EnviroPolitics Blog

PSE&G gets green light for energy-saving programs

State’s largest utility looks to help hospitals, multifamily units, and government buildings cut power and gas bills, while offering new options to residential accounts

Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:

energy efficiency

The state is allowing Public Service Electric & Gas to once again offer energy-saving programs to help hospitals, multifamily units, and government buildings cut their electric and gas bills.

With the approval of the Board of Public Utilities last week, the state’s largest utility will extend three popular energy efficiency programs while offering residential customers a couple of new options to help reduce bills and better manage energy use.

The existing programs are targeted to underserved markets where sizable energy savings could be reaped, but have not occurred because the recipients lack the capital to invest in ways to cut energy use.

“Energy efficiency remains a huge missed opportunity for too many of our customers,’’ said Courtney McCormick, vice president of renewables and energy solutions at PSE&G.

For the first time, the utility won approval to offer residential customers a $150 discount on smart thermostats under the $85.1 million program approved by the BPU. PSE&G will invest $6.5 million to offer 35,000 customers the chance to purchase the thermostats at a discount, according to McCormick.

The utility also is investing $2.5 million in a new residential home-energy reporting program, which will identify a variety of energy consumption data to help customers reduce bills.

Warehouse tax abatement considered for ex-U.S. Pipe site

Former U.S. Pipe site in Burlington, NJ could become a mammoth warehouse

David Levinsky reports for the Burlington County Times:

BURLINGTON CITY (NJ) — The city government is planning to vote later this month on a proposed multimillion-dollar tax abatement deal with a Middlesex County developer interested in building a mammoth 1-million-square-foot warehouse at the former U.S. Pipe and Foundry property.

The proposed agreement with Matrix Reality Inc. spares the company from having to pay property taxes based on the assessed value of the property for 20 years, but it would require Matrix to pay service fees, also called payments in lieu of taxes or PILOT, to the city to help cover local services such as police and fire protection and trash collection at the redeveloped site.

Numerous other redevelopment projects, including several in Burlington County, have entered into similar agreements.

“Just about every warehouse in New Jersey has a PILOT,” Mayor Barry Conaway said Thursday, adding that he was convinced the agreement was the right thing to do so the property could be redeveloped.

None of the PILOT revenues are required to go to the school district, but Conaway said he hoped the City Council would agree to share some of the PILOT revenue with the district.

The council introduced an ordinance to enter into the agreement Tuesday. A public hearing and adoption vote are tentatively scheduled for Sept. 19.

The warehouse project is expected to generate about 600 year-round jobs and 300 or more seasonal positions at the former foundry site off Pearl and Jones streets.

The property is in need of some environmental remediation and has been dormant for most of the last two decades. City officials said the tax abatement was needed to assist Matrix in redeveloping the site, which spans into Burlington Township.

Critics slam plan to protect NJ Transit trains during floods

NJ Transit voted today to spend $185 million on property in Middlesex County where it can safely store its trains during major storms.

During Hurricane Sandy, 300 train cars were ruined by flooding at the agency’s Middlesex Maintenance Complex, also in Middlesex County.

However, critics contend that the flood-protection site itself lies in a flood plain and that the millions to be spent on it would be better put to constructing a new tunnel to Manhattan.

Brenda Flanagan has the story for NJTV News.

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Residents face off with Sunoco along pipeline right of way

Fencing separates Mariner East 2 pipeline route and private residences in Delaware County. Jon Hurdle photo

Jon Hurdle reports for StateImpact:

On a rainy Saturday afternoon in Delaware County, three residents of Thornbury Township stepped over a spray-painted line marking the edge of a right-of-way where a contractor for Sunoco Pipeline was preparing land for construction of the Mariner East 2 pipeline.

The response from one of about eight hard-hatted workers was immediate: he got on his phone and called the police, claiming that the residents were trespassing.

Within a few minutes, two state troopers showed up and began to question the contractors and the residents, some of whom are members of the Andover Homeowners Association, which represents a development of 38 substantial suburban houses a few yards from the pipeline route, and owns the land on which the pipeline will be built.

For the second consecutive day, the residents told the police that they have a right to walk on the land, as instructed by their attorney, because it is owned by their association, and because they are not interfering with the contractors’ work.

“I’m allowed to walk on this property as long as I don’t impede their progress,” said Jennifer Berlinger, in an exchange with State Trooper Carlton Wright. “As much as I would like to chain myself to that 200-year-old tree so that they don’t cut it down because I love it, I’m not doing that.”

Berlinger, owner of a 1798 farmhouse on whose land the development was built, said she was there to record the damage done to the property by the pipeline preparations.

“I’m allowed to do that,” said Berlinger, whose back porch is about 50 feet from the right of way. “I don’t know where they get the idea that we can’t walk on our own property.”

The confrontation between some private landowners and pipeline representatives, fueled by lawyers, police and local officials, can be seen at other places along the 350-mile pipeline route from southwest Pennsylvania to the Sunoco terminal at Marcus Hook. Opponents such as the Andover residents continue to fight the company’s use of eminent domain even though construction has been underway since February, and continue to claim that their safety will be threatened by a pipeline carrying highly volatile liquids a few yards from their homes.

Is NJ finally getting smarter about smart meters?

BPU authorizes Rockland Electric to deploy smart meters in homes of 74,000 customers, a first for a Garden State utility

Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:

smart meter

New Jersey is finally embracing smart meters. Well, maybe.

Rockland Electric won approval last week from regulators to install smart meters in the homes of its 74,000 customers, the first time a utility has been given the go-ahead to put the two-way enhanced-communication devices into use in New Jersey.

Smart meters offer a multitude of benefits. Commonplace in other states — there are more than 65 million smart meters installed nationwide — they can help customers better manage energy use and reduce their bills.

“With new, smart meters, Rockland Electric’s customers can cut energy waste, boost renewables, and take control of their energy use and costs,’’ said Mary Barber, a clean-energy advocate for the Environmental Defense Fund. “This investment in smart infrastructure will improve the grid’s reliability and resiliency, deliver cleaner air and better health, and accelerate New Jersey’s clean-energy economy.’’

Known as the Advanced Metering Infrastructure program, the devices also boost reliability and cut the length of outages by notifying the utility quickly when power is lost. They also are good for the environment, reducing energy waste and better integrating cleaner energy options like solar and wind into the electric grid.

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But not in New Jersey. The state ranks 47th in the nation in the use of smart meters, according to a recent report by the nonpartisan Center for Data Innovation in Washington, D.C.

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Biz leaders: NJ can’t keep ducking economic issues

Pointing to recent lack of substantive legislation, members of business community argue that high taxes and underfunded pension system aren’t taking a summer break

opportunity nj

Members of Opportunity New Jersey, a nonprofit organization led by the state’s top business leaders, speak about the need to address the state’s biggest economic and fiscal problems yesterday.

John Reitmeyer reports
for NJ Spotlight:

New Jersey’s business leaders are concerned the state is approaching a crisis point precipitated by its notoriously high taxes and severely underfunded public-employee pension system. And they want to help lead a statewide discussion of possible fixes that could be enacted before it’s too late.

The call to action was aired yesterday by the leaders of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce, New Jersey Business & Industry Association, and other organizations, and it comes just as voters are getting ready to elect a new governor to replace the term-limited Chris Christie. All 120 seats in the state Legislature are also on the ballot in the fall.

The business groups say they are hoping to rekindle some of the success they’ve attributed to a similar public-awareness effort that was launched in 2015, when lawmakers and the governor were largely ignoring what was then the looming expiration of the multibillion-dollar New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund. The Republican Christie and Democratic legislative leaders ultimately came together in 2016 to renew the trust fund for another eight years.

This year, the business leaders have their work cut out for them, as lawmakers have largely taken the summer off in the wake of an ugly state government shutdown that occurred earlier this year after Christie and legislative leaders were deadlocked for several days on a new state budget.

Epitomizing the summer’s lack of substantive activity was last month’s introduction of new legislation seeking to rewrite how the state regulates bells attached to horse-drawn sleighs.

The policy debate among the candidates running for governor this year hasn’t been much better, with Republican Kim Guadagno and Democrat Phil Murphy attacking each other in recent days on issues related to the Confederate flag and anti-Semitism.

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