By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI
News staff
EDITOR'S NOTE: Readers may recall that Charlestown was drawn into the fight against the Invenergy protest when the company signed a deal with an official of the Narragansett Indian tribe to purchase water in bulk from the underground water supply that everyone in Charlestown uses for its drinking water. In a rare, and pleasant, show of solidarity, tribal members joined with other residents to oppose the water sale and causing it to be cancelled. - Will Collette
The Energy Facility Siting Board’s
much-anticipated written decision regarding the fossil-fuel power plant that
had been proposed for Burrillville, R.I., elaborates on the reasoning the
application for the nearly 1,000-megawatt facility was denied. The report also
leaves some issues unanswered.
Back on June 20, the three-person
Energy Facility Siting Board (EFSB) made quick work of more than three years of
hearings and proceedings by unanimously rejecting
the Clear River Energy Center (CREC). The board ruled that the proposed
natural-gas/diesel facility wasn’t necessary to meet regional electricity
demand.
Its decision to deny the CREC,
proposed by Chicago-based Invenergy LLC, was based on a broad interpretation of
“need” for the facility and its fast-start capability.
Two other criteria required for approval, cost justification and environmental harm, aren’t addressed in the 33-page report, which was released this week. The EFSB didn’t address those issues at its late-June meeting, and leaves them out of its written decision, because, it argued, that failing to satisfy one criteria makes it unnecessary to scrutinize the other two.
“The board need not reach the
remaining elements set out in the (Energy Facility Siting) Act in its
consideration of the proposed facility’s application,” according to the report
signed by EFSB chairwoman Margaret Curran and board members Janet Coit and
Meredith Brady.
Although cost justification and
environmental impacts were addressed in depth throughout the application review
process, Invenergy and project opponents agreed that the questions of need and
environmental harm were the central issues in determining the facility’s fate.
The question of need, however, was the first debated at the EFSB’s June 20
meeting.
Invenergy positioned the power plant
as a modern, lower-polluting, and reliable link from older, higher-polluting
facilities to a dynamic, decentralized grid dominated by multiple
renewable-energy sources. Company officials said the $1 billion facility would
create 350 jobs, lower energy bills, and increase property tax revenue for the
rural host community.
The EFSB, however, decided there is
ample power now and in the future to meet energy expectations for the state and
region, especially as renewable energy proliferates and energy-efficiency
programs lessen demand.
The loss of a key power-purchase
agreement on Sept. 20, 2018 and the failure to secure future ones through ISO
New England, the regional operator of the power grid, hurt the developer’s
credibility in the eyes of the EFSB.
The board’s recently released
decision offers a summary of the proceedings that began when the docket was
filed Nov. 17, 2015 and the course of discussion that led to the unanimous vote
in June.
It also recounts Invenergy’s struggle to secure a source for cooling
water, its failure to obtain a power-purchase agreement for one of the
facility’s power units, and other setbacks that delayed the hearing process.
Although Invenergy blamed the
stoppages on public opposition and the EFSB itself, the written decision puts
the fault squarely on Invenergy.
“It is worth noting that the
majority of the delays were caused by the applicant,” according to the EFSB’s
decision. “The board does not suggest that Invenergy did anything wrong in
causing the delays. However, the board does want to make clear that Invenergy
cannot place blame for the delays, or the consequence they wrought, on the
board.”
The written decision elaborates on
other details, such as the reasoning for dismissing Invenergy’s argument that
the power plant was consistent with Rhode Island’s long-term energy plan.
“Adding a new natural gas plant —
even a fast-start, more efficient one — does not advance the stated goals of
greater fuel diversity, significantly lowered greenhouse gas emissions, or a
transformed system,” according to the decision. “Adding Invenergy’s proposed
facility would, at most, perpetuate the status quo.”
The EFSB’s written decision also
noted that an advisory opinion offered
by the Division of Statewide Planning didn’t satisfy the issue of need, even
though the report by the state agency said the project is consistent with the
state energy plan.
With the release of the EFSB’s
written decision, the CREC application is officially nullified.
Invenergy must
file an entirely new application to restart the project, a process that would
likely take years to advance.
Invenergy has 10 days to appeal the
decision in Rhode Island Supreme Court.
“Invenergy is reviewing the EFSB’s
written order and determining next steps,” Invenergy spokeswoman Beth Conley
said.
Pending permits from the Army Corps
of Engineers and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management were
paused when the EFSB denied the application.
One of the primary objectors to
CREC, the Conservation Law Foundation, promised to litigate against Invenergy
if a court appeal is filed.
