New York to See More than $2.4 Billion Invested in Two Power Projects

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The state of New York will be the home of two power projects valued at $2.4 billion. When fully commissioned, they will generate 1,350 megawatts (MW). Construction is scheduled to start next month on the first project, and the second project is expected to kick off in May 2017.

Proven Combined-Cycle Technology
The first of the two projects is the Cricket Valley Energy Center in Dover Plains, New York. It is owned by Cricket Valley Energy LLC (Boston, Massachusetts), which is an affiliate of Advanced Power AG, a privately owned company headquartered in Zug, Switzerland. The engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract has been awarded to Bechtel Corporation (San Francisco, California). Construction is scheduled to start in March and will lead to the eventual deployment of three 200-MW natural gas-fired General Electric (NYSE:GE) (Fairfield, Connecticut) combustion turbine engines, with three heat recovery steam generators and three steam turbine generator sets. Altogether, the plant will generate 1,000 MW of natural gas-fired power in a 1-on-1 combined-cycle configuration. The project is expected to take three years to complete and cost around $1.4 billion. Combined-cycle technology has been around since the 1960s and has a proven track record of high efficiency and power output.

Offshore Wind Power, Proven Elsewhere
The second project is the $1.1 billion, 350-MW Long Island-New York City Offshore Windfarm, which is proposed by a public-private partnership between Consolidated Edison Incorporated (NYSE:ED) (New York, New York), Long Island Power Authority (Uniondale, New York) and New York Power Authority (White Plains, New York). The exact project location has not yet been determined. Feasibility, environmental and wind-strength studies will help determine the site. However, water depths in the proposed areas for the project range from 18 meters to 37 meters (60 ft to 120 ft). The windfarm would be positioned between existing shipping channels so as to not impede freight and passenger liners.

While combined-cycle power plants are common in the U.S., offshore wind power is not. In fact, there are no commercially operating offshore wind turbines in American waters. This does not mean that the technology is unproven or that the 350-MW project is overly ambitious. When it comes online, the Long Island-New York City Offshore Windfarm will be at most the sixth largest such project in the world and would be virtually the same capacity as the Garden State Offshore Windfarm project, which is planned for construction in 2020 off the coast of New Jersey. The largest single offshore windfarm is the London Array, a 630-MW project comprising 175 turbines off the coast of Kent in the U.K. There is a possibility for the Long Island-New York City Offshore Windfarm to double its capacity to 700 MW in the long term and that would make it the largest such project in the world.

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