Next New England

This week, we take a rare look a gigantic battery that’s helping to balance our region’s energy grid. Plus, we get perspective from Maine’s top energy official, who is stepping down. We also take trips to a tiny island where opioid addicts go to seek treatment, and to the city that inspires the country’s most famous horror writer. And we learn what charitable donations — or lack thereof — say about New Englanders. The road into the entry portal of the hydro-electric power plant in Northfield Mountain. At 33-feet in diameter, the tunnel is nearly a mile long and leads 750 feet deep into the heart of the mountain. (Credit: Jesse Costa/WBUR) Finding the Right Energy Mix Today’s batteries come in all shapes and sizes. The largest in New England — and once the world — was built 45 years ago and is still working. But it’s hidden, on top and deep inside a mountain in north-central Massachusetts. WBUR’s Bruce Gellerman reports from Northfield Mountain. Inside the