LLEG: New from the Berlin Sun:................
Grenier blames IPPs for death of biomass plant
By Barbara Tetreault
Jul 07, 2011 12:00 am
BERLIN -- Mayor Paul Grenier Tuesday night charged the Independent Power Producers have killed the Berlin Station biomass plant and the jobs and tax revenue it offered the city and region.
“The project as it stands today is dead,” Grenier told the city council.
The mayor said it was painful for him to see such a significant economy development initiative fail. He said the repercussions will be felt by many businesses especially the forest products industry.
“The logging industry in this county will be devastated by this,” he said.
Grenier took aim at the six smaller biomass plants that have challenged the power purchase agreement between Berlin Station and Public Service of N.H. in the state Supreme Court. He said the parties and the IPPs were close to an agreement when the biomass plants increased their demands. Cate Street Capital, which controls Berlin Station, had a June 30 deadline to have the appeal withdrawn.
“In the end it was greed beyond belief that stopped this project,” Grenier said.
Grenier said the parties have been negotiating for months with Gov. Lynch leading the effort to get an agreement. He said there had been five meetings within the last two weeks.
The mayor said Cate Street Capital needed an agreement in place by June 30 because its construction contract with Babcock and Wilcox expires this month and would have to be re-negotiated. He said PSNH had agreed to give the biomass plants short-term power purchase agreements which were a main demand. But then, Grenier said at the eleventh hour the biomass plants made additional demands. In particular, he singled out Whitefield Power and Light for its demand for cash payments. Whitefield was not seeking a short term power purchase agreement.
Cate Street Capital Spokesman Scott Tranchemontagne said Whitefield Power and Light requested over $13 million in cash payments for their plant.
Grenier said Whitefield Power and Light, which is owned by Korea East-West Power, is an example of a foreign company interfering with North Country business.
Grenier said all parties suffer from the collapse of the Berlin Station. He said there will be no short term power agreements that the smaller biomass plants say they need to survive. Nor, he said, will legislators work to make changes in the Renewable Energy Portfolio to benefit the IPPs.
Berlin Station loses the millions of dollars it has invested in the project. The region loses the 40 direct jobs and hundreds more logging and forest jobs it was projected to create. Over 300 people would have worked on construction of the plant. Grenier said the failure of the project will hurt Isaacson Structural Steel which has already filed for bankruptcy protection.
Councilor Tom McCue, an opponent of a biomass plant on the mill property, said he appreciated Cate Street Capital’s efforts in Berlin. He said they walked into a hornet’s nest when they took over the project and really tried to contribute to the community and region.
Councilor Mike Rozek said he wished the previous city council had been more uniform in its support of the biomass project. He said a majority of the community supported it and Berlin deserved the project.
Tranchemontagne said the June 30 deadline was agreed to by all the parties more than a month ago. He said now that the Public Utilities Commission has rejected all of the IPPs concerns about the project, they are desperately clinging to whatever leverage they have against PSNH by stalling the project further by appealing to the Supreme Court.
. |
