Gov. David Paterson’s (D) administration has indicated that a new power plant siting law to replace Article X is one of the new governor’s top priorities.

“Article X is good for the state,” said Michael Wyland, a Paterson spokesperson.

A new siting law introduced last year—the first and only since Article X expired at the end of 2002—died in the Assembly.
New York has never had a comprehensive energy policy, but Article X did come close.

The law gave the seven-member New York State Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment the ability to determine where power plants could be built. It also provided developers with consolidated lists of construction requirements which enabled them to plan construction timelines. In effect, Article X was a way to fast-track new construction.

Under Article X, residents, community activists and local governments objecting to the construction of new power plants in their communities were generally powerless to stop developers from building.

More than 18 million New Yorkers depend on the state’s network of aging power plants for an estimated 142 million megawatts of power. Under an expired Article X, new power plant construction is much more difficult in New York than elsewhere in the region.

Sen. George Maziarz (R-Niagra/Orleans) and Assembly Member Kevin Cahill (D-Ulster/Dutchess), the respective chairs of their chambers’ energy committees, agree that the state’s existing plants will not be able to meet the future needs of New Yorkers.

“If the blackout of 2003 was not a wake up call for New York, then it should have been,” said Maziarz. “Our population is growing and all of those people need power.”

But until they can persuade local legislators, community groups and plant developers to compromise on a new energy policy, the state will risk losing billions in property taxes and becoming dependent on energy generated outside of the state.

“This is not only about power,” Maziarz said. “This is about economic development and the future of New York.”

Eliot Spitzer, whose gubernatorial administration promoted environmentally-friendly policies and economic development upstate, introduced measures to lower the cost of electricity upstate and attract new businesses to the region. He did not address the reinstatement of Article X.
Paterson also has historically had a strong commitment to pro-environmental policies, but his focus on the budget in the first weeks of his administration prevented him from taking many public positions on other issues.

Opponents of renewing Article X say that passing a new law would be bad for New York, because fast-tracking often enables developers to put plants in already suffering neighborhoods. 

“Everybody talks about plants like they are the answer to all of the state’s problems,” said activist Mathy Stanislaus, of Manhattan’s New Partners for Community Revitalization. “But they always want to build in poor communities that have already been polluted by huge industrial developments.”

But without a siting law like Article X, developers risk investing millions of dollars into development for a plant that could be rejected by any local government. As a result, some say that developers are already looking to build their plants instead in states like New Jersey and Connecticut, where energy policies exist to protect the plants and their investments.

“A few people can kill a power plant before it even gets built in New York,” said Gavin Donohue, president and CEO of the Independent Power Producers of New York. “So developers are going to other states.”

Cahill and Maziarz both hope that Paterson will work with them to either reinstate Article X or draft a new siting law before the end of the current session. As they do, they will have to contend with community stakeholders who have gotten used to sole control over new plant development in the more than five years since Article X expired.

Cahill expects a tough fight.

“Everyone has a stake here, from the developers to legislators and residents,” Cahill said.

“But the longer we wait, the longer it will take to pass a new siting law.”   

•••••••

Even Without Article X, Renewable Energy Future Brightens

As much as some political leaders say they would like to wean residents off of electricity produced by burning fossil fuels, the state does not currently have anywhere near the number of renewable energy power plants to generate enough power to satisfy residents’ needs.
 
“You can put all of the solar mirrors you want to in the desert, like they do in California,” said Vincent Cozzolino, CEO of the state’s Solar Energy Consortium, a body committed to attracting solar energy companies to the state. “But where are you going to put something like that in New York?”

James Denn, a representative for the state’s Public Service Commission, said that despite the differences between a solar power farm or a collection of wind turbines and a traditional fossil fuel-burning plant, both are considered power plants, provided that they generate a minimum of 80 megawatts of energy. But the size of such plants, and energy developers’ dependence upon community support to establish them—especially in the absence of a renewed Article X—make their appearance unlikely in the near future.

“Some communities may want clean energy plants,” Denn said. “But whether or not we see anything significant depends on the site where it will be built.”

Space is so hard to find in New York that both New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (Unaff.) and Gov. David Paterson (D) have proposed installing solar panels onto municipal buildings. Some have even suggested that the sides of New York State Thruway be lined with enough solar power cells to power the state.

But even the largest proposed solar energy plant in the state, the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) Solar Project, will only supply 50 megawatts of power each hour, far less than the 12,133,000 megawatts of electricity which New York’s combined coal, gas, hydroelectric and nuclear power plants generated per hour in 2007.

The lack of available space for plants makes New York an unlikely candidate for what environmentalists are calling a “green revolution.” The cost of current technology, however, is also a major concern.

Currently, a single solar-power cell costs $8 and produces only 12 kilowatts of power. Purchasing enough cells to power one home would cost a consumer about $96,000.

For LIPA, then, the question is about diversifying the existing means of generating power.

“The plant will produce enough electricity to power 6,500 homes,” said Mark Gross, a spokesperson for the LIPA. “But when you start putting things together, it’s a start.”

Solar panels, though cumbersome, are comparatively more space-efficient than the 200-foot turbines used to convert wind power into electrical energy.

Ten wind farms located in Lakawanna, Calverton, Fenner and South Holt, as well as in Madison and Wyoming counties, generate a combined 424.8 megawatts of power. But unlike solar panels that can capture sunlight anywhere, wind turbines must be placed in areas that receive a steady breeze.

“There are good wind resources in the Northeast, including New York,” said Laurie Jodziewicz, manager of site planning for the American Wind Energy Association. “But there is just not enough space to build on the scale of the wind energy projects in Texas.”

LIPA continues to receive proposals from solar energy cell manufacturers to develop the Solar Energy Project. The Solar Energy Consortium has announced the construction of a new manufacturing plant by Prism Solar that will bring 400 jobs to the state. Negotiations are underway to bring another 800-worker facility to New York by the end of the year.

And though NYSERDA’s plans for the construction of new wind turbines have yet to move beyond the contract phase, tax incentives have made these turbines cheaper to build.

Renewable energy sources account for less than 1 percent of the total energy generated in the state; but some utilities, while supportive of “green energy,” are not convinced that energy generated by solar or wind power can be safely incorporated onto the grid.

“We’re concerned about the safety of the grid,” said Joe Petta, a spokesperson for ConEd. “This extra energy could short out the grid or create surges if it is not regulated—and there is no regulation for this right now.”