A proposal for a new peaker plant in Greenport is dead in the water.
At Monday’s Greenport village board work meeting, Mayor David Nyce said Global Common, LLC, the company that had pitched the proposal, was unable to find a South Fork site for the project, meaning it would likely not meet the 200-megawatts they were seeking on the East End.
The company, he said, has “pulled their application to us. The project is, for now, gone.”
Resident William Swiskey suggested the village “shop around” the concept and seek other applicants, rather than lose the almost $600,000 he said the project would bring in to village coffers.
Representatives from Global Common, LLC, came before the village board on Thursday night to present information about the proposed new 75-megawatt power-generation plant, which would run only during peak energy usage times, according to Nyce.
The company also developed the existing Greenport peaking plant, which was sold to Hawkeye Electric, Inc. in 2003.
Benefits of the new plant, which would have been sited on the other side of Moores Lane from the existing plant, would be rent and tax revenue, a source of meeting increasing peaking demands on the East End, the replacement of inefficient peaking plants, avoidance of new transmission from western Long Island, the firming up of renewables, an improvement of local grid reliability, and a means to control energy costs, according to a proposal by Global Common, LLC.
According to the presentation, the plant would run approximately 500 to 1000 hours per year.
With a maximum of 250-megawatts, and 75 megawatts preferred to the Southold substation, additional capacity would have left the door open to substation expansion, and the remainder preferred to Buell, Southampton, Deerfield and Montauk substations, according to the proposal.
The plant would have run on diesel fuel and been sited on 2.5 acres, the proposal said.
According to the pitch, the existing plant has operated 484 to 1,055 hours per year since 2009. New plant operations would depend on customer needs, with a maximum of 2,000 hours per year of operations under the current air permit.
If selected, the facility would have operated under a long-term lease, with a 20-year term with extension options. Lease payments to the village would have totaled approximately $486,000 per year, assuming the 75-megawatt plant was chosen.
After a public hearing to discuss the issue, Greenport resident John Saladino wondered why many, who he said he believed were non-residents, had spoken out agains the proposal, one he supported.
“No one seemed to care that village taxes could be reduced by 40 to 50 percent, except, of course, the people in the village that are struggling. No one seemed to care that the town and school could realize a $1 to $1.5 million in school tax income without adding one student, again except, of course, the people who can’t afford the high taxes we all are reading about.”
Saladino pointed out that, according to former treasurer Charlene Kagel, the village is grappling with dwindling funds and is likely to “run out of money to pay its debts” by 2017.
He added, “No one seemed to care that the new plant would be unseen in the proposed location. No one seemed to care the parcel is not on parkland; the proposed site is two acres that, in the past, housed a sewage treatment facility and is adjacent to, and in close proximity to, a working sewage treatment plant.”
Even if the parcel was left fallow, Saladino said, it could never be utilized for recreation because it is inside the current sewer plant property and not open to the public.
The new facility, he added, would have been environmentally and ecologically sound and would not be heard beyond the property’s fence line.
The project, he added, would have also stimulated job creation and proven a “financial windfall for the money-strapped village.”
