05-30-09 – 11:30 a.m. - Call it an electrifying issue. A group of residents and elected officials want to take “green” to the next level in the Town of Kinderhook, allowing residents and others to create their own electricity and share it with their neighbors.
The Kinderhook Power Authority Task Force, which met for the first time in April, is working toward the goal of creating a district in the town that would be incorporated in a power authority district.
“The purpose of the task force is to explore and develop alternative energy systems and be able to share them within the town,” said Supervisor Doug McGivney, a member of the task force. “As I see it, the goal is to have a power authority like the City of Plattsburgh or one in Delaware County where the municipality would handle the distribution and collection of power from producers.” |
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The task force consists of residents and business representatives, including Derek Grout of Golden Harvest; Peter Bujanow, a town councilman who serves as chairman of the task force; and Lee Jamison, a member of the Stuyvesant Town Board.
McGivney said he envisions the district would encompass a 10-square-mile area in the town or across town borders and that residents and businesses within that area could create power to not only meet their own needs but the needs of their neighbors. Just where the district would be has yet to be determined.
“We don’t know where it would be located. We have our attorney working on it. The concept of [Assemblyman Tim Gordon] is to not limit it to municipalities,” the supervisor said.
The task force will explore all types of alternative renewable energy sources, including wind, solar, biofuels, and water.
On the state level, Gordon—who attended the April task force meeting, as did James Hanson, a representative from Gov. David Paterson’s office—is working on legislation that would allow the district to be created. Presently, state law allows only individuals or entities to use an alternative energy source for their own location. “Hurdles,” McGivney quoted Gordon as saying, limit or block the sharing of the alternative energy with others.
“I have a bill that would allow for on-site power generation and sharing within a 10-square-mile area,” Gordon told ccSCOOP. “This is a real issue as we move forward with becoming less dependent on others to provide our energy and fuel supply.” The legislation, bill number A07684, is currently in the Assembly’s Energy Committee.
Gordon added that the town should be “applauded for looking at new ways of doing business.”
Besides the “green” benefit of using alternative energy sources, McGivney said creating a local power authority district would have a direct benefit to residents within the district, which would include reduced energy costs. Locally produced energy could be produced at .025 cent per kilowatt hour, as opposed to the 20 cents charged by National Grid, a report on the first task force meeting stated. That low cost energy could be used in economic development for the town, thus having an even broader positive impact on town and community.
Creating a power authority is “an idea whose time has come," said McGivney.
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