Here for you...Since 1907

Customer Owned and Committed to Service

Since its formation in 1907, The Groveland Municipal Light Department (GMLD) has been here for it's owners - the ratepayers in the Town of Groveland. As with everything, Groveland Light has changed with the times. Some recent highlights:

In 2006, GMLD was one of the first in New England to adopt a new AMI Metering system, allowing the department to read meters without needing to send an employee to each meter, every month.

2013 brought about the installation of a 3.16mW Solar Farm located off of Main Street. This facility has the capability of producing most of the power needed by the town during its production hours. At the time of it's construction it was one of the largest solar facilities in the Commonwealth dedicated to serving a municipal utility.

2017 was a busy year for change at GMLD. The first of which was our move to a new location at 944 Salem Street. Prior to March 2017, GMLD was located at 23 School Street. Our new Operations Center has provided us with much needed room that we were lacking at our old location; allowing us to clearly organize our inventory stock, to keep our Linetrucks in a more spacious garage that allows for indoor maintenance, and provide our office staff with a more comfortable and secure area to service walk-in customers.

The second major change for 2017 was the replacement of all the overhead streetlighting in town to high-efficiency LED's. The Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources provided GMLD and other utilities across the state with a grant which reduced the cost to replace the fixtures. Our linecrews replaced over 550 High Pressure Sodium fixtures across town over the course of 3 weeks. All fixtures are Dark Skies compliant and AMA recommended for color output.

2017 brought several unwelcome hurricanes to the table. Luckily, Groveland and the surrounding areas were spared. Unfortunately, public power communities in Florida and the US Virgin Islands were not so lucky. Part of what makes Public Power Utilities great is that during these events we all band together to help - regardless where in the US or its territories you live. In September of 2017 we, along with several other local municipal utilities, sent crews to Florida to assist in recovery efforts due to Hurricane Irma. This effort assisted the municipalities of New Smyrna Beach, Bartow, and Lakeland, Florida, and lasted approximately 2 weeks.

In October of 2017, GMLD was asked if it could spare a linecrew and bucket truck to assist in the recovery efforts in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. Of course we were able to answer the call. GMLD Linemen Snow, Saunders, Klosowski and Rhudick were part of a combined effort spearheaded by NEPPA (Northeast Public Power Association) that included 117 Linemen and Supervisors, and 34 vehicles. In total, over 12 weeks between October and December were spent rebuilding the infrastructure of the local utility, the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority (VIWAPA). It was an experience none of us will ever forget.

Several Ice and Snowstorms struck Groveland in March of 2018, leaving our, and neighboring systems in the dark for 17+ hours. Though it was unpleasant for all, GMLD came out of it relatively unscathed, thanks in large part to the fact that Groveland Light has been very proactive when it comes to trimming trees away from our distribution system. Every year 1/3 of the system is trimmed, ensuring that nuisance outages caused by trees are kept to a minimum.

2019 saw Groveland Light upgrading the distribution systems in several parts of the community - completely renovating the areas with new poles, conductors and transformers. Areas upgrades included Alpha, Briscoe, Muriel, Francis, Georgia, Stocker, and Cannon Hill Extension to name a few.

What's in store for GMLD in 2020? We'll be continuing to upgrade our Distribution System, including Cannon Hill Road and Anne, Baldwin, and Merritt Streets. We're investigating energy storage opportunities and expanding our Power Portfolio to include more diverse, non-carbon emitting energy sources. And we continue to offer rebates and incentives for the purchase of Energy Efficient appliances and home upgrades.