As reported previously, the NY Public Service Commission (PSC) granted a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) to Marble River, LLC, a joint project of Horizon Wind and AES-Acciona Energy, to create a 109-turbine wind park. The 229 MW facility will sell electricity to the wholesale market.
Salient points include:
- The Towns of Clinton and Ellenburg were co-lead agencies for a comprehensive environmental (SEQR) review.
- The NY State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), found an adverse impact on historic resources (and overlap with the nearby Noble Environmental Power project) and continues to review the project and mitigation proposals.
- The PSC will require Marble River to address the need for additional post-construction study, monitoring and analysis of impacts, and the development and implementation of a long-range strategy for adapting facility operations to address conservation of natural resources, such as birds and bats.
- Marble River agreed to a setback of 1.5 times total turbine height (407 feet at maximum blade verticality) to nearest transmission facility component.
- The PSC considers the benefits associated with the Company’s proposed project to be greater than the adverse impacts, even though it believes some displacement of other renewable energy to be likely under certain conditions. The PSC indicated that in the future, it will “appropriately ramp-up” the analyses it expects to see in CPCN petitions.
- Among other blade safety requirements, the Company shall maintain a log of the history of each wind turbine blade including date of manufacture, details of installation, inspections, lightning strikes, damage, maintenance and repairs. Each wind turbine blade shall be uniquely and serially numbered so that it can be monitored throughout its service life.
The PSC’s Marble River order granting the CPCN may be found here.
