New York State Funds Two Wind Power and Three Hydropower Projects

March 2, 2005

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) announced in February that it selected five power generation producers to provide renewable power for the first phase of the state's Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) Program. Two of the five projects are wind facilities: the 300-megawatt Flat Rock Wind Project near Lowville in Lewis County, about 25 miles southeast of Watertown, and the 7.5-megawatt Atlantic City Wind Farm (also called the Jersey-Atlantic Wind Farm) in New Jersey, both of which are expected to be at least partially complete by year-end. The remaining three projects are recent upgrades of existing hydropower projects owned by Brascan Power: the 17-megawatt Browns Falls hydropower plant and the 6.1-megawatt Higley hydropower plant, both in St. Lawrence County, and the 56-megawatt Spier Falls hydroelectric plant in Saratoga County. In 2006, NYSERDA expects to pay $15.7 million for the renewable energy attributes of the power generated by the five projects, estimated at 700,000 megawatt-hours. See the press releases from NYSERDA and Brascan Power.

NYSERDA chose the five projects from 22 proposals that came in response to a request for proposals (RFP) issued in late December. That solicitation aimed to acquire the renewable attributes of 1,400,000 megawatt-hours of renewable power—double the amount actually acquired—to meet the state's RPS requirement. See the NYSERDA RFP (PDF 1.1 MB). Download Acrobat Reader.

For more information about the two wind projects, see the Flat Rock Wind Project Web site, the Flat Rock project summary (PDF 176 KB) from New York's Tug Hill Commission, and a summary of the Atlantic City project on the Atlantic County Utility Authority Web site.