Invenergy power plant public hearings resume Jan. 8
BURRILLVILLE – The state Energy Facility Siting Board will reconvene the final series of public hearings on Invenergy’s $1-billion natural gas-burning power plant in Pascoag on Jan. 8. There will be a total of 12 hearings beginning Tuesday and ending Thursday, Feb. 7.
According to Jerry Elmer, a senior attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental advocacy group fighting the project, the January hearings will be heavily focused on the crucially important issue of whether the plant is needed.
On Jan. 24 and 30, witnesses on biodiversity impacts and forest connectivity issues will testify, including CLF’s witness, Scott Com- ings of The Nature Conservancy.
As of now, the last days of witness testimony are scheduled for Feb. 6-7. Invenergy’s director of development, John Niland, is expected to be cross-examined on those dates.
The EFSB hearings are open to the public and will be held at 10 a.m. in Hearing Room A of the Public Utilities Commission office building, 89 Jefferson Boulevard, Warwick.
After all the witnesses are heard, the lawyers representing the various parties in the hearings will get about six weeks to submit post-hearing memoranda. These will summarize the evidence and make legal argument about why the permit should be approved or denied.
If testimony actually ends on February 7, Elmer says it is likely that the post-hearing Memoranda will be due no later than March 31. After that, the EFSB will hold one or several so-called “open meetings” to discuss the issues in the case. During the open meetings, the EFSB members will discuss the case, but neither the lawyers for the parties nor the public will be able to speak.
“It is likely, but not certain, that there will be more than one such open meeting because the EFSB has multiple issues to discuss and vote on, including whether the plant is cost-justified and whether it will have unacceptable environmental consequences,” he said. “At the last open meeting, the EFSB will take a vote on whether or not to grant a permit to Invenergy.”
Elmer says after the EFSB vote is taken, the EFSB staff must prepare a written order reflecting the EFSB decision. Because the order normally reviews all the issues in the case as well as the evidence on both sides of every issue, the order can run to over 100 pages in length, and it can take weeks for the staff to draft.
“It is the issuance of the order that constitutes the technical end of the case, which can be appealed to the Rhode Island Supreme Court by the losing side,” he said. “Assuming that post-hearing memoranda are filed by the end of March, it is reasonable to expect the EFSB to hold its open meetings in April and vote to grant or deny a permit by the end of April - although the actual order reflecting the decision could be delayed for additional weeks.”
Elmer believes EFSB will ultimately vote to deny a permit for the plant, but says Invenergy will not go down without a fight. Invenergy started working on the proposed plant in 2014, and the EFSB docket has been going since 2015.
“We are now 95 percent done with the case, and the amount of money Invenergy will have to spend from here to the end of the docket is relatively small compared to what Invenergy has spent to get to this point,” he said. “Having come so far already, Invenergy may figure it is rational to see the case through to the end.”
In November, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved Independent System Operator New England’s (ISO-NE) request to terminate the proposed Clear River Energy Center’s capacity supply obligation contract.
ISO-NE, the operator of the regional power grid, filed its request with the Federal Regulatory Commission on Sept. 20. The commission had 60 days to render a decision, which was handed down in late November.
ISO-NE is canceling the plant’s capacity supply obligation, or CSO - which Invenergy won at auction for half of the Clear River plant’s generating capacity - because it does not believe the plant can be completed in time to deliver the power it has promised. The Clear River plant has been delayed by local opposition and court proceedings.
The original commercial operation date for the project was June 2019, and ISO-NE granted Clear River Unit 1 a CSO in early 2016, for the June 1, 2019 to May 31, 2020 Capacity Commitment Period.