New State Tool Helps Show Where Solar, Wind, or Battery Projects Could Locate

The Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) is recently announcned that the final version of the Site Suitability Mapping Tool is now live and publicly available.

The Site Suitability Mapping Tool is a GIS-based mapping tool developed and administered by EEA. It includes layers indicating geographic suitability for clean energy infrastructure and underlying indices for the following criteria: carbon sequestration and storage, biodiversity, agricultural resources, and social and environmental burdens. By simply uploading or drawing the site footprint of a clean energy infrastructure project, users can generate a report with Criteria-Specific Suitability Scores for each of these criteria.

The tool is intended to assist the completion and assessment of Site Suitability Reports for clean energy infrastructure projects applying for consolidated permits, consistent with EEA’s
Site Suitability Guidance and as required by regulations promulgated by the Department of Energy Resources (225 CMR 29.00: Small Clean Energy Infrastructure Siting and Permitting) and the Energy Facilities Siting Board (980 CMR 15.00: Cumulative Impact Analysis and Standards for Applying Site Suitability). Any projects that were scored using the draft version of the mapping tool should be rescored using this final version of the tool.

You can access the tool here:
Site Suitability Mapping Tool

(Image courtesy of Commonwealth of Massachusetts)