Investors are exploring plans for a small power generator in Danbury capable of generating 50 megawatts of power, sufficient to serve the needs of 38,000 or more area homes.
Details on sponsors, sites and fuels under consideration were sketchy, but multiple sources confirmed there is talk of a power plant in Danbury, which does not currently have a major facility feeding the area electrical grid.
Power plants must be approved by the Connecticut Siting Council. At least 60 days before any application is filed for a certificate of environmental compatibility and public need, organizers must provide municipal officials with any technical reports generated in the exploration process to date. A municipality has 60 days to issue any recommendation to the applicant.
As of mid-October, Danbury”™s planning and zoning office has not received any formal or informal notice of such a plant, according to the office”™s director Dennis Elpern.
At deadline, Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton did not return a call seeking comment. Boughton is in the midst of a re-election campaign against Democrat and former City Council member Helene Abrantes.
Investors may be considering sites near former landfills along the Danbury-Bethel border.
“I think this would be an issue our town would be especially interested in,” said Steve Palmer, Bethel”™s chief planning and zoning official.
Residents of southwestern Connecticut have resisted past efforts to build power plants. One approved for Oxford in 1999 never got built after residents there mounted a legal campaign to thwart it, though Fairfield-based General Electric Co. recently acquired the development rights and is deciding whether to proceed with the project.
According to an October poll by Massachusetts-based Saint Consulting Group Inc., 60 percent of residents in the Northeast would oppose a power plant in their neighborhood, with 34 percent supporting the idea.
Still, Saint Consulting indicated Americans are more supportive of power plants today than a year ago, particularly those considered environmentally benign such as wind farms.
After sporadic power outages in the summer of 2006, Fairfield County enjoyed a relatively steady supply of energy this summer thanks to balmy weather and new high-capacity cables feeding the coastal area.
Fairfield County”™s existing power plants in Bridgeport, Norwalk, Greenwich and on the Housatonic River can pump out 1,450 megawatts of power on a summer day.
The most recent plant approved both statewide and for Fairfield County is Connecticut Jet Power L.L.C.”™s proposed 40-megawatt “peaking” plant in Greenwich, to be used when extra power is needed such as on hot days.
In their most recent reports to the Connecticut Siting Council, Connecticut Light & Power, United Illuminating Co. and the Norwich-based Connecticut Municipal Electrical Energy Cooperative predicted the state”™s peak load will increase from 6,855 megawatts in 2006 to 7,684 megawatts in 2015, a 12 percent increase. The council is scheduled to release an updated forecast in November.
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ISO New England Inc., the Holyoke, Mass., organization that oversees the region”™s power grid, offers numbers of greater usage: from 7,250 megawatts in 2006, ISO New England says peak generation needs will increase 18 percent over the same period.
As of this year, ISO New England has begun running annual auctions that forecast the region”™s electrical needs three years in advance and that allow investors to bid on power plants.
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