By JOSEPH KELLARD
Re-powering plants involves using less fossil fuel-based energy sources and more modern, ³green² sources of energy.
LIPA has until Dec. 15 to decide whether it will exercise an all-or-nothing generation purchase agreement ‹ one it signed with KeySpan in 1998 ‹ to buy all of KeySpan¹s major base-load generation plants, which are spread across the Island, said Bert Cunningham, LIPA¹s vice president of communications. ³That option is under review in light of what we¹re also looking at, with what makes sense with regard to cost for re-powering and what plants would make the best candidates for re-powering,² Cunningham said.
The five KeySpan plants are fueled either by natural gas or oil and produce enormous quantities of electricity, and LIPA is the primariy purchaser of this power. Feeding into an electrical grid, the Barrett Plant provides a significant portion of energy for southwest Nassau County.
Local environmental groups point to Barrett and plants in Northport and Port Jefferson as most in need of re-powering due to their age, and claim that they produce comparatively high levels of pollution. The Barrett plant consists of two units, the first built in 1956 and the other in 1963.
Environmentalists claim that ³green² energies produce more electricity and give off fewer emissions. Due to their producer-purchaser contractual relationship, KeySpan and LIPA would have to jointly decide to re-power at the plants.
Late last summer, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and in the midst of record-high gas prices, Senator Charles Schumer held a press conference at the Northport plant calling for it and other metropolitan area energy facilities to be re-powered.
Though maintaining that reductions in emissions output have improved dramatically at the Northport plant in recent years, KeySpan spokesman Jodie Fisher said, ³From our perspective, Schumer is right that many of the plants that serve the greater New York area, specifically Long Island, should be re-powered and need to be brought up to 21st century technology.²
The Northport plant is ³a difficult, if not impossible² plant to re-power, Fisher said, unless KeySpan built another plant to take the load that would be lost by taking Northport out of service temporarily. He noted that the Barrett plant is more conducive to re-powering and is more likely to be re-powered than Northport. Barrett is already taken out of service for several weeks each year so that significant maintenance work can be performed before the peak summer season.
Asked about the prospect of green energy replacing fossil fuel-based energy, Fisher said, ³With the most efficient green technologies right now ‹ whether windmill, solar or tidal power ‹ you would have to build an extraordinary number of windmills to take the place of any one of those power plants. ... In the short run, you are not going to be able to take any one of those energies today, or even in the next five years, and take one of those plants out of service.²
Cunningham answered that the extent to which re-powering can occur depends on the type of energy being used. ³With wind power, for example,² he explained, ³you will still have to rely on how strong the winds are at any time to be able to generate maximum power. With a generating facility, however, you obviously have the ability to turn it on and off when you need it.²
Meanwhile, KeySpan has a plant designed and ready to be built, the Spagnoli Road Plant in Huntington, which would be fired by natural gas and would run cleaner and more efficiently ³and would produce the kind of electricity needed to take another power plant offline,² Fisher said. KeySpan needs a power purchase agreement to build the plant, but has yet to find an interested buyer. ³The obvious buyer is LIPA,² Fisher continued, ³and my understanding is that LIPA is simply not interested in that plant.²
LIPA has instead completed negotiations on a power purchasing agreement to get power from another new project, the Caithness Energy Center in Bellport, a plant currently undergoing a final environmental review, Cunningham said.
³The Caithness project came up as the most economical project,² Cunningham said, ³and the Spagnoli Road Plant finished further down in the process as far as economic viability is concerned.²
