Courtesy of Advokate
By Rod Bacon
For years, Emmett Smith, co-founder and CEO of Saranac Lake-based Northern Power & Light, and Dr. Jeffrey Flagg, economic development director for the City of Glens Falls, discussed hydro-based projects but couldn’t find one that was actionable.
That changed when the Glens Falls Community Hydro Project went live on May 21. The project is delivering clean, renewable energy to National Grid customers in Warren, Washington, and Saratoga counties and beyond.
Northern Power & Light has partnered with Boralex Hydro Operations, Inc., a developer of environmentally friendly projects that owns and operates the Warrensburg Dam. They operate 199 wind, solar, and hydro facilities in the United States and abroad.
Customers enrolling in the program are guaranteed a 5 percent saving on their energy bills. Qualifying low-income customers may see savings of up to 25 percent.
Cost savings are due in part to the recent implementation of the H-Value, a pricing structure that enables small-scale hydro producers to participate in New York state’s Community Distributed Generation program. This policy reform allows the energy producers to provide cost savings for customers, similar to incentives available for solar producers.
To be eligible for the program a facility must have five megawatts or less of capacity. The old power grid model had a large central fossil fuel or nuclear generating station. Distributed generators are distributed throughout the territory and the program ensures that only small local facilities benefit.
According to Smith, the company’s goal is to provide 80 percent of a customers energy requirements.
“This will vary,” he noted. “Renewable energy power plants only produce as much power as there is a renewable resource. In our case it’s the river and in high flow months we might produce more power than our customers use, in which case the excess is banked and distributed later. In low flow months it might be less, but on an annual basis we aim for eighty percent.”
Smith emphasized that they make sure that the companies with which they work are responsible and good community stewards.
“Something I feel really good about is that we’re reintroducing the region to hydro power and reintroducing hydro companies to the region,” he said.
The roots of Northern Power & Light go back to the 1970s when the Foley and Smith families became involved in Adirondack hydroelectric projects that produced renewable power for the Niagara-Mohawk electric grid. Taking advantage of changes in the electricity market, Emmett Smith and his brother, Ethan, and Louise Gava launched NP&L in 2018.
Their first project was converting Azure Mountain Power, the family’s 750 kW station in St. Regis Falls, to the region’s first community hydro project. They later partnered with Boralex to develop Sissonville Hydro on the Racquette River in the village of Potsdam and the Schroon River Paper Mill Dam in Warrensburg into community hydroelectric sites.
For more information about how to enroll in this project and how Northern Power & Light is developing hydroelectric facilities go to npandl.com.