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The company proposing a power plant for Brockton took a new public relations tack Thursday, having staff from other Massachusetts plants promote the controversial Brockton project at a public meeting.

Two members of the Utility Workers Union of America Local 369 spoke at the meeting, including its president, Gary Sullivan of Hanover.

“We are advocating for the plant because we feel it’s needed,” said Sullivan, citing forecasts of rising electricity use in coming years.

He was speaking to an audience of about 100 residents, along with eight local town officials who belong to a regional task force that is studying the plant.

The task force held the two-hour meeting to scrutinize the details of the project, proposed by Swiss company Advanced Power.

The task force is gathering information so it can advise area towns on whether to support or oppose the project, which has faced a large opposition movement among residents and officials in Brockton.

In recent months, the movement has started spreading to some nearby towns. Possible health impacts and the use of global-warming-causing fossil fuels are among the concerns.

The 350-megawatt plant would burn natural gas and diesel and is under review by state energy regulators, who are deciding whether to issue it a permit.

On Thursday, the task force first heard a presentation by an official from the Conservation Law Foundation, a well-known environmental group.

Seth Kaplan, the group’s vice president for climate advocacy, said his organization has not taken a side on the Brockton project.

But he did seek to dispel some of the claims made by the company.

Kaplan said the plant’s gas-burning technology is “not cutting edge,” as frequently claimed by the power plant company. The technology is a decade old and currently the industry standard for new plants, he said.

Kaplan also pointed to possible points of concern, such as the storage of large amounts of ammonia on site for use at the plant.

“If it spills, leaks and explodes, that’s a bad thing,” he said.

Still, Kaplan said, if fossil fuels must be used to generate electricity, the Brockton project would be the least environmentally-harmful type of plant available.

“But it’s a big ‘if’,” he said.

His presentation was followed by the utility worker union members, who were making their first appearance in support of the project.

The two members laid out how a power plant operates and explained that at their plants, there haven’t been complaints from neighbors or major problems.

Speaking about a gas-burning power plant in Everett, plant operator Arthur Devlin said they’ve “never had any problems” with ammonia, for instance.

Sullivan, the union president, acknowledged that one of his reasons for supporting the Brockton plant is the jobs that would be created, but said that’s not all he cares about.

“We’re interested in jobs, but not to the detriment of the communities our people live in,” he said.

Several Advanced Power officials were in the audience at the meeting but did not speak — even when questions from the public were posed about the plant that couldn’t be answered by any of the speakers.

At one point, a handful of people in the audience apparently became agitated at the lack of answers to some questions, and one man stormed out, complaining loudly about the absence of input from Advanced Power.

The task force scheduled its next meeting for Dec. 4, when experts supporting the opposition movement are expected to speak.

Task force members who were present at Thursday’s meeting represented the towns of Abington, East Bridgewater, Halifax, Hanson, Lakeville, Middleboro, West Bridgewater and Whitman.

Kyle Alspach can be reached at kalspach@enterprisenews.com.