Backers of $3B cable designed to carry wind energy now downplay the wind part
A wind turbine at the Block Island Wind Farm off Block Island, Rhode Island on Dec. 7, 2023. Representatives for the entities hoping to build Propel NY Energy, designed to carry wind energy, now are stressing the project’s benefits for greater grid reliability. Credit: Newsday/Steve Pfost
A $3.26 billion proposal for 90 miles of new high-voltage underground power cables from western Nassau County to Westchester County has evolved in the Trump era from one designed to help move around a bounty of wind energy to one that is power agnostic.
Representatives for the state and private entities hoping to build Propel NY Energy held meetings across Nassau last week at which they worked hard to stress the project’s benefits for greater grid reliability amid projections of increased energy usage.
At the same time, they played down its initially stated purpose, in a 2023 release from the the New York Independent System Operator announcing the project, of “providing transmission capability to deliver at least 3,000 megawatts from offshore wind projects …”
The change comes as Newsday on Monday reported that Propel could be facing headwinds from the Trump administration's scrutiny of offshore wind. Among many permits needed for the project is one from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, a spokesman for which last week said Propel is being scrutinized "pursuant to the direction provided by the administration's executive orders and memorandum," including on offshore wind leasing and permitting.
At one meeting Tuesday at the Oceanside Public Library, Propel representatives for the New York Power Authority and New York Transco, its joint developers, insisted the project has little to do with wind energy.
“Zero percentage is for offshore wind,” said Shannon Baxevanis, community engagement manager for Transco, in an interview. She said the project would still be built even if all offshore wind projects were stalled or canceled.
“It’s still needed,” she said, to relieve congestion on the antiquated grid as New Yorkers’ power use jumps 50% to 90% in the next 20 years. Baxevanis said the project, when completed in 2030, will cost average ratepayers across the state around $1.90 a month.
There was even a poster in the community room saying what the project was “NOT.”
“We are NOT…a battery storage project; an offshore wind project; [or] tied to any one generation source,” the sign read.
Some residents at the Oceanside meeting weren't buying it, and they objected to the meeting's format of requiring that they write down their questions for a moderator to speak rather than being allowed to speak themselves. Most called out questions anyway.
"I find everything that's been done here to be quite disingenuous," Glen Head resident Christine Panzeca told NYPA officials after the meeting. A moderator tried repeatedly to restore order. Panzeca has been a loud opponent of a separate project to build a large battery farm at Glenwood Landing.
Rosemarie Brautigam, a Williston Park attorney whose grandchildren attend school in Glen Head, said she worries about the health impacts of three high-voltage cable lines planned for the street in front of the school. Officials said the cables will all have electromagnetic fields that are within state standards, but Panzeca showed a graph from Propel filings that indicated they would exceed the limit in one area.
One resident asked if the developers could take existing Long Island Power Authority wires on overhead lines along the same route and place them underground while the trenches were open, but officials said it wasn't possible. "We are not touching any of the old infrastructure," one official said, noting the lines are not under their jurisdiction.
The 90-mile Propel NY Energy project, expected to start construction in mid-2026, proposes to be built in six large segments in underground trenches 5 feet wide and 6 feet wide and at least 3 feet deep under rights of ways on major roadways or near Long Island Rail Road lines. Four separate bundled 345,000-volt cables also will be laid in four trenches under the Long Island Sound.
Doug Augenthaler, a Glen Head resident, said he’s attended several meetings about the project and still hasn’t received clarity on his questions about electromagnetic fields around sections of cable on Glen Head Road. “It drives me crazy,” he said. “They just will not answer questions.”
Propel at the meeting said the series of cables could provide Long Island access to cheaper upstate resources, but that could come up against constraints. For one, the act that formed LIPA prevents the utility from receiving cheap hydropower from NYPA facilities at Niagara Falls — one of the state’s biggest green-energy producers.
Susan Craig, a NYPA spokeswoman, acknowledged the constraint, but said there are other sources of green-energy upstate that the power line could deliver to downstate. Propel will “make sure that any of that green energy from solar, [land-based] wind farms, any clean electrons that are on the grid are able to flow to the places they need to go,” Craig said.
A $3.26 billion proposal for 90 miles of new high-voltage underground power cables from western Nassau County to Westchester County has evolved in the Trump era from one designed to help move around a bounty of wind energy to one that is power agnostic.
Representatives for the state and private entities hoping to build Propel NY Energy held meetings across Nassau last week at which they worked hard to stress the project’s benefits for greater grid reliability amid projections of increased energy usage.
At the same time, they played down its initially stated purpose, in a 2023 release from the the New York Independent System Operator announcing the project, of “providing transmission capability to deliver at least 3,000 megawatts from offshore wind projects …”
The change comes as Newsday on Monday reported that Propel could be facing headwinds from the Trump administration's scrutiny of offshore wind. Among many permits needed for the project is one from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, a spokesman for which last week said Propel is being scrutinized "pursuant to the direction provided by the administration's executive orders and memorandum," including on offshore wind leasing and permitting.
WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND
- Representatives for the state and private entities hoping to build Propel NY Energy held meetings across Nassau County last week at which they worked hard to stress the project’s benefits for greater grid reliability amid projections of increased energy usage.
- At the same time, they played down its initially stated purpose of “providing transmission capability to deliver at least 3,000 megawatts from offshore wind projects.”
- The change comes as Newsday on Monday reported that Propel could be facing headwinds from the Trump administration's scrutiny of offshore wind.
At one meeting Tuesday at the Oceanside Public Library, Propel representatives for the New York Power Authority and New York Transco, its joint developers, insisted the project has little to do with wind energy.
“Zero percentage is for offshore wind,” said Shannon Baxevanis, community engagement manager for Transco, in an interview. She said the project would still be built even if all offshore wind projects were stalled or canceled.
“It’s still needed,” she said, to relieve congestion on the antiquated grid as New Yorkers’ power use jumps 50% to 90% in the next 20 years. Baxevanis said the project, when completed in 2030, will cost average ratepayers across the state around $1.90 a month.
There was even a poster in the community room saying what the project was “NOT.”
“We are NOT…a battery storage project; an offshore wind project; [or] tied to any one generation source,” the sign read.
Some residents at the Oceanside meeting weren't buying it, and they objected to the meeting's format of requiring that they write down their questions for a moderator to speak rather than being allowed to speak themselves. Most called out questions anyway.
"I find everything that's been done here to be quite disingenuous," Glen Head resident Christine Panzeca told NYPA officials after the meeting. A moderator tried repeatedly to restore order. Panzeca has been a loud opponent of a separate project to build a large battery farm at Glenwood Landing.
Rosemarie Brautigam, a Williston Park attorney whose grandchildren attend school in Glen Head, said she worries about the health impacts of three high-voltage cable lines planned for the street in front of the school. Officials said the cables will all have electromagnetic fields that are within state standards, but Panzeca showed a graph from Propel filings that indicated they would exceed the limit in one area.
One resident asked if the developers could take existing Long Island Power Authority wires on overhead lines along the same route and place them underground while the trenches were open, but officials said it wasn't possible. "We are not touching any of the old infrastructure," one official said, noting the lines are not under their jurisdiction.
The 90-mile Propel NY Energy project, expected to start construction in mid-2026, proposes to be built in six large segments in underground trenches 5 feet wide and 6 feet wide and at least 3 feet deep under rights of ways on major roadways or near Long Island Rail Road lines. Four separate bundled 345,000-volt cables also will be laid in four trenches under the Long Island Sound.
Doug Augenthaler, a Glen Head resident, said he’s attended several meetings about the project and still hasn’t received clarity on his questions about electromagnetic fields around sections of cable on Glen Head Road. “It drives me crazy,” he said. “They just will not answer questions.”
Propel at the meeting said the series of cables could provide Long Island access to cheaper upstate resources, but that could come up against constraints. For one, the act that formed LIPA prevents the utility from receiving cheap hydropower from NYPA facilities at Niagara Falls — one of the state’s biggest green-energy producers.
Susan Craig, a NYPA spokeswoman, acknowledged the constraint, but said there are other sources of green-energy upstate that the power line could deliver to downstate. Propel will “make sure that any of that green energy from solar, [land-based] wind farms, any clean electrons that are on the grid are able to flow to the places they need to go,” Craig said.
Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.
