Lloyd looks at battery storage plant

By Mark Reynolds
Posted 2/13/19

Jim Quigley, Supervisor of the Town of Ulster and President of the Ulster County Supervisors Association, informed the Lloyd Town Board on a power plant that has been proposed by GlidePath in his …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Lloyd looks at battery storage plant

Posted

Jim Quigley, Supervisor of the Town of Ulster and President of the Ulster County Supervisors Association, informed the Lloyd Town Board on a power plant that has been proposed by GlidePath in his township.

Quigley said the first iteration of the proposal was for a natural gas fired plant, “that as of last Friday was recast into an environmentally friendly battery power peaker facility.” He pointed out that regulatory changes, backed by the Governor, made it possible for GlidePath to construct a battery facility, something they had always wanted to do.

“In December the Governor doubled down on his announcement of a policy change by saying that he would advocate for 3,000 Mega Watts of battery powered storage on the grid by 2030 but more importantly he authorized NYSERDA [New York State Energy Research and Development Authority] to create a program to incentivize the quick deployment of these facilities,” Quigley said.


Quigley said this policy change allowed Glide Path to accelerate their project and now makes the plant in fully conform with New York energy policy.

“It has now been hailed by the environmental community as a cutting edge project,” he said.

Quigley said he understands that GlidePath may be approaching the Town of Lloyd for a similar proposal and offered his experiences of the past nine months with this company and their project.

“I am here in the spirit of cooperation and shared services at the town level,” he said.

When asked if these plants are tax exempt of properties, Quigley said this has not yet been clarified. He said the Governor made a change to the taxation of solar facilities that makes them tax-exempt, “but it allows the local municipality an option to opt out of that and to assess the solar facilities. There was a modification that was made that expanded the definition of projects in that section of statute to include all renewable energy sources and all renewable energy projects, and battery powered facilities were included in generic terms in that section. We’re still waiting on an opinion from Albany on how that works through.”

Quigley said GlidePath has acknowledge they have the responsibility to pay taxes to the Town of Ulster.

“They are willing to pay taxes if in fact they are tax-exempt...through the concept of a PILOT agreement [payment in lieu of taxes],” he said.

Quigley encouraged Lloyd to, “take a really close look at it...It will allow the Town of Lloyd to join with the Town of Ulster in being a leader in supporting the new grid that is coming to our state.

“This is an exciting opportunity. There is limited funds in Albany and the first plants to be in the queue will be the plants that get rewarded with subsidies,” he said. “I encourage you to take a thorough look at it in a process that was as efficient as possible.”

Town attorney Sean Murphy informed the Town Board that the recent moratorium they passed was on fossil fuel plants and not on battery array systems.

Building Department Director Dave Barton responded to an email inquiry about GlidePath, confirming that he has met with a representative of the company.

“They desire to install a warehouse in a Light Industrial zoned property near the DOT turnaround on Route 9W. They will bring a proposal similar in nature to what they are proposing in the Town of Ulster: a battery array system that will store electricity and feed the grid when demand increases. There is currently no proposed generation for the site. They have not applied for site plan at this time. I just met with them last week, so at this point only select members of the Town and Planning Boards whom I have spoken to since that meeting know.”