Salem Harbor Energy Center

Salem, Massachusetts


The Salem Harbor Station began operation in 1951, and until recently, was an iconic symbol of the aging coal and oil-burning power plant era. Footprint Power broke ground in 2015 on a new natural gas fired plant that will have a capacity of 674 MW and requires only 32% of the original landmass required by the old plant. Meridian was hired to use LiDAR for data collection to prepare an existing-conditions plan to illustrate surface and planimetric features. For this 40+ acre site, Meridian only needed two hours to acquire all imagery using both aerial and vehicle LiDAR. The data was later registered and calibrated to achieve the accuracy for LiDAR data in accordance with ASPRS Positional Accuracy Standards for digital geospatial data.