Dive Brief:
- The new owners of the 530-MW Danskammer coal plant in the Hudson Valley of New York, which was damaged in Superstorm Sandy and shut down, want to rebuild it. The Public Service Commission (PSC) last year approved plans to scrap the plant, which was owned by Dynegy.
- But the PSC, worried about power supplies, later issued an emergency order saying Danskammer could reopen if a public-interest showing could be made. New owner Helios Power Capital and its partner, Mercuria Energy America, have filed a request to restart it.
- Environmentalists are incensed about emissions from the coal plant. But the restart is also a problem for New York's other power producers. The plant would be uneconomic, Independent Power Producers of New York says, and would interfere with the wholesale power market by "artificially suppressing capacity prices."
Dive Insight:
This is a classic case where usually feuding interests can come together. The environmentalist arguments are obvious -- especially in a state that has led efforts to curb coal emissions from other states. The power producers' arguments are also obvious: A tight power market is good for power prices; more supply pushes the price down. In New England, power producers have fought big new renewables imports from Canada for this reason.