National Grid considers repowering power plants in Northport, Port Jeff, Island Park

National Grid is giving severe consideration to repowering three of Long Island’s largest electric-generating plants, citing a modified state outlook for mainly gas-fired models and its personal modeling that exhibits new plants on the websites would run extra effectively at decrease price.

The plan, if pursued, would breathe new life into an idea LIPA has studied for many years, however in the end determined towards following 2017 research. At the time, LIPA determined to shelve the repowering plans as a result of the utility had projected power-use reductions and an inflow of renewables onto the grid.

But plans for among the largest renewable tasks, together with huge offshore wind farm arrays, have been stalled or withdrawn following opposition from the Trump administration, and New York State has taken on an “all-of-the-above” vitality strategy that requires tapping the brakes on fossil gas plant retirements. That strategy has been criticized by environmental teams, which need Gov. Kathy Hochul to take care of the state’s aggressive targets for an emission-free grid by 2040.

In an interview Wednesday, Will Hazelip, president of National Grid Ventures, which owns the plants and operates them beneath contract to LIPA, stated the corporate was in the early levels of modeling the prices, impacts and total feasibility of upgrading the power stations at Northport, Port Jefferson and Island Park. The idea: change the half-century-old plants with the most recent, most effective power turbines out there. Power capability of the models might even be elevated, he stated.

“We’ve been looking at it from a high level and see that it makes a lot of sense because there are quite a few benefits,” Hazelip stated.

Under early modeling eventualities, every of the three plants can be thought-about for a repowering that replaces previous steam-generating plants with extra trendy expertise corresponding to combined-cycle models that burn significantly much less gas and produce power extra effectively, whereas utilizing significantly much less water for cooling. Caithness Long Island Energy, one other plant beneath contract to LIPA, is a mixed cycle plant.

Hazelip stated changing from the previous steam-generating plants would sharply cut back emissions, significantly after they run on pure fuel, although he recommended state regulators would seemingly proceed to require fuel-oil backup on the services.

Modeling additionally exhibits that wholesale power from the plants would inexpensive in repowered models, he stated.

“We’d be able to produce more megawatt-hours at lower costs,” he stated. “That will bring wholesale electric prices down, have a net positive impact on customer bills and will increase reliability.”

Michael Kaufman, vice chairman of the Suffolk County Planning Commission,   stated present market situations make the idea of repowering “an excellent idea. We should have done it 15 years ago, just in terms of greater fuel efficiency.”

“It’s an advantage in efficiency, in lower fuel costs, and in energy security on the Island,” he stated, including that repowering might additionally tackle tax-base issues from communities in which plants are situated.

But Peter Gollon, a former LIPA trustee and a inexperienced vitality advocate for the Sierra Club, stated repowering all the large plants would commit LIPA to a fossil gas future and risky vitality pricing — concepts he opposes.

“You force yourself into a 20-year plan of relying on fossil fuel plants which is what I think the gas company wants,” he stated. “And you still have the volatility of gas prices.”

He urged LIPA to conduct an impartial research “to see what’s the best way to get out of this without binding LIPA to new fossil fuel plants.” Wind and photo voltaic, he stated, stay viable power sources not topic to wild value volatility.

National Grid’s present $4.8 billion contract to function the plants for LIPA expires in 2028. And whereas the prospect of repowering the plants might actually influence phrases of the contract, Hazelip stated the plan to repower would occur on a separate observe.

“We don’t know if it would be part of that discussion” with LIPA, he stated. That contract contains smaller power plants referred to as “peakers” scattered throughout Long Island, a lot of which additionally want upgrading however seemingly wouldn’t be instantly overhauled. “We’re really focused on continuing to operate and maintain the existing fleet. We will continue to do that with whatever contract structure we end up with LIPA,” he stated.

Told of National Grid’s plans, LIPA in a press release stated it was “evaluating all available resource options to meet future system needs, including a range of supply-side and demand-side solutions. Any future actions will be informed by detailed analysis, stakeholder engagement, and a clear focus on affordability and value for ratepayers.”

LIPA in an interview with Newsday in the autumn stated it too was reexamining its power useful resource map with an eye fixed towards an “all-of the-above” vitality strategy articulated by Hochul, which incorporates hitting the brakes on fossil gas plant retirements and constructing extra nuclear power upstate. LIPA on the time stated repowering older plants was into consideration, and websites such because the E.F. Barrett plant in Island Park could possibly be candidates.

Whether the plan would contain demolishing the previous plants stays an open query, National Grid stated.

There’s “flexibility to decide whether to retire and demolish old infrastructure or keep that existing infrastructure around for a time as back up,” the corporate stated in a follow-up e-mail.

“We’ve got to keep the existing generation around” through the transition, Hazelip stated. “We have to be able to build new generation without retiring the existing [and] we can do that at several of our sites.”

LIPA in 2017 launched a sequence of research for repowering the previous plants that thought-about a variety of choices, from doing so in levels to maintain wanted plants working by the transition to so-called yard repowering that foresaw new plants put in on power station property whereas the previous saved producing.

Northport, Long Island’s largest plant, has 4 principal steam-generating models constructed between 1967 and 1977, rated at a mixed 1,500 megawatts. The 250-acre station has 75 out there acres for a repowering, in accordance with LIPA’s 2017 research.

The E.F. Barret station has massive steam generators rated at a mixed 390 megawatts and was constructed between 1956 and 1963, plus 265 megawatts of smaller fuel generators often called peakers. Port Jefferson has two steam models rated at a mixed 380 megawatts, constructed between 1958 and 1960, and a smaller peaker rated at 12 megawatts, in accordance with LIPA’s research.

Repowering Island Park and Port Jefferson plants would have price $2.9 billion on the time, the LIPA research discovered. Repowering Northport would have price $1.2 billion to $2.1 billion. At the time, the research discovered “no compelling reason” to repower the station.

But the power outlook has modified dramatically in the last decade since.

Repowering “any of those sites would reduce wholesale electric prices, increase reliability and reduce emissions,” Hazelip stated. “We see a savings because of the efficiency of the combined cycle [plants] in particular.”

Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers vitality, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.