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LIPA Ends Wind Park Project...for Now
Originally published in the 2007 August 30 edition of The
Wantagh-Seaford Citizen. In the end it wasn’t about a few public officials and lobbyists with special interests getting rich off the project; it wasn’t about turning the ocean into an industrial park; it wasn’t about the fish stocks and it wasn’t about the compromised view of the horizon. It was all about the money.
With one swipe of his pen Long Island Power Authority chairman Kevin Law aims to end the bluster that had become the Jones Beach wind park project, a proposed installation some 4.5 miles off the shore that first stirred the air in 2002 and would have been built by Florida Power and Light (FPL) Energy Company. A study commissioned by the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) and prepared by Pace Global Energy Services concluded last week the project would reach $811 million, including construction and financing costs, and the cost for the transmission cable needed to transmit power from the turbines to the LIPA grid. A report issued by the utility in 2002 cited then the cost of constructing the wind park at between $150-$180 million. The $811 million figure topped FPL’s own estimated cost at the end of 2006 of $697 million by $114 million. The plan was for 40 wind turbines generating 140 megawatts (MW) of electricity to 44,000 homes on Long Island.
An Extra $2.50 a Month? But LIPA’s outgoing CEO and President Richard Kessel of Merrick, long a proponent of the project, told L&M Publications that he hopes to reintroduce the project in the future. “I hope that we will put out more RFPs to see if there are any cheaper means of building the project.” But he said he believes that $2.50 per household is as cheap as it will ever get.
He added it was incumbent for the utility to seek out such large-scale renewable projects because the state mandates 25 percent of all energy to be renewable by 2013. Overall construction costs were actually in line with proposed market expectations for building offshore wind projects in North America, given the early stage of development, the report continued. Costs would have gone down as the technology advanced and a better-defined energy policy put in place to support such projects. Indeed, in Europe and in Denmark in particular costs are much lower for offshore wind projects because Denmark has been developing such projects since 1991, and the government provides incentives for renewable energy resources, the report said. Denmark currently has eight offshore projects, with another two 200 MW projects planned to go online in 2010, according to a presentation the Danish government made during a U.S. Mineral Management Service wind power collaborative last June 19.
Reactions Expected He said he would soon propose to state, county and town officials in the near future the idea of a sea wildlife refuge to run from Jones Beach Inlet to Robert Moses, and from the shore out 15 miles. His last proposal, to develop the Norman J. Levy Preserve and Park atop the Merrick landfill, became a reality. Merokean activist Joe Kralovich, also from SOB, said “It’s great, but it’s not just about the money. Everyone thinks the windmills are working in Denmark, but it’s more complicated than that,” He said that even building all these windmills, Denmark cannot meet its Kyoto agreement. Local environmentalists Richard and Lisa Schary said, “It took a lot of rate payer’s money and abuse from people who knew that it would provide too little power and cost too much” Ms. Schary added that “I don’t think the cost will ever provide enough benefit to warrant industrial parks in our waters. Our ecosystem is too fragile and we don’t know the long-term effects.” Conversely, Maureen Murphy, program coordinator for the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, a strong wind advocate, told L&M Publications the wind park project’s termination was “tragic because the U.S. is behind all other countries in wind technology. Europe figured out those costs year ago, and hopefully we can figure them out very soon, too.” She maintained that the U.S. cannot stop moving forward toward renewable energy, including wind. “Killing this wind farm brings us one step closer to feeling the effects of global warming,” she warned. But Mr. Schary called Ms. Murphy’s remarks contrary. “Why does Citizen’s Campaign for the Environment support projects like this one as well as the building of a gas terminal island off the south shore but opposes any development of Broadwater gas terminal or windmills in the Long Island Sound?” Last week Citizen’s Campaign for the Environment called on Winergy, a company set to initiate a three-windmill pilot project between Orient Point and Plum Island, to do a comprehensive avian study before putting the windmills up. “We are not against this deep-water windmill project,” she said, adding the request to Winergy is consistent with its position in calling for comprehensive environmental studies before committing to any renewable energy project.
The Other Game in Town Of its pilot project status, he called it a deep-water windmill technology designed for water depths up to 150 feet, which translates to 12-20 miles off the coast. “We will have the project up for about 10 years and hope to draw various agencies who will be interested in developing wind park technology along the U.S. east coast.” He added that working to determine suitable implementation costs and options would be part of the research and development project. He said costs for building a transmission from windmills to shore, for example, would be reduced because more windmills could be placed farther out without disruption to the view shed, bringing total cost down.
Other Alternatives Residents putting in central air conditioning where before they only had one air conditioner; and new electronic devices such as cell phone rechargers and new TVs that stay on in background were some of the new electronics demanding more power, he said. While at the top of the power generating list was the creation of a wind park, Mr. Cunningham said LIPA remained committed to other sources of renewable energy mentioned in the 2004 plan. They include a new fuel cell generation project, assistance in a tidal/current ocean power demonstration project and an assessment of bio-fuels. LIPA has also increased its funding of clean energy initiatives to about $52 million during 2007, up from $36.1 million in 2005. Seventy five fuel cells were added to the grid at LIPA’s West Babylon substation last year and it hopes to expand its research and development on this kind of technology, as well as explore a tidal/ocean power demonstration project. “But we have no specific timeline [on the ocean power],” said Mr. Cunningham. Concerning biofuels, he said that “We have been testing bio-diesel in our combustion turbines. These units produce about 20 to 40 MW of power and are used to support our system during peak use. We’ll continue to explore this.” LIPA is also working towards its goal of increasing solar power on Long Island. This past June it installed its one thousandth roof. “Our goal is still 10,000 solar roofs,” said Mr. Cunningham, although he admitted that number is quite small in regard to overall energy needs within the grid. “There’s not a lot of room available for large-scale solar projects at the moment.” What about new plants or repowering older plants? “We have a brand new energy efficient, clean plant going online in the summer of 2009,” said Mr. Cunningham. The Caithness Project in Yaphank is a combined cycle plant that will provide 350 MW of clean power to residents. Meanwhile, Mr. Law and other LIPA officials will meet with the LIPA stockholder board of September 25 to begin hashing out new priorities for renewable energy for the future. |
