As the Empire State scrambles to avoid the blackouts and price spikes seen in California, the New York Power Authority (NYPA) recently said it expects to be able to complete the lion’s share of its plan to install 11 gas turbine generators throughout various New York City boroughs by the end of this month.

NYPA last year announced that it would purchase up to 11 small gas turbines by this summer to help avoid a supply shortage and potential electricity price spikes in the New York metropolitan area. In addition, the agency set a deadline of June 1, 2001 for the installation of all 11 turbines. The gas turbines at each site will produce 44 MW or, in the case of two units at a single site, a combined maximum of 79.9 MW. The generators are expected to provide just over 400 MW of additional capacity for New York City this summer.

“Six of the 11 units are operational,” Luis Rodriguez, an NYPA spokesperson, told NGI. Another unit in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, was expected to become operational yesterday. “We should have 10 units operational by the end of this month, and by the end of next month, all of them.”

Meanwhile, several lawsuits against NYPA’s turbine installation plan remain outstanding. On Friday, arguments will be heard by a New York appellate division court in two cases filed against the turbine plan, Rodriguez noted. One case is limited to an NYPA turbine in Queens, while the second case covers all of the NYPA turbines with the exception of Queens. “We have no idea which way they’re going to go.”

NYPA executives earlier this year lobbied the New York State Assembly to support its gas turbine initiative in order to avert California-like energy difficulties. “A delay of even one day would bring us that much closer to the kinds of blackouts, brownouts and price spikes that have created the crisis in California,” Eugene Zeltmann, NYPA’s COO, told members of the three Assembly committees on Environmental Conservation, Energy and Corporations, Authorities and Commissions in March (see Daily GPI, March 23).

More recently, the New York independent system operator (NYISO) expressed confidence that both New York City and the state as a whole should be able to avoid blackouts this summer, although the ISO also acknowledged that the Big Apple will have a “razor-thin” positive margin starting in July. Among other things, NYISO cited NYPA’s anticipated installation of around 400 MW worth of turbines as giving it confidence in predicting that the state will be able to avoid blackouts even during the hottest months of 2001 (see Daily GPI, June 1).

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