Section 164A:26 - Municipal electric departments; application of chapterWith respect to municipal electric departments, this chapter shall be applicable only to such municipal electric departments as were in existence on January first, nineteen hundred and seventy-three, and to such additional municipal electric departments created after that date which comply with the following provisions:
(a) Such an additional municipal electric department shall first acquire or construct a plant for the generation, transmission or distribution of electricity only after the department, after notice and opportunity for hearing, shall have found that such acquisition or construction and the terms thereof to be consistent with the public interest and that the facilities for furnishing and distributing electricity in the territory to be served by such municipal electric department would not be diminished thereby; and(b) The two votes required by section thirty-five or thirty-six of chapter one hundred sixty-four shall have been at meetings held not less than twelve months apart nor more than twenty-four months apart.Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 164A, § 26