Blandford Energy Committee Sets January 30 Deadline for Draft Battery Storage Bylaws

BLANDFORD — December 3, 2025 — Blandford energy committee targets January 30 deadline for draft battery storage bylaws. The committee working on large-scale battery energy storage system and solar regulations spent nearly two hours December 3 reviewing draft sections 16.6 through 16.11, debating setbacks, decommissioning bonds, noise limits, and enforcement authority. Members agreed to raise the combustible-vegetation clearance around battery facilities from 10 feet to 50 feet, reduce the abandonment threshold from 12 months to 90 days of non-operation, and require that decommissioning funds be held as cash in a trust — citing Massachusetts General Law Chapter 44, Section 53 — rather than a performance bond, with cost estimates updated every three years by an independent engineer. The committee endorsed contracting with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, drawing on $200,000 the town has already set aside, to draft final bylaw language, produce a zoning overlay map required for Attorney General review, and develop a multi-board vendor intake checklist. A member described a developer's subdivision filing on two parcels as a legal maneuver to freeze them in agricultural zoning and shield them from a proposed moratorium, noting that agricultural land covers roughly 90 percent of Blandford.