I just became aware of a report by the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) entitled Generator Deactivation Assessment, Indian Point Energy Center dated December 13, 2017 that is the official response to the question of replacement power for the retirement of Indian Point. This post compares their conclusions with my guesses in earlier posts.
In January 2017 New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the closure of Entergy’s Indian Point Energy Center (IPEC) located 25 miles north of New York City by April 2021. Cuomo claims that Indian Point produces 2,000 megawatts of electrical power and that “more than enough replacement power to replace this capacity will be available by 2021”. Since that announcement NYS agencies have been analyzing the potential impacts of the shutdown and the NYISO study summarizes their evaluation of the Entergy deactivation notice for IPEC. Entergy reported that it intends to deactivate the 1,299 MW unit 2 on April 30, 2020 and the 1,012 MW unit 3 on April 30, 2021.
NYISO Conclusions
As required by their rules, NYISO performed an analysis of resource adequacy and, in coordination with New York Transmission Owners, transmission security analyses of the New York Control Area to determine whether shutting down IPEC would cause problems with their standards for reliability and capacity. The conclusion was that subject to the assumptions of the study there would be no violations of their standards so “Entergy has satisfied the applicable requirements under the NYISO’s Generator Deactivation Process to retire the Generators on or after its requested deactivation date”.
NYISO assumed that three major generation facilities currently under construction would be available in the base case for this assessment that impact the findings: Bayonne Energy Center II Uprate (Zone J, 120 MW), CPV Valley Energy Center (Zone G, 678 MW), and Cricket Valley Energy Center (Zone G, 1,020 MW). All three are natural-gas fired combustion turbines. The assessment found that “reliability criteria would be met without Indian Point Energy Center throughout the Study Period under the assumed and forecasted base case system conditions.”
In addition, NYISO performed a scenario assessment to evaluate the reliability of the system without those three generation facilities. That scenario concluded “These scenario results demonstrate that, without the expected new generation facilities currently under construction, additional replacement sources of power would be necessary to maintain reliability following deactivation of IPEC.” They noted that “Resource needs could potentially be met by combinations of solutions including generation, transmission, energy efficiency, and demand response measures” and estimated that generic addition of at least 200 MW by 2023 anywhere in the Lower Hudson Valley would resolve the deficiency through a five-year horizon and that to address the deficiency through 2027, additional resources would range from 400 MW to 600 MW depending on type and location of the resources within the Lower Hudson Valley.
My Analyses
I prepared four previous posts on Indian Point replacement power. The first and a subsequent update considered New York State projects that had been permitted to see if there was replacement power in the pipeline that could replace its output. I also analyzed whether renewables and energy efficiency were a realistic alternative and concluded that approach was unlikely to succeed. Finally, I looked at a proposal from the New York Battery and Energy Storage Technology Consortiums to use energy storage as a potential replacement for Indian Point. I concluded that this would also not likely succeed.
Ultimately my conclusion that CPV Valley Energy Center, Cricket Valley Energy Center and the proposed Champlain Hudson Express transmission project could provide replacement power for IPEC is very similar to the NYISO conclusion that CPV Valley Energy Center, Cricket Valley Energy Center and the Bayonne Energy Center II Uprate project could provide the replacement power. The only difference is that my replacement scenario did not export jobs from New York to New Jersey and including the transmission project that uses hydro power from Quebec would have lower emissions. In either case, Cuomo’s claim that there would be no net increase of emissions due to the closure is flat out wrong.
The NY Riverkeeper blog claims that the three gas plants are not needed to replace IPEC. That post seizes on the alternative scenario that concludes that: “resource needs could potentially be met by combinations of solutions including generation, transmission, energy efficiency, and demand response measures.” In addition to my criticisms of their preferred alternatives in my previous posts, there is a timing issue. The plan is to deactivate one unit on April 30, 2020 and the other on April 30, 2021. No significant generation facilities can get through the NYS Article Ten permitting process in less than five years so alternative resources would not be available for the proposed shutdown schedule.
Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York 