EnviroPolitics Blog

Rhode Island governor hails community solar facility project next to Superfund site

Michael Bates reports for Solar Industry

TurningPoint Energy and TurningPoint Energy have broken ground on the King community solar project in North Smithfield, R.I. The project, originally developed by TurningPoint Energy and now owned by Nautilus, is being constructed by DEPCOM Power as part of the State of Rhode Island’s Community Net Metering Pilot Program.

The project includes two solar arrays totaling 12.44 MW AC of community solar capacity and is expected to be operational in 2020.

The King community solar project abuts the Landfill Resource and Recovery Superfund site that is currently undergoing a long-term remedial response under the oversight of the Environmental Protection Agency. TurningPoint Energy and Nautilus have coordinated closely with Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and EPA representatives to ensure that the project design has considered any potential future remediation which may be required. The project will incorporate environmental measures including a pollinator-friendly seed mix around and underneath the array.

“Projects like this, which simultaneously clean up our land and make our economy more green, are the future of our state,” says Governor Gina M. Raimondo. “I’m thrilled that once this array is complete, more than 3,000 Rhode Island households will have the option to use clean energy and save money.”

This is TurningPoint Energy’s and Nautilus Solar’s second Rhode Island community solar project to break ground as part of the Community Net Metering Solar Pilot Program, created in 2016. The Hopkins Hill community solar project broke ground earlier this year.

Nautilus is the owner of the project and responsible for managing the project, overseeing construction, and maintaining its long-term performance.

Above photo: Courtesy of Scott Lapham Photography. Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo (second from right) joined State Representative Carlos Tobon, Jared Schoch (president of Turning Point Energy), Laura Stern (co-CEO of Nautilus Solar Energy), Gary Ezovski (town administrator of North Smithfield) and Carol Grant (commissioner, Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources) for a ground-breaking ceremony at the King community solar project. Facebook10TwitterPrintEmail

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Gov. Phil Murphy wants to double New Jersey’s offshore wind power goal

Gov. Murphy, is shown at Liberty Science Center, in Jersey City, before signing an executive order to increase New Jersey's offshore wind-generated electricity from 3,500 megawatts by 2030 to 7,500 megawatts by 2035. New Jersey plans to have 50% renewable energy by 2030 and 100% by 2050. Tuesday, November 19, 2019 — New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy

Scott Fallon reports for NorthJersey.com

Gov. Phil Murphy signed an executive order Tuesday that would more than double his offshore wind power goal for New Jersey.

The order would increase the goal to 7,500 megawatts by 2035, from 3,500 set for 2030.

Murphy made the announcement with former Vice President Al Gore, a clean energy advocate, at a news conference in Jersey City at Liberty Science Center.

“Think about it for a second — when we meet this goal, our offshore winds will generate enough electricity to power more than 3.2 million New Jersey homes,” Murphy said, to applause from environmentalists and labor groups.

“We will meet half of our electric power need,” he said. “We will generate billions of dollars in investments in our state’s future that will, in turn, generate thousands of union jobs.”

Gore praised Murphy and called projects like the offshore wind farm an “emotional reward” in the fight to stem climate change that would be a “wonderful opportunity for good jobs.”

Gore compared the fight against climate change to Pearl Harbor, the Battle of the Bulge and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “We have to rise to this challenge!” Gore said, his voice almost breaking. “We have to change.”

Former Vice President Al Gore is shown in Jersey City, in front Liberty Science Center President & CEO, Paul Hoffman, Gov. Murphy and First Lady Tammy Murphy. Gov. Murphy signed an executive order to increase New Jersey's offshore wind-generated electricity from 3,500 megawatts by 2030 to 7,500 megawatts by 2035. New Jersey plans to have 50% renewable energy by 2030 and 100% by 2050. Tuesday, November 19, 2019 — Former Vice President Al Gore is shown in Jersey City, in front Liberty Science Center President & CEO, Paul Hoffman, Gov. Murphy and First Lady Tammy Murphy. Gov. Murphy signed an executive order to increase New Jersey’s offshore wind-generated electricity from 3,500 megawatts by 2030 to 7,500 megawatts by 2035. New Jersey plans to have 50% renewable energy by 2030 and 100% by 2050. Tuesday, November 19, 2019 *(Photo: Kevin R. Wexler/NorthJersey.com)*

Nearly every major environmental group praised Murphy’s order, from the Sierra Club to the League of Conservation Voters.

Previously, Murphy had set a goal of 3,500 megawatts for offshore wind generation by 2030 to power as many as 1.5 million New Jersey homes.

Toward that end, in June the state Board of Public Utilities approved a $1.6 billion wind-energy farm to be built about 15 miles off the coast of Atlantic City.

The project by Ocean Wind — a joint venture between the Danish energy company Orsetd and PSEG — would be the largest of its kind in the U.S.

Offshore wind power is a cornerstone of Murphy’s goal to convert New Jersey’s electricity production to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050. The renewable sources include wind, solar and nuclear power.

New Jersey has a way to go. About 95 percent of electricity generated in the Garden State still comes from natural-gas-powered plants and nuclear facilities.

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SunPower, Goldman Sachs Awarded Big JFK Solar Project – Solar Industry

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has awarded New York City’s single-largest solar energy project – a development at John F. Kennedy International Airport – to SunPower Corp. and Goldman Sachs Renewable Power Group. Built in partnership with the New York Power Authority (NYPA), the JFK International Airport Solar Photovoltaic Project will …

Source: SunPower, Goldman Sachs Awarded Big JFK Solar Project – Solar Industry

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Pennsy’s ‘State Superfund’ program going broke

By Kyle Bagenstose for the Beaver County Times
Posted Nov 18, 2019 at 4:01 AM

The sunset of a tax is quickly bankrupting the state’s hazardous cleanup program, and there’s no plan in place to fix it.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection last year paid half a million dollars to provide clean drinking water to dozens of Doylestown Township homeowners stricken by contamination. It spent another $300,000 cleaning up cancer-causing chemicals in Bristol Township’s Croydon neighborhood.

The same chemicals are an even costlier problem in Lancaster County, requiring $4.7 million to provide drinking water to hundreds of people there. The DEP will need millions of dollars more to clean up mysterious barrels recently discovered in a shuttered Beaver County business, where some of the drums are marked simply, “Dark Acid.”

But there’s an even bigger problem tying all of these sites together. Within a few years, the state program funding these environmental cleanups, along with scores of others littered across the commonwealth, is projected to be flat broke.

“That’s the point we’re getting to, unfortunately. One of these sites may have to literally blow up before they get real about dealing with the finances,” said David Hess, a former secretary of the DEP under Gov. Tom Ridge.

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New York City trades gas plant for the world’s largest battery

John Weaver reports for PV Magazine

The New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) has approved a 316 MW / 2528 MWh (that’s 8 hours!) energy storage facility (pdf) to “provide peak capacity, energy, and ancillary services in New York City while enhancing grid reliability”.

Ravenwood Development (owners of the current gas plants at the site) plans to build out the project in three phases – 129 MW, 98 MW and then 89 MW – with the first phase complete by March 2021. There is no timetable given for deployment of second and third phases of the project.

The facility would be located at 38-54 Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City, in New York City’s Borough of Queens (Google Maps).

If the groups deploy all 2.5 GWh of energy storage, they will need demolish 16 existing gas peaker plants, only two of which – with a total peaking capacity of 316 MW – are currently running. There are other gas burning facilities as well, some of which were originally built in the early 1960s.

Found within the Acoustical Analysis & Recommendations (pdf) , is the below rough hardware bill of materials and shipping container layout. The document notes that there will be 136 individual inverters, with 64 of the units being double stacked. The document also names Sunny Central Storage 2500-EV-US Inverter as the currently specified hardware. It was determined that the hardware would increase the site’s decibel rating less than 3 db, a trivial level of noise.

In the filings, Ravenwood was asked to identify if there are “any facilities serving children, the elderly, people with disabilities (e.g., schools, hospitals, day care centers, or group homes) within 1500 feet of the project site?”

P.S. 83; P.S. 76; P.S. 111; St. Ritas School; Growing Up Green Middle School; Jacob Blackwell School; Western Queens Nursery School; The Child School; The Child Middle School; Long Island City High School; Long Island City Health Center; Bright Horizons; NYC Housing Authority Ravenswood Day Care; Queensbridge South Day Care Center.

The PSC’s 48 page decision (pdf – and here’s a link to the Master Project Petition hosted by the PSC and one specific document with great maps/research including the header image) also approved the facility receiving “lightened regulation” as it was determined there’d be relatively little negative impacts on the local population. Ravenwood argues that even though the facility would be charged by any electricity source – fossil fuels included – it would still lower overall emissions within the city.

If this project is deployed fully, the 316 MW of power would meet just over 10% of the New York State’s goal of 3,000 MW by 2030.

Currently, the world’s largest announced lithium ion batteries are the 409 MW / 900 MWh FPL facility in Florida, the 300 MW / 1200 MWh system by Vistra Energy, and a 182.5 MW / 730 MWh system by Tesla at Moss Landing facility in California, and the recently announced 300 MW / 1.2 GWh Eland facility by 8minute Solar Energy feeding Los Angeles. This project will double the largest here.

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‘That’s vinegar:’ The Ohio River’s history of contamination and progress made

BarbiAnn Maynard drives 45 minutes from her home in Martin County, Kentucky, to a spring at the Mingo-Logan county line in West Virginia to fill containers with fresh water. (Credit: Curren Sheldon/100 Days in Appalachia)

“It’s a functioning ecosystem now”

By April Johnston in Environmental Health News

In 1958, researchers from the University of Louisville and the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission gathered at a lock on the Monongahela River for routine collecting, counting and comparing of fish species.

At the time, the best way to accomplish this was what’s called lock chamber sampling, or filling a 350-by-56-foot lock with river water, injecting it with cyanide and waiting for the dead fish to float to the top. Archaic, but effective.

On this particular day, researchers opened the chamber to find one fish inside.

One fish.

It shouldn’t have been surprising, said Jerry Schulte, a biologist who managed the source water protection and emergency response team for the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission [ORSANCO] for more than two decades. After all, the steel companies that dotted the region’s riverbanks were dumping their contaminated water right into the rivers. The waterways were so acidic that the steel-hulled boats meant to last 20 years rusted out in three and the pH routinely measured less than 4.

“That’s vinegar,” Schulte said. “It was so polluted, you could see it, smell it and taste it.”

By the time Schulte began monitoring fish species in the 1990s, thanks to environmental and industrial regulations like the Clean Water Act, the Ohio River and its major tributaries, including the Mon, had changed. They no longer looked or smelled like open sewers. Mayflies hatched on their surfaces; many pollution-intolerant aquatic species returned; and lock chamber sampling — done without cyanide — could yield hundreds, even thousands, of fish.

“It’s a functioning ecosystem now,” Schulte said.

Functioning doesn’t mean perfect, however. As recently as 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency named the Ohio River one of the country’s most polluted. Industrial contaminants, including the “forever chemical” perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), have been detected on long stretches of the river and toxic algal blooms erupt when conditions are just right. Still, most of the time, the majority of the river’s 981 miles are ripe for recreation and fit for drinking after proper treatment.

The same can’t always be said for the greater Ohio River watershed.

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