CT needs to plan for its energy future, but the view is cloudy
Connecticut, along with the rest of New England, has long
recognized that its energy future lies in cleaning up the electricity sources
in its power grid.
And since the 1990s, with the start of the effort to close
the “sooty six” coal and oil plants, cleaning up the air for health and climate
reasons has figured equally with saving money by using free renewable sources
like sun and wind.
The Trump administration has now made that a lot harder, if
not impossible, to do, leaving Connecticut and the entire region with the
question: Now what?
Since his first day in office, Trump has set about
eliminating future development of onshore and offshore wind on federal
property, which effectively means all offshore wind, a form of renewable power
Trump openly despises. So far, his administration has issued stop-work orders for two northeast offshore
wind installations already under construction, including one for Connecticut.
Each resumed construction after about a month, losing millions of dollars in
the process.
Trump has also succeeded getting a law on the books to end the widely popular and
effective federal tax credits for wind, solar and energy efficiency projects.
The administration also threw its weight behind keeping old and dirty coal plants operating longer
than previously planned, as well as subsidizing more coal mining. And it is
ramping up oil and gas drilling, all in the name of an “energy emergency” that Trump claims exists, even
though the country is the largest producer of oil and gas in the world.
Bottom of Form
“Singling out and disfavoring renewable resources while many
other resources continue to enjoy favorable tax treatment, including fossil
resources — this is not leveling the playing field. This is definitely putting
a finger on the scale to disadvantage clean renewable energy resources,” said
Katie Dykes, commissioner of Connecticut’s Department of Energy and
Environmental Protection. She called the end of the tax credit “really
challenging,” noting the state had a pipeline of projects it had hoped to bring
forward, and warned that power prices would likely increase.
“We are doing what we can within our state jurisdictional
programs to try to fill in some of the gaps. Obviously, we can’t fill all the
gaps,” Dykes said. The state is urging residents, businesses, governmental
entities and energy developers to take advantage of the tax credits before many
of them disappear at the end of the year. To that end, DEEP issued an expedited
request for proposals for solar and onshore wind. Proposals were due Oct. 10.
Energy efficiency, especially useful to lower income and environmental justice
communities, may feel the impact most acutely.
But it is offshore wind and the massive amount of
carbon-free power it can generate, that Connecticut, and really the entire
Northeast, had been counting on.
DEEP must sort through all of this uncertainty as it
devises its new Integrated Resource Plan, a 10-year look ahead at
energy needs and how to meet them, in keeping with the energy and climate
policies the state has in place.
But in addition to the federal government’s energy policies,
DEEP now has to reckon with the administration’s tariffs, policies on imported
critical minerals, supply chain concerns and environmental about-faces. And it
risks the potential for retribution if the state defies Trump’s wishes on
anything, not just climate policy.
“We are undertaking planning efforts that are intended to
try to assess as best we can what some of the different future scenarios will
look like in terms of electricity needs, but also climate planning, and to do
our best to identify the types of investments that might make sense, on what
time horizon, given the change in the federal landscape, but also demand growth
and reliability needs and so on,” Dykes said.
The actions from the federal administration against offshore
winds have been targeted and very calculated.
Stephanie Francoeur, senior vice president, Oceantic
Dan Dolan is also thinking about what to do now. He’s
president of the New England Power Generators Association, a trade organization
that represents about 95% of the generating capacity in the region.
“Where we stand right now is this muddled middle period,” he
said.
Demand isn’t rising quite as fast as anticipated due to the
impacts of solar and energy efficiency on the grid. But there’s also
uncertainty about whether that trend will continue without tax credits and
whether planned large power source additions will come online on time or at
all.
“In terms of new supply sources, I am not seeing meaningful,
large-scale new developments happening anytime soon in the region,” Dolan said.
“If demand continues to be more muted in its growth, we can handle that.“
But he said if demand does go up significantly, despite
individual state commitments to transition from fossil fuel power sources to
clean and renewable ones, the region might have to look at keeping older,
dirtier power sources operating for longer than planned, and that might mean
spending more than a little money to upgrade them.
“I’m seeing a lot of investors watching but staying on the
sidelines for the moment,” Dolan said.
Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport, is co-chair of the
legislature’s Energy and Technology Committee. He has been a member of the
committee since entering the legislature in 2011, so he has seen the twists,
turns and growing pains as the state endeavored to create and implement its
first short- and long-term strategies toward renewable energy while addressing
climate change, health of citizens and high energy rates.
“We had, in our procurement planning and our capacity
analysis, obviously — in conjunction with (grid operator) ISO-New England —
counted on the availability of renewable energy sources to meet our needs,” he
said. With the federal government now undermining those supply plans, “That is
now a crisis that might have been 10 years away. It is now moving closer and
closer to being an actual, impending crisis.
“We’re really low on options, but renewables were a critical
part of that picture going forward.”
After many years of delay, a transmission line for
hydropower from Canada — the Northeast Clean Energy Connect, NECEC — is months
from completion. The power is being purchased by Massachusetts, but it provides
a relief valve for the entire New England grid. Breath-holding is underway that
the Trump administration will not sabotage it, given the administration’s
fraught relationship with Canada as well as the blue-state northeast.
If that and the two offshore wind projects under
construction off New England are finished, Dykes said, it will add about 13% of
supply.
But any offshore wind beyond that, including projects
approved by the Biden administration? ‘Unlikely’ would be a generous assessment
of its future.
How dead is offshore wind?
Offshore wind was the big prize. At the end of the Biden
administration, 11 projects had been approved nationally that would have
provided the power equivalent of nearly 10 Millstone power stations and gotten
the U.S. about two-thirds of the way to the Biden goal of 30 gigawatts of
offshore wind by 2030.
Today, five are under construction. A sixth, South Fork Wind
off the eastern tip of Long Island, is completed and began operating about a
year ago. The remaining five have been stopped either at early stages or
through efforts by the Trump administration to review or outright rescind
already-issued federal permits. The administration ended all new lease-area
designations and permits.
Of the two under construction that faced stop-work orders,
one is Revolution Wind, a joint Connecticut and Rhode Island project that is
already 80% complete. While it and the other project — New York’s Empire Wind —
have restarted, it’s unclear what might happen to the other three. In the case
of Revolution, a legal dispute is still underway.
“I think there’s no question that East Coast states,
particularly from the mid-Atlantic up, have to continue to fight for offshore
wind,” said Elizabeth Klein, who served as the final Biden administration
director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, BOEM, the entity within the
Interior Department responsible for offshore wind.
“There’s no question that what the current administration is
doing is damaging to the industry and causing a great deal of harm,” she said.
“The looming question is whether or not these companies who are involved will
be able to essentially wait it out and invest their time and resources in parts
of developing offshore wind that aren’t directly about getting permits and
approvals to move forward with new projects.”
Ørsted, the company developing Revolution Wind and other
projects, declined to comment on the situation. Avangrid, the company
developing Vineyard Wind 1, the only other New England project under
construction, did not respond to inquiries.
Klein said the Trump administration claim that it was
concerned about national security issues with Revolution Wind is “specious.”
She said national security is reviewed in conjunction with several departments
throughout every stage of the offshore wind process, beginning with the basic
identification of offshore areas that might be suitable for leasing.
“All of those things are considered throughout the process,
starting with where these sales first take place,” she said. “This is arbitrary
and capricious decision-making. There’s no evidence that there’s something new
or unusual or that had not been considered.”
Trump himself has circulated a host of falsehoods about
offshore wind — that it causes cancer and kills an outsized number of birds and
whales, and that it only runs some of the time. Offshore wind is a technology
that is a quarter-of-a-century old, during which time it has operated
successfully in Europe. Onshore wind is far older.
A one-year assessment of South Fork Wind by its
developer, Ørsted, showed the turbines operated every month of the year. The
data, which came from U.S. government’s Energy Information Administration, EIA,
showed some of South Fork’s highest outputs were during the winter, when the
power is needed most, due to natural gas being used for heating as well
electricity. The wind power can prevent electricity price spikes.
The company also found the turbine foundations were already
operating as artificial reefs that supported marine life.
The waters off the northeast U.S. are considered
among the country’s best for offshore wind, given the area’s wind
speeds and other factors. And since the region doesn’t have any fossil fuel
resources, even with steep up-front costs, offshore wind is likely to quickly
become cost effective, given the fuel is free.
A recent
analysis by Politico of EIA data showed that adding wind and solar to
the electricity mix tended to lower the cost of electricity, not increase it,
as the Trump administration claims. The Politico analysis said: “Among the 22
states that drew higher-than-average shares of their power from wind and solar,
17 had below-average electricity prices in June, according to EIA data.”
“Undermining viable sources of energy is inconsistent with
the objective of addressing an energy ‘emergency’ and will instead exacerbate
energy supply challenges in the Northeast,” said Peter Shattuck, a director at
Power Advisory LLC., a joint Canada/U.S.-based energy consultant. Shattuck also
is an energy and grid expert with long experience in New England.
He said that, in something of a tarnished silver lining, the
Trump blockage will give long-term projects such as transmission extra time to
plan. But trying to strategize through all the Trump executive orders, other
policy changes and legal battles is bound to make projects more expensive.
“It will likely raise the risk profile and risk
premiums that are included in projects,” he said.
“The actions from the federal administration against
offshore winds have been targeted and very calculated. In our view, it’s
holding back a huge source of power that is so desperately needed,” said
Stephanie Francoeur, senior vice president of communications and external
affairs for the educational nonprofit Oceantic, which supports marine renewable
energy world-wide including offshore wind.
“The administration talks about an all-of-the-above energy
strategy and unleashing American energy dominance. We advocate that offshore
wind is a critical component to that strategy.” She said energy needs to be
depoliticized so the market, not the government, can pick the winners and
losers.
“They’re looking to take apart an entire industry that could
support energy demand in the U.S., address national security issues actually,
because there is nothing better from a national security perspective on energy
supply than generating it yourself at home, here in the U.S.,” Klein said.
Those concerns are not lost on the region’s grid operator,
ISO-New England, which released an uncharacteristically blunt warning a couple
of days after work stopped on Revolution Wind.
“The ISO is expecting this project to come online and it is
included in our analyses of near-term and future grid reliability. Delaying the
project will increase risks to reliability,” the statement read. “Unpredictable
risks and threats to resources —regardless of technology — that have made
significant capital investments, secured necessary permits, and are close to
completion will stifle future investments, increase costs to consumers,
and undermine the power grid’s reliability and the region’s economy now
and in the future,” it continued.
The Revolution shutdown, along with the tax credit
eliminations, unpredictability of Trump energy policies and mandates come just
as the ISO was beginning its next 10-year energy forecast. The ISO has already
said it expects demand to begin to increase after years of flat or even
declining energy needs.
“I think in the short term we still expect to be OK, but
it’s kind of in that longer-term and the uncertainty that’s brought into this
that’s challenging from a grid planning standpoint,” said ISO spokesman Matt
Kakley.
The ISO’s most recent estimates are that region’s
annual electricity consumption will increase by about 11% over the
next decade. On one hand, the removal of tax credits for electric vehicles
and heat pumps could shrink that demand. On the other, their removal for solar
systems and energy efficiency could increase it.
In addition to the offshore wind and the NECEC transmission
line, the ISO is also expecting the six New England states to move ahead with
their first joint development of transmission that, after
more than a decade of delay, would finally get onshore wind from northern Maine
onto the southern part of the New England grid.
Kakley said six proposals from four different developers
were submitted by the Sept. 30 deadline.
Now there is the concern that the need for any federal
signoffs could mean further delay, or worse.
Kakley said the ISO always deals with uncertainty when
predicting power needs in the face of the complexities of long-term power and
transmission projects. “This is a different sort of uncertainty than what we’ve
seen,” he said. “We’re really looking at what we can do to enhance our ability
to forecast and synthesize all the different factors that are coming in –
adding resources, taking resources out, and seeing what that does to the
region’s risk profile.”
What about solar?
Solar’s outlook is a little squishier than offshore wind’s.
Yes, the coveted 30% tax credits are slated to disappear — for purchased
residential systems at the end of this year and in another year for leased and
commercial ones.
But costs for solar have come down dramatically over time,
making it one of the cheapest forms of power to purchase. It’s also the fastest
to install. So it’s possible residential consumers and commercial investors
will still consider it a cost effective option.
Another unknown factor is the effect of tariffs and other
restrictions on imported components on that low price and availability, as well
as to storage systems that can be paired with it.
Solar is not only an industry here in the state, it is part
of the solution for us.
Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport
New England has never been a hotbed for huge commercial
installations the way the desert southwest and other parts of the country, with
large sunny expanses, can be. But rooftop solar for homeowners and on municipal
and commercial buildings still has huge potential in the region and can be
extremely useful to grid reliability.
It is already more useful than the ISO ever imagined it
would be. The ISO says it has prevented brownouts and worse on hot summer days
with air conditioning cranked up around the region. It has sent spot market
prices into negative territory, especially on sunny days when neither heat nor
air conditioning is needed.
“I think there’s capital out there that’s willing to
invest,” said DEEP Commissioner Dykes. “I think the question is, what’s the
price of solar without federal support, and with tariffs, all these other
things coming into play? How does that affect the cost benefit for investment,
and how much can we bring those costs down?”
Dykes has a few ideas. One is to look into swapping out
solar panels in older systems for new, more efficient panels as a means to
increase power output. Another is to use — in her words — already disturbed
sites, such as the site of a retired oil-fired generator, for grid-scale
storage for excess solar power. Using a preexisting power site would mean
there’s already connections to the distribution system.
The biggest open question for Connecticut is what might
change in state policy to help make up for the lost tax credit. The Public
Utilities Regulatory Authority will be weighing that as part of its
reconsideration of the rules for the solar program it established. That
reconsideration was already planned and underway, with recommendations due in
March.
Another policy aspect involves what the state might do
legislatively. Unlike most of its neighbors, Connecticut has kept caps on the
amount of solar allowed, only loosening some of them in the last few years.
It’s also an open question whether state money would be
authorized to make up some of the tax credit shortfall, or whether the state
might do as Canada already does and establish an infrastructure bank to
leverage private and public money into the financing pipeline, or create a
Transmission Infrastructure Accelerator like California recently enacted to
access low-cost public financing for such projects as a way to save money
overall. The northeast-based advocacy group Acadia Center is helping the six New
England states explore financing models.
“My only priority for next session is to set the stage for
some extension or enhancement of our solar incentives,” said energy co-chair
Steinberg. “This is very important to me as the godfather of solar, as Katie
Dykes once called me, and that will be very hard.
“Everybody says it’s over; federal government has killed
solar, game over, there’s nothing Connecticut can do. I cannot accept that,” he
said. “Solar is not only an industry here in the state, it is part of the
solution for us. To abandon it and not offer any incentives, or to backtrack to
the point where the incentives don’t stimulate actual implementation — shame on
us.”
But there are other ways to indirectly reduce costs for
solar; specifically by streamling permitting, the regulatory process and siting
– soft costs, as they are sometimes called.
Massachusetts is already doing that.
“We’re going to have to throw everything we can at
permitting, streamlining and reducing soft costs in order to support the
affordability of more solar investment for grid-scale projects,” Dykes said.
Kat Burnham, senior principal at the consulting and policy
group Advanced Energy United and the state lead for all three southern New
England states, said Connecticut and other states need to step up and put some
financial skin as well as policy in the game. She pointed to financial tools
like the Green Bank.
“I think what’s important is to make sure that we’re looking
at a range of different options and trying to find the right one that fits the
particular need or situation,” she said. “What are the tools in our kit, and
how do we use those so that we minimize our risk?”
She said there’s a cost to building things. And she said
there’s “a cost to inaction … We can’t just sit on our hands and hope for the
best.”
DEEP is also in the final throes of accepting bids for
innovative energy efficiency and energy upgrade proposals designed to help
lower energy bills.
In Massachusetts, for instance, all three major utilities —
one of which is Eversource — have agreed to discount electric rates in the winter for people who use heat
pumps. While they run on electricity, aside from being efficient, they free
up other fuels like natural gas to run power plants. In Connecticut, DEEP is
continuing with its focus of lowering the upfront installation costs for heat
pumps.
Solutions
Barbara Kates-Garnick, a former Massachusetts energy
official, now a professor of practice at Tufts University’s Fletcher School,
said the path forward she sees is bringing together utilities, regulators,
policy makers, other stakeholders and system participants to explore some of
the out-of-the-box solutions.
“The answers aren’t clear, but I think we have to look at
how we regulate, what we regulate, and come to some conversations with the
utilities so that we come to a bigger grand bargain,” she said.
She noted, however, the Biden idea of promoting clean energy
by providing incentives, funding and jobs — especially in red states — “when
push comes to shove, it didn’t work.”
Dykes is not ruling out increasing fossil fuel-run power as
part of Connecticut’s solution to the Trump anti-renewables effort.
“It’s a possibility,” she said, noting that Lamont has
talked about the need to be open to natural gas as part of a
solution.
If the offshore wind and other projects do not come online,
she said, “that will certainly put us into a very challenging place in terms of
having an adequate reserve margin and ability to maintain reliability even
under some normal weather conditions.
“In light of that, we have to consider what are the
alternatives that make the most sense to ensure we can continue to have an
affordable, reliable grid in the early 2030s, and natural gas is part of that.
Retaining those oil units — is that a solution that we’ll have to rely on?”
Dykes said.
Dolan of the Power Generators Association, while also
advocating continued use of the region’s gas and oil fleet, doesn’t have
specific facilities he’d like to see targeted for reinvestment.
“I think there needs to be a refocus around the meat and
potatoes about what is operating today and making sure it continues to operate
tomorrow. Now the replacement energy supplies are not coming or not coming
anytime soon, and for these power plants to be able to continue operating and
operating at higher capacity, reinvestment is going to be necessary,” Dolan
said, taking a thinly-veiled swipe at Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode
Island, which all plan to have net-zero grids in the next 20 to 25 years.
For offshore wind proponents, it’s a rebuilding and
refocusing period for the industry, said Oceantic’s Francoeur, who added that
more than 100 turbine foundations and towers had been installed in the active
offshore wind projects since construction season opened in May.
“The industry is going to weather this administration. Who
knows what the next will bring,” she said. “But I think it won’t be the orderly
advancement that it once could have been.”
Former BOEM Director Klein said she thinks it’s important
for states to keep supporting the offshore wind projects that are underway.
“It’ll demonstrate to the project developers that there are
important entities in the U.S. that are still supportive and want to find a
path forward,” she said. “Folks aren’t building this for kicks, because it’s
fun. This is about actual energy supply needs … and actually communities, when
presented with alternatives, are likely to see that offshore wind is the best
of the bunch.”
In the meantime, some of the wind focus may shift to Canada,
where the provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador are exploring
the development of huge amounts of offshore and onshore wind. Whether New
England will be able to access some of that is years and likely many diplomatic
twists away.
The Trump administration’s pivot away from wind and solar in
particular and back toward fossil fuels is already taking the U.S. globally out
of step. Recent data from the European clean energy think tank, data and
policy tracker Ember showed that worldwide, in the first six months of
2025, renewables overtook coal power for the first time. And it showed that the
growth in solar and wind power outpaced the growth of demand in the same time
period. But while fossil fuel generation and its emissions dropped in China and
India, the world’s most populated countries, fossil fuel generation and
emissions increased in the U.S. Clean generation growth did not keep pace with
demand growth in the U.S.
“For a bunch of largely economic reasons, we do still think
that solar and wind are going to out-compete fossil fuels,” said Kate Sinding
Daly, senior vice president for law and policy at the New England-based
Conservation Law Foundation, though she admitted the Trump actions are slowing
down their adoption.
But she wondered whether the industry would be able to pivot
enough in the face of multiple challenges to keep investors confident enough to
continue.
“That, I guess, is the big question mark,” she said.
Dykes sees the same challenge.
“Investors need to know that after a multiyear permitting
process, when you have a project that’s 80% constructed, that you can bring it
online, sell your power and get your money back,” she said. “And if we can’t
guarantee that in the Northeast or in the U.S. anymore, I think that affects
the investment climate for all types of resources at a time when we can least
afford to increase investor perception of risk.”
The energy committee’s Steinberg added a warning. “That’s an
excuse to be paralyzed. That’s an excuse to basically throw up our hands and
say, ‘we just have to wait out the feds,’” he said. “That’s going to mean that
the ramping up stage is going to be even more complicated on the other side,
assuming there is another side.”
Naugatuck begins $80M mixed-use project aimed at revitalizing downtown
Officials, dignitaries and developers broke ground Tuesday
on a roughly $80 million, 180-unit mixed-use, mixed-income apartment project in
downtown Naugatuck.
Philadelphia-based Pennrose and Hartford-based The Cloud Co.
hosted local and state officials on a 7-acre former industrial site, where
construction is underway on the first of three 60-unit buildings. The
development will ultimately feature more than 7,000 square feet of commercial
space and a new public greenspace for the broader community.
“The Pennrose mixed-use project marks a turning point for
our downtown — where new housing units, restaurants and walkable streets come
together to create a vibrant destination,” Naugatuck Mayor N. Warren “Pete”
Hess said. “We’re not just building housing; we’re building opportunity, energy
and long-term value for our entire town.”
The development site is located along Old Firehouse Road,
with one side bounded by the Naugatuck River. A government-led effort
remediated environmental contaminants on the site before the property’s recent
$600,000 sale to the developers, said Karmen Cheung, Pennrose’s regional vice
president for New England.
The Pennrose-Cloud team was selected by Naugatuck officials to redevelop the property through a request-for-proposal process. Pennrose was drawn to the city’s proactive and sustained push for revitalization, Cheung said.
“The local leadership has a desire to densify and create a
walkable downtown,” Cheung said. “Those are the kinds of communities we think
we will continue to see grow. There is a lot of activity going on and that is a
beacon for us that this is a place worth investing in.”
The project is being financed through a mix of federal
low-income housing tax credits, a loan from the Connecticut Housing Finance
Authority, funding from the state departments of Housing and Developmental
Services, the Federal Home Loan banks of Boston and New York, and a
construction loan shared by Ion Bank and M&T Bank.
Cheung estimated the first building will cost about $26
million, with later phases expected to face typical cost increases. The
four-story, wood-framed buildings will be constructed on grade slabs and
include elevators.
Trumbull data center plans to invest $200 million in the property over the next five years
TRUMBULL — The operator of a Trumbull data
center said he will make a $200 million investment that will upgrade the
property, boost its value and bring more jobs to town.
Roelof Opperman, the CEO and founder of cogNOVUM, the operator of
the data center at 80 Merritt Blvd, said the investment is the first step of a
state-offered tax incentive program the company is pursuing and will bring many
long-term benefits to Trumbull.
"We're really excited to contribute to the town,"
Opperman said. "I really appreciate the town's help and working with
us."
Economic and Community Development Director Rina
Bakalar said the town is in favor of the plan, and signed a host municipality
fee agreement with the data center after the plan was approved by the Town
Council on Oct. 6.
She said the $10 million sale of the property from Digital Realty
to AC Trumbull LLC in December 2024 didn't reflect the property's overall value
to the town, given that Digital Realty originally purchased the property for
almost $91 million in 2010, according to land records.
"The reason this is good for the town, is that when you
make that level of capital investment in a property, it helps that property not
only hold its value, but grow its value over time," she said. "And
any time a value grows, that's good for our taxable grand list."
Bakalar said the investment will be over a five-year
period, ending in 2030. Then, she said the company will apply to the state's
Data Center Tax Incentive Program, which is under the state Department of
Economic and Community Development.
According to the DECD website, the program provides tax and property tax
exemptions to certain goods, services and real property of the data center
after making a "significant upfront capital investment."
Bakalar said the agreement doesn't have a cost or negative
impact on the town, but merely permits the business to make the investment and
pursue the program.
"They don't get any tax benefits from the town. That's
not what this is for," Bakalar said.
Opperman said part of the reason his eyes were set on
the Trumbull location was because of its history as the first Nasdaq Stock Market location and its
proximity to New York City.
He said the plan is to retrofit the space with new
technology designed to operate artificial intelligence computation systems,
then leasing it to an AI company or corporate division.
"I think we were interested because we saw a data
center that had a lot of potential, and also, had a decent amount of power that
was not being used," Opperman said.
Bakalar said this investment can push technological
advancement not only in Trumbull, but Connecticut.
"I think it's an asset to the Trumbull area because, as
I'm understanding it, with the proliferation of AI, the need for data is
difficult in Connecticut because our energy costs are high and so forth. We're
not as competitive as other states," she said. "What I'm learning
from people in the industry is many of their major tenants want data centers
within 60 miles of their location. So, I think that it's an asset for
Trumbull."
Opperman said there will also be construction work done to
two of the three buildings on the property. He said one building will be left
alone because it is still relatively new after receiving an upgrade in 2013.
He said given the substantial investment being made, he
hopes the business stays in town for many years to come.
"We're really excited about building the infrastructure
of the future in Trumbull," he said.
United Illuminating Moves to Uncover Possible Texting Before State Regulators Flipped on Power Lines
BRIDGEPORT- United Illuminating Co. wants to know what the
governor and local officials were texting behind the power company’s back just
before the state Siting Council reversed its vote and turned down UI’s plan to
put giant monopoles through Bridgeport and Fairfield.
UI said it was “stunned” when the Siting Council voted 5 to
3 on Oct. 16 to reject the company’s application to build high-power
transmission lines along the south side of the railroad tracks which local
officials complained would affect homes, churches and historic buildings.
In expectation of requesting the siting council to
reconsider its vote, UI late last week filed a flurry of Freedom of
Information requests to the Governor’s Office as well State Rep. Cristin
McCarthy-Vahey, Rep. State Steve Stafstrom, State Rep. Jennifer Leeper, State
Rep. Sarah Keitt, State Sen. Tony Hwang, Fairfield First Selectwoman Christine
Vitale, Bridgeport Mayor Joseph Ganim; Fairfield officials Timothy Bishop, the
conservation director, Emmeline Harrigan, the planning and zoning director, and
Christine Brown, the Fairfield chief of staff; Bridgeport officials William
“Bill” Coleman, deputy director of planning and economic development, Tom Gill,
director of planning and economic development, Thomas Gaudett, chief
administrative officer, and Constance Vickers, deputy chief of staff.
All members of the Siting Council were also served with
an FOI request.
The requests seek “all communications, texts and emails,”
between the governor’s office, state and local officials and the siting council
members prior to the siting council vote.
“We are deeply concerned that the Siting Council has failed
to provide any justification or explanation for their vote to deny the
Fairfield to Congress project, despite it being the least expensive and least
environmentally intrusive option before them,” Sarah Wall Fliotsos, UI
spokesperson, told CT Examiner. “By submitting these FOIA requests, we hope to
gather more information on what drove the siting council’s inexplicable
decision so that we can pursue the most appropriate path forward to ensure the
reliability and resiliency of the transmission grid in Fairfield and
Bridgeport.”
UI has until Friday to ask the Siting Council to reconsider
its decision. If the council refuses, UI can then file a lawsuit seeking an
appeal in state Superior Court.
All those who have been served with the FOI request have
indicated they will comply.
“The town will comply with all FOIA requests from United
Illuminating in accordance with state law. We remain open to working
collaboratively with UI to meet the region’s energy needs while also protecting
our community’s economic, ecological, and historical resources,” Vitale told CT
Examiner.
In a letter to UI, a lawyer for the Siting Council said they
would also comply with the request with the exception of any anything
privileged by attorney-client relationship.
In September the Siting Council voted 6 to 2 in a
non-binding or straw vote to allow UI to install a series of monopoles, up to
195 feet high, along the south side of the Metro-North Railroad tracks through
Bridgeport and Fairfield.
The decision caused outrage among residents and officials of
the two communities who strongly favor a plan not supported by the utility to
put the power lines underground.
Gov. Ned Lamont stepped into the issue first urging UI to
sit down with municipal officials and negotiate, which UI refused, and then
publicly supported the siting council rejecting UI’s plan.
Although UI had not released specific details of all their
plan, residents of the two communities claimed the installation of the
monopoles would involve the taking of private land resulting in the destruction
of homes, businesses and at least one church.
UI has maintained that its proposal serves “the public
interest” by protecting the environment and controlling customers’
expenses.
The company claims that burying the lines, which is favored
by residents and local officials, would increase the project’s estimated
budget from $300 million to $800 million, a cost they say would be borne
by Connecticut rate-payers.
“We are stunned by the change in the Siting Council’s
decision today with no explanation,” said UI’s Fliotsos said after the siting
council’s vote. “In fact, before voting to reject the application, the Siting
Council reviewed without criticism a draft order to approve the project.
To be clear, the siting council has already confirmed the public need for this
project. The public deserves to know what caused three members to change
their votes and if they were improperly pressured, and UI will continue to work
to ensure that critical reliability and resiliency projects are completed at
the lowest cost possible for our customers.”