Town of Edgartown, MA
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Edgartown Energy Committee
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Our Mission
The Edgartown Energy Committee’s mission is to reduce energy use and costs for the Town and its residents by promoting energy efficiency, renewable energy, and electrification. The Committee works to lower greenhouse gas emissions, enhance community resilience, and advance sustainability through initiatives that support solar power, electric vehicles, battery-powered landscaping, and energy-saving technologies. More detail is provided in the Committee’s Mission Statement.
Leaf Blower Bylaw
Responding to the public disturbance caused by gasoline-powered leaf blowers, the Town’s Climate and Energy Committees, working with the Vineyard Conservation Society and other Island towns, developed a Town bylaw, approved at the 2025 Annual Town Meeting, limiting their use in order to reduce noise and air pollution and to save energy. Quieter, pollution-free electric leaf blowers will replace gas-powered models according to an annual schedule.
Electric Vehicle Charging
If you’re looking for a charge for your EV or plug-in hybrid, four charging spaces are available at the Town’s Park and Ride lot in the Triangle. The chargers are Level-2, meaning that they will charge an EV battery at about 20-25 miles per hour of charge. Just plug in your vehicle and run errands at nearby shops and offices. In about 45 minutes, you’ll have added a round trip to Vineyard Haven (16 miles) to your battery!
Energy Reports
Installed in June 2014, Edgartown’s two large solar fields – Katama Farm and Nunnepog Well – produced more than 32 gigawatt-hours of electricity through December, 2024 – enough to power about 1,250 average Massachusetts homes for a year. Sold to renewable energy users, this energy provided about $2.5 million in net benefits to the Town and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by about 8,200 metric tons. That’s the amount of carbon pollution you’d get by burning about 923 million gallons of gasoline!
Edgartown’s electric vehicle chargers at the Triangle Park and Ride began service in mid-June, 2022. The chargers are busiest in the summer months. Through December, 2025, the stations provided 5,065 charging sessions and dispensed 96,865 kilowatt-hours of energy. Although 60 percent or more of the electric power provided by our grid is from clean sources, this usage still provided a greenhouse gas savings of about 44 metric tons. This is the amount of greenhouse gases released by a gasoline-powered car driving 109,000 miles – about 10 years of average driving.
Project Updates
- With a grant from the Green Communities Competitive Grant Program, heat pumps were installed at four Town Buildings in summer, 2025. With the grant of $217,674 and accompanying incentives of $93,167 from Cape Light Compact, heat pumps for heating and cooling were installed at the Highway Garage and Shellfish-Harbormaster-Dredge building at the Highway Department campus on Meetinghouse Way, as well as at the Harbormaster North Wharf building and the Chappaquiddick Fire Station. The heat pumps will save about 18.2 metric tons of CO2-equivalent greenhouse gases per year, which is about the amount released by burning 2,000 gallons of gasoline.
- Construction is planned for a new solar field atop the closed Meshacket Road landfill. The solar field will provide up to 4 megawatts of clean electric power to the northeastern power grid, and will yield about 5 gigawatts of energy per year – enough to meet all the energy needs of about 150 Massachusetts homes. By leasing the surface of the closed landfill to Ameresco, a Massachusetts-based solar developer, the Town will receive payments of about $14.4 million over the 24-year lease period. Construction should begin in 2026.
- Plans for Edgartown School. The Energy Committee is developing plans to assist the Town in updating the Edgartown School’s heating system by replacing the oil-fired boilers with heat pumps. The plan is being facilitated by a Comprehensive Building Analysis of the School with funding from Cape Light Compact. It will provide a high level system design and cost estimate. Under early development is a plan to add solar panels to the School’s roofs along with battery electricity storage to provide nighttime power and electrical resilience for power outages.
Useful Energy Links
Consumer Oriented Links:
Cape Light Compact:
https://www.capelightcompact.org
How to purchase “Green energy” through Cape Light Compact: https://www.capelightcompact.org/clcgreen/
Information on purchasing Solar PV on MV:
https://www.capelightcompact.org/solar/
Rebates on Heat Pump Technology through Cape Light Compact: https://www.capelightcompact.org/heating-and-cooling-rebates/
Eversource-Report/ Check on outage:
https://www.eversource.com/cg/customer/reportoutage
Mass Save-Energy Savings Opportunities:
https://www.masssave.com
Mosaic Financing for Solar PV:
https://joinmosaic.com/homeowners/
Community Links:
Car charging stations on Martha’s Vineyard: https://www.plugshare.com/directory/us/massachusetts/vineyard-haven
Martha’s Vineyard Transit Authority Electric bus initiatives:
https://www.veic.org/clients-results/case-studies/martha-s-vineyard-offers-reliable-and-clean-transportation-through-electrification
Chappy Environmental Committee: https://chappaquiddickislandassociation.org/news/2021/3/2/chappaquiddick-climate-work
Island Climate Action Network (ICAN):
https://islandclimateaction.org
Mothers Out Front:
https://www.mothersoutfront.org
Edgartown Energy Committee Site:
https://www.edgartown-ma.us/departments/energy-committee
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