Somerset Conservation Commission Rejects Battery Storage Firm's Wetlands Boundary Filing 4-0

SOMERSET -- June 29, 2026, Somerset's Conservation Commission voted 4-0 to deny a wetlands boundary delineation filing by Somerset Energy Storage LLC, a Denver-based company proposing a large-scale battery storage facility at 1606 Riverside Ave. The filing, an abbreviated notice of resource area delineation covering a coastal bank, a 200-foot Taunton River riverfront area, and an upland depression on two parcels at the former Somerset power plant site, had received a technically favorable independent peer review from Rue Engineering, which confirmed the company's hydrologic modeling showed flood storage of roughly 0.2 acre-feet, below the 0.25 acre-foot state jurisdictional threshold. No commission member would offer a motion to approve; when the applicant invoked its right to force an immediate vote rather than accept a continuance, the four remaining members, one recused citing his school's relationship with the company, each voted no, with multiple members citing distrust of the process and the company's mid-project shift from Tesla Megapack to Fluence battery systems. "This is a big, big project. This isn't out in the middle of nowhere. This is in the center of the heart of Somerset," one member said. The company may appeal the denial to MassDEP for a superseding determination.