LIPA filing raises questions about benefit of controversial Propel cable project

A new high-voltage cable project between Long Island and Westchester will “simply shift” constrained power reliability needs within the downstate region “rather than eliminate them,” according to recent federal filing by LIPA that paints a dire picture of Long Island’s broader future energy options.

In a declaration that was part of the LIPA filing, Lucyna Khazanovich, senior director of strategy and planning for PSEG Long Island, said the benefit of the $3.26 billion Propel NY Energy cable is chiefly “additional transfer capability” between Con Edison's service territories in New York City and Westchester and Long Island. She attests that Propel, a series of 90-miles of high-voltage power lines from Western Suffolk to Westchester, as planned won’t provide LIPA with “meaningful access to upstate generation resources or broader regional capacity”

Propel was initially awarded in 2023 in response to the state's "Long Island Offshore Wind Export Public Policy Transmission Need," but has evolved into a "power-agnostic" reliability project aimed reducing power bottlenecks. Gov. Kathy Hochul has called it a "critical" transmission project, backed by construction firms and unions, but opponents, including three North Shore local school districts, business groups, U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi and more than 1,000 North Shore residents, worry about traffic, as well as health, safety and environmental concerns.

The revelations in the federal complaint by a proponent of the Propel project gives more fuel to opponents of the proposal, including those who say its originally intended purpose as an essential wind-energy transmission line has largely disappeared. Propel backers counter that it's always been a vital state-grid enhancement project.

The Propel limitations were raised in a federal complaint filed by LIPA that takes issue with a new price scheme the utility signed with the Neptune Regional Transmission system cable. As Newsday reported Monday, the plan would hike prices charged to use the cable by 50% over the next three years and hit LPA customers with “hundreds of millions of dollars” in new costs.

Neptune in a response filed this week asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to deny LIPA's request for quickened review of its complaint, and noted its recent contract extension with LIPA was approved by multiple state agencies and LIPA's board. "There is no reliability crisis here," Neptune's lawyers said in the filing. "This complaint is just about money." 

But it also exposed some of the recent bumps in LIPA's energy path. LIPA emphasized that it has been working on a new energy road map to address the challenges, one cognizant of changing state climate goals and market realities. It’s scheduled to be complete by next summer.

From stalled battery-storage plants to wind-farms under attack, the filing outlines a long list of challenges to the utility’s 2023 plan to power the electric grid in coming decades. It even raises questions about LIPA’s fallback plan to repower or replace existing natural gas plants, noting that permitting, environmental reviews and supply-chain backlogs have “limited the availability” of opening new fossil-fuel power plants. Last week, LIPA issued a request for bids for up to 400 megawatts of “temporary generation” resources “that can be deployed quickly, operate during periods of system need, and be removed when no longer required” 

Storage battery plans have been beset by permitting delays and moratoriums by most Long Island towns; plans for wind farms have been largely scuttled but for two under construction; and there are doubts developers will invest in new arrays post the Trump administration.

Most of the analysis in the filings is devoted to limitations inherent in the plan for Propel, which has already begun pre-construction work. Propel still awaits critically needed state and federal permits.

Propel's backers have long said the series of high-voltage cables would alleviate a bottleneck between the upstate and downstate grids, leveling price spikes during high demand times. But the filings indicate otherwise, saying the Westchester landing point is well south of a major system bottleneck.

According to the LIPA complaint, which cites analysis by the state grid manager, the New York Independent System Operator, and Khazanovich, “even in the event of a timely energization” of Propel in 2030, downstate New York reliability needs are “expected to persist.”

That’s chiefly because Propel’s upstate endpoint in Westchester is south of a known power bottleneck known as the “upstate-Con Ed constraint.”

“Even assuming the three [Propel] transmission lines enter service in 2030, there is limited surplus of capacity in Con Edison’s territory, and there remains a bottleneck … that limits access of upstate generating capacity to Westchester” the LIPA complaint said. “Permitting for new generation between the northward bottleneck and Westchester faces the same challenges as on Long Island.”

Khazanovich, referencing NYISO studies, concludes that the upstate-Con Ed constraint is “likely to bind" the system during the period between 2030–2045 such that “little or no capacity could realistically be shifted from downstate to upstate” zones.

LIPA in a joint statement with PSEG Long Island said they both "strongly support Propel NY as a critical investment that will strengthen reliability and increase transfer capability. Our responsibility is to pursue all solutions that maintain reliability, both immediately and in the future, while delivering the greatest value and affordability for our customers."

The New York Power Authority, which is developing Propel with New York Transco, in a statement said, "The state grid operator continues to warn that reliability on Long Island and in downstate New York is shrinking and, without Propel, emergency operations, blackouts and brownouts could become common."

But Christine Panzeca, a Glen Head resident who has led opposition to the cable in the North Shore community, said revelations from LIPA's filing raised questions about the viability of Propel.

"It is impossible to justify forcing ratepayers to spend billions of dollars — and forcing our communities to put our health and safety at risk and endure enormous financial harm and environmental destruction — on a project when LIPA’s own federal filing describes its reliability benefits as so limited," she wrote in an email. 

"This [cable] project was for the windmills, end of story," said Doug Augenthaler, another Glen Head resident and member of the Gold Coast Business Association, which has opposed the project. "Once the windmills went away the need for the project did, too."

By Mark Harrington

mark.harrington@newsday.comMHarringtonNews

Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.