LIPA Says No to Offshore Wind Farm
A proposed offshore wind farm to be situated 30 miles east of Montauk is in doubt in the wake of the Long Island Power Authority’s rejection of the project, announced at a Dec. 17 meeting of its board of trustees. The wind farm, which was to be constructed and operated by the Rhode Island company Deepwater Wind, was prohibitively expensive, according to LIPA officials.
LIPA will, however, pursue 11 land-based solar farms in Suffolk County, though none in the Town of East Hampton. When completed and operational, those installations are projected to provide 122 megawatts of power, a figure that falls short of the 280 megawatts of clean, renewable energy the authority had previously announced as a goal.
Reaction from stakeholders was swift. Jeffrey Grybowski, chief executive officer of Deepwater Wind, issued a statement on Dec. 17 in which he said that the power company had “missed an opportunity to build a 21st century energy supply for Long Island and a new local industry employing hundreds for years to come.”
Mr. Grybowski pointed to a report issued by Stony Brook University concluding that construction of a wind farm and LIPA’s purchase of energy from it would have no impact on ratepayer bills. “Long Islanders suffer from some of the highest energy costs in the Northeast,” he said, “and the region trails the rest of New York State in renewables.” LIPA’s decision, he said, “does little to prepare Long Island for the future energy needs, save ratepayers money, or put Long Island laborers back to work.”
Gordian Raacke, executive director of Renewable Energy Long Island, a not-for-profit organization in East Hampton that promotes sustainable energy use and generation, agreed. His own analysis, he said, demonstrated that the costs associated with an offshore wind farm would be less than half that of the new “peaker plants” — gas-powered plants that typically operate only during peak demand — that LIPA has proposed for the South Fork.
LIPA’s decision is particularly bad for East Hampton, said Mr. Raacke, a member of the town’s energy sustainability committee, “because not only do we not get the benefit of offshore wind power, but they also didn’t select any proposals for East Hampton Township, nor Southampton.” The town’s goal of meeting 100 percent of its electricityneeds with renewable energy sources by 2020, he said, is now more challenging. “We now have to figure out how we’re going to go it alone.”
East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell was disappointed by LIPA’s decision. “The goal that was recommended by the energy sustainability committee to make East Hampton energy self-sufficient relied heavily on the potential of offshore wind,” he said on Monday. But, he added, “I am not in a position to evaluate the cost benefits of that specifically. In terms of the cost of capital improvements necessary to build offshore wind and how that would affect electricity rates on Long Island, that’s something LIPA has analyzed.”
Janet Van Sickle, who is also a member of the town’s energy sustainability committee, was among those attending the LIPA meeting at which its decision was announced, and said 80 to 90 percent of those in attendance were deeply disappointed. “My personal feeling is that we are way behind schedule on supplying renewable energy to Long Island, and every little bit helps.” The offshore wind farm,” she said, “was a project that was ready to go.”
Not everyone was disappointed by the decision, however. Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, had been concerned about the wind farm’s potential impact on marine habitat, spawning, and migratory patterns.
It was hypocritical, Ms. Brady said, to fear environmental degradation through the burning of fossil fuels while damaging the environment that sustains an essential industry for Long Island’s economy and many of its residents. “We’ve got a renewable resource in our fisheries,” Ms. Brady said, “and it’s not just for commercial guys, it’s for the charter guys, recreational guys, lobstermen.” The proposed 256-square-mile wind farm site, she said, “is a very important area. It shouldn’t be ‘alternative energy at all costs,’ as in, ‘destroy an ecosystem so we can have it.’ ”
“I’m relieved that LIPA made a measured decision,” Ms. Brady said. “I want to believe it’s based upon not wanting to degrade an environment in the name of green energy.”
While recognizing the concerns of commercial fishermen, Mr. Grybowski disputed the degree of disruption or degradation construction of the offshore wind farm would have caused.
Mr. Raacke said that the energy sustainability committee would discuss the situation internally and with the town board. “It’s just very unfortunate,” he said. “If the town government wants to really get behind this, the utilities should be happy to see that, yet in this case they are no help at all. We’ll keep fighting for this, we won’t give up, and eventually it will happen.”