Originally Posted By E&E News By POLITICO (BOW, New Hampshire) — For Jim Andrews, an old photograph tells a cautionary tale. The black and white picture shows five electricity executives smiling and pointing at what they hoped would be a technological breakthrough: a mercury vapor turbine at a new coal plant on the New Hampshire seacoast. Mercury turbines, which used the toxic element to transfer heat rather than steam, never caught on. Only a few were built. Now, some 75 years after that photo was snapped, Andrews finds himself in a similar spot. The CEO of Granite Shore Power announced earlier this year that his company will soon close the last two coal plants in New England. In their place, the company plans to build two large battery storage facilities, a small solar farm and, if all goes well, a port that could eventually serve the offshore wind industry in the Gulf of Maine. Which brings Andrews back to the picture hanging on the wall outside his office. “They’re pointing like, ‘Isn’t this a great idea?’ and everybody’s so proud,” he said during an interview last week. “It sort of always gives me pause as I go into my office and make a major decision. Is it really going to be that good of a decision when folks 40 years from now look back on me?” Granite Shore Power CEO Jim Andrews poises by a picture of New England Public Service Co. executives celebrating the commissioning of a mercury vapor turbine at Schiller Station. “It sort of always gives me pause as I go into my office and make a major decision,” he said. | Benjamin Storrow/POLITICO’s E&E News In some senses, Granite Shore Power’s move away from coal is mostly symbolic. New England never was a particularly large coal market, even in the fuel’s heyday. Coal ceased to play a significant role in the region’s six-state power market with the retirement of a large Massachusetts coal plant in 2017. One of Granite Shore Power’s two coal facilities hasn’t run since 2020. The other typically logs fewer than 20 days in a year, switching on only during the hottest summer swelters or coldest winter periods when power demand in the region spikes. But the company’s moves point to one of the biggest questions facing the country as efforts to green the electrical system gather steam: how to keep the lights on when power demand surges. That role has traditionally been the domain of fossil fuels. It is a job frequently done by many of the dirtiest, least efficient power plants on the electrical grid. How to replace those facilities with cleaner alternatives is one of the bigger challenges of decarbonizing the electric sector. Few places capture the conundrum like New England. The region of nearly 15 million people has a unique challenge in that it has a gas-reliant power grid but limited pipeline capacity to serve it. That can be especially troublesome in the winter, when demand for gas rises and space on New England’s pipelines is limited. Traditionally, the region has been able to call on other power plants to help fill the void. Mystic Generating Station, a gas plant outside Boston and New England’s largest fossil fuel-fired facility, relied on imports of liquefied natural gas until it closed earlier this summer. Merrimack and Schiller stations, the two coal plants operated by Granite Shore Power in New Hampshire, supply a small amount of coal generation. New England could also count on oil-fired facilities like the one operated by ArcLight Capital Partners in Middletown, Connecticut. It was an effective, if dirty, way to keep the lights on. Now all four of those power plants are slated to retire by 2028, beginning with the already-shuttered Mystic. Altogether, New England stands to lose 3,000 megawatts over the next four years, or about a tenth of its generating capacity. There are few easy replacements. A transmission line capable of delivering 1,200 MW of hydropower from Canada has resumed construction after being blocked for almost two years by voters in Maine. Two offshore wind projects, which will add 1,500 MW of new capacity to the New England grid, are under construction after years of delays. But whether the region can quickly add more large-scale clean energy projects is an open question. “The challenge in New England is the retirements always happen on time and the new entry is almost always late,” said Dan Dolan, CEO of New England Power Generators Association, a trade group that represents power plant owners like Granite Shore Power. A coal pile at Merrimack Station outside Concord, New Hampshire. Merrimack is the last operating coal plant in New England. It is slated to close in 2028. | Benjamin Storrow/POLITICO’s E&E News New England is banking on offshore wind, in part because it’s easier to site large renewable energy projects at sea than on land. Offshore wind is also attractive to the region because the winds over the North Atlantic tend to blow hardest in winter, when power is needed the most. “I am a believer that offshore wind will play a meaningful role in the winter and will enhance the overall reliability of the system,” Dolan said, before cautioning, “It is not going to be perfect. There are going to be moments in time where other resources are needed and need to step up — infrequent periods every few years, with low temperatures and low winds and we will need to rely on other dispatchable resources.” ISO New England, the regional grid operator, shares the concern. Its grid modeling shows that there’s enough power to operate its grid reliably through 2032. But that finding comes with important caveats. It assumes 4,800 MW in offshore wind capacity will come online by 2032, a figure that could be difficult to reach after a series of wind developers were forced to cancel power contracts with New England states last year due to inflation. It also supposes the new transmission line with Canada will be completed. While that project is once again moving forward, it still faces a legal challenge from one of the region’s nuclear power plant operators. To make matters even more complicated: ISO New England is predicting a steady uptick in power demand due to electric vehicles and home heat pumps. The grid operator thinks demand will grow 17 percent over the next 10 years, reversing more than a decade of declining demand due to energy efficiency measures. It also projects that winter power demand will nearly match summer power demand by 2033 because of the growing popularity of heat pumps. That makes new clean energy resources more important, said Anne George, ISO New England’s chief communications officer. “If the supply growth and demand growth are out of whack then there is the potential for problems on the system,” she said. It is against that backdrop that Granite Shore Power announced its plans to replace its coal plants with cleaner facilities. Schiller Station sits on the Piscataqua River and once received shipments of coal via barge. Its deepwater dock is ideal for a potential offshore wind port, as developers eye new projects in the Gulf of Maine. But wind projects remain years away, with the Biden administration only recently moving to open the area to leasing. In the interim, Andrews, the CEO, is focused on storage. Granite Shore Power is planning to build a 150-MW battery system at Schiller, which once was home to the mercury turbine pictured in the hallway of Andrews’ office. Another 100-MW battery would be built at the site of Merrimack Station, the coal plant outside Concord. It would be accompanied by a 10-MW solar farm. Those are massive storage projects by New England standards. The region has only installed 360 MW of batteries to date. But Andrews thinks Granite Shore Power’s coal plants offer a unique opportunity. Each facility has acreage and an existing interconnection with the power system. They also offer a chance to help address the reliability challenges stemming from New England’s limited gas pipeline system, he said. “If I can’t get gas off the pipe at a price that allows me to be dispatched, it’s sort of like the resource is there and not being utilized,” Andrews said. Batteries, by contrast, will draw energy when there is a surplus and dispatch it when it’s needed, he said. “That’s probably the optimum resource right now to build, in my view,” he said. Andrews describes his vision for an offshore wind port at the 75-year-old Schiller Station. | Benjamin Storrow/POLITICO’s E&E News New England is traditionally a difficult market for energy storage, which typically gravitates to markets with large amounts of solar generation like California and Texas. That creates a predictable pattern for electricity prices, with batteries able to charge when power is cheap during the day and discharging electricity in the evening when prices rise. While New England has seen significant growth in its rooftop solar industry, it has yet to reach the level of solar penetration generally sought by battery developers. But there is evidence that is starting to change. Elevate Renewables, an arm of the private equity firm ArcLight Capital, has proposed replacing its oil-fired generator in Middletown, Connecticut, with a 200-MW battery. Much like Granite Shore Power, Elevate Renewables is looking to use existing infrastructure to bring clean energy online. That is particularly valuable in a region where permitting and interconnection are two of the biggest barriers to clean energy development, said Eric Cherniss, who leads renewable development at the company. “It’s one of the largest holdups to delivering some of this energy transition, is the building of new infrastructure,” Cherniss said. “So let’s use what we have now to its greatest extent possible and have the highest impact in the short term.” Still, the application of batteries in New England will likely be limited. Today’s batteries often dispatch for two to four hours. That is helpful in handling power demand associated with heat waves. Solar can provide power during the day, while batteries kick in during the early evening hours when demand is high but the sun has gone down. It is less helpful during the prolonged winter cold snaps that grid planners worry about in New England. ISO New England’s modeling shows that batteries would be of limited help after discharging their energy because they would need to recharge at a time when the grid is already stretched. Andrews is clear-eyed about the challenge. He acknowledged that batteries will offer little assistance in a deep freeze. His job is to bring online at least some of the capacity needed to replace the region’s retiring power plants. It’s either that or end up like one of the smiling executives in the photograph in his office.
Originally published by the Seacoastonline New Hampshire has new opportunities to lead on energy policy that promotes jobs, economic development, and reliable clean energy. For decades, New Hampshire has relied on aging energy resources and insufficient diversity of generation resources for reliability while electric rates continue to increase for ratepayers due to extreme weather events and turmoil in world markets. There has been too little investment to drive new technologies in our state. The recent news announced by Granite Shore Power — owner of the state’s last remaining coal plants — that it was forging ahead with the voluntary closure of Schiller and Merrimack stations to launch a massive new investment in clean energy parks is welcome news. The recent unprecedented step by Granite Shore Power to end coal-burning operations and build sustainable energy facilities in their place will make New Hampshire a national leader in clean energy production. It will have transformational effects on New Hampshire’s energy resilience with less costly clean energy. This news is especially timely given the availability of federal funding and the planning by the New Hampshire Department of Energy to move New Hampshire forward on clean energy and energy efficiency. As members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and chair of the New Hampshire Commission on Offshore Wind and Port Development, we know that good policy and a regulatory environment that supports private investment are essential for New Hampshire’s energy future. Granite Shore Power’s decision to proactively transition two major coal-burning stations to environmentally safe power production alternatives is private sector leadership. It is something that all residents of our state, as well as leaders from both sides of the aisle, should support now and in the months to come. Schiller Station will be converted into a battery storage facility, taking energy from the grid during low demand and putting it back on the grid during peak periods. Schiller’s strategic location on the Seacoast will allow it to capture offshore wind power from Martha’s Vineyard and the Gulf of Maine, meaning the plant will be replacing coal power with renewable battery power. And this is just a start for Granite Shore Power. The success of offshore wind and potential clean hydrogen energy development need to be coupled with battery storage, solar energy, and grid modernization. The Granite Shore Power proposals provide key features for a successful development of new power sources to provide clean, lower cost energy for New Hampshire homes and businesses. Merrimack Station will be converted to a Renewable Energy Park — the first of its kind in our state’s history. GSP will redevelop the power plant’s nearly 400 acres to facilitate multiple sources of clean energy manufacturing including a solar farm, battery storage, green biodiesel, and hydrogen that can link to an existing natural gas pipeline. In addition to lowering emissions and providing families and businesses with more cost-effective energy, the construction and operation of two state-of-the-art renewable energy parks will add untold numbers of jobs to the state and local economies. Granite Shore Power will count on us all to support the development of these massive projects. The positive impact these transformative projects will have not only on the grid, but on our economy cannot be overstated. For years we have hoped for the promise of policy and power companies making clean energy a reality. Granite Shore Power is delivering on those promises. New Hampshire state Sen. Kevin Avard, District 12, is chairman Senate Energy & Natural Resources. State Sen. David Watters, District 4, is ranking Democrat on the Senate Energy & Natural Resources
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