water also sheets in from the north, and that a liner would need geotechnical input.
- Money set aside in escrow so the town can enforce the agreement if an owner breaks it. The team said it goes on the list to prioritize.
- Replanting trees elsewhere in Charlton, and help caring for land already conserved. The team said replanting makes sense, and that ongoing stewardship is more likely to pass to the buyer unless it is a one-time cost.
Community Benefits discussion
- The state requires a plan. The team said residents should have close to the whole say in what goes in it, and that taking part in the plan is not support for the project.
- Blackouts: residents asked whether Charlton gets priority in an outage. ISO New England runs the grid, and power flows to the nearest load. The battery is not a town backup.
- Enforcement: the state does not enforce the plan. The plan binds the owner, and items can be written into a legally binding agreement between the town and the project.
- Electric bills: residents are angry that bills keep rising despite the solar farms on the road. The team acknowledged that rates are rising nationally and said it is listing what people asked for, with nothing agreed.
- Fire equipment and training: a resident said this is a protection the project owes the town, not a benefit. The team agreed it should be a cost of the project and kept it on the list for transparency.
- Payments to the town: how a payment in lieu of taxes gives a predictable payment instead of a tax bill that declines as the equipment depreciates. Residents asked ESA to fund a negotiator for the town. The state's Intervenor Support Grant may also cover that.
- Town Meeting: the state does not require a Town Meeting vote on the plan.
- Municipal power purchasing: a town official suggested the town's bulk electricity purchasing could be part of the negotiation.
Activity results from Session 1
The phone activity asked each person to pick up to three benefit topics, then to split 100 points among the top choices. These are the picks shown on the screen at the end of Session 1.
| Topic | Picks |
|---|---|
| Money for the town budget | 10 |
| Fire equipment and training | 7 |
| Conservation land and habitat | 7 |
| Help with home energy costs | 7 |
| Senior and community center | 5 |
| Free EV charging (write-in) | 1 |
In the points round, money for the town budget drew 22 percent of all points. The activity is advisory only. It is not a budget and not a commitment. Session 2 ran out of time for the activity, so these are the only results from the forum.
Other topics
- Design alternatives: residents had asked in July for different layouts. The team said it studied other positions on the parcel and most did not work.
- Sodium-ion batteries: the team said it is interested in the technology for its lower fire risk and cooling needs, and that battery makers are exploring it.
- Other battery fires: a resident cited the Moss Landing fire in California. A binder of US battery fire incidents was available in the room.
- Property value protection was raised again as a benefit idea, along with cleaning up an old mill and gas station site on Route 20.
- Written answers: the team said that answers to questions not answered in the room would be posted on this site.
Session 2 (6:30 PM)
How it went
A larger crowd. Questions came from the start and throughout, and the presentation was not completed before the 8:00 PM close. The benefits activity was skipped for lack of time, and the Session 1 results were shown instead.
What residents raised
- Water and wells. Gillespie Road and Carpenter Hill sit on ledge. Residents said clearing trees will make flooding worse and asked whether a fire could contaminate wells within a mile. A resident living about a mile away asked to see the data.
- Trees and runoff. A resident asked how much water an acre of trees holds. The team said trees matter to the hydrology, that part of the site is inside National Grid's easement, and that the current design includes retention basins north and south of the equipment pad, sized for storm events and for extra firefighting water. Engineering figures were not shared at the meeting.
- Fire. Residents asked about past incidents and for planning around the worst case rather than the likely one, and pointed out that the nearest house is within a few hundred feet of the site. The team said the chemistry is lithium iron phosphate, that hydrogen fluoride is the main hazard in the smoke, and that a site-specific plume analysis will be filed with the application. The team compared the odds of a battery fire to the far higher odds of a house fire.
- Noise. Residents said the substation hum is already loud next to it and that the Mass Pike is audible at the site in winter. They asked for sound barriers, like a project in Medway. The team said that is the kind of feedback it wants.
- Why Charlton and why a battery. Grid stability, the regional grid's evening peaks, substations that can host storage, and a willing landowner. The team described gas peaker plants as the polluting alternative.
- Permits. No permit exists yet. The state Energy Facilities Siting Board decides.
- Who will own it. Buyers are larger energy companies, and a utility could own it too. The team said the commitments hold because a buyer sees the plan before buying and takes it on with the project.
- What Charlton gets. Residents said a battery does nothing for the town if the grid goes down and nothing for electric bills. The team pointed to the draft Community Benefits Plan and a payment agreement, and showed what four other towns receive each year. The team said it cannot disclose the buyer's return or the sale price.
- Expansion. Residents asked whether 150 MW will grow. The team said a second project would need its own full process. A resident noted that the Snake Hill substation exists because Carpenter Hill could not expand.
- Intervenor funding. The team described the state's Intervenor Support Grant program, open to towns, neighborhood associations, and citizen groups, and said it would get the details for residents who asked how to take part.
- An unanswered email. A resident said an email to the project had gone three weeks without a reply. The team said it tries to answer every email and would check.
Ideas offered for the Community Benefits Plan
- About $1 million up front for solar with battery backup at the senior center, the police station, and the fire station, redirected to the fire station if the senior center project does not go forward.
- Regular well water testing, every year or every two years, paid for by the project.
- Property value protection backed by money set aside in advance, modeled on Carver and Medway.
- Money held in escrow for decommissioning, for failures, and for cleanup.
- Town water lines extended toward the site.
- Decommissioning bond terms written into the plan.
One resident said that even a small chance of failure makes a nearby home worthless, and that the objection is not about money.
Feedback on the meeting itself
- Have a technical expert on hand to answer water, noise, and fire questions.
- Do not cap meetings at 90 minutes.
- Try a different venue.
The team acknowledged all three.
What Both Sessions Had in Common
- Wells, runoff on ledge, fire and smoke, and trust in a future owner were the top concerns in both rooms.
- The most concrete ideas: pre-funded property value protection and escrow, resilience projects at town buildings, one equipment maker with like-for-like replacement, full runoff containment, an enforcement escrow, replanting and land stewardship, a long working meeting with the town boards, and a technical expert at future meetings.
What Happens Next
- The draft Community Benefits Plan is open for comment through November 30, 2026. Every comment gets a written reply.
- The feedback on format goes into the planning for the third public meeting.
- Recordings of both sessions are posted in the engagement log.