NEW YORK CITY: NYPA Requests Additional Power for City— The Power Authority has issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for additional power supplies to meet the future electricity requirements of its New York City governmental customers. The power will be used for schools, hospitals, municipal buildings, subways and commuter trains and other essential facilities and services. The RFP “is part of my administration’s overall approach for spurring construction of new clean power plants to meet growing demand while helping to lower energy bills and climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions,” said Gov. Eliot Spitzer. “We want to encourage long-term supply contracts to facilitate the financing and construction of new generation by offering predictable and stable revenues to potential power plant developers,” Spitzer said. Infrastructure improvements are crucial for the reliability of the electric power system, along with a major push in energy efficiency to lower demand for power by 15 percent from forecasted levels by 2015, he added. The RFP seeks proposals for up to approximately 500 megawatts (mw) of in-city capacity from bidders whose projects are far enough along in the siting, engineering, procurement and permitting processes that they likely could be in service by 2010 to 2012. Bids are due by Dec. 20 and a final decision will be made by April 2008.

LEWISTON: Power Authority Makes First Relicensing Payments—Stakeholder groups and other entities involved in the relicensing of NYPA’s Niagara Power Project have begun receiving the first in a series of annual payments as part of their settlement agreements with the Power Authority. The payments and their timing over the next 50 years were spelled out in the agreements, which took effect in conjunction with the project’s new federal license on Sept. 1. In October, NYPA announced the start of annual payments to host communities (represented by the Niagara Power Coalition), the Tuscarora Nation, the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation and the Empire State Development Corporation, which will assist local groups in renovating the Buffalo waterfront. Later this month, one-time payments will be made to Niagara University, the Niagara Falls Water Board, the state Department of Environmental Conservation and Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper. As part of its relicensing, NYPA is also establishing four funds to help create and maintain the Niagara River Greenway. Additional funding will be made available for habitat improvement projects and recreational enhancements.

WADDINGTON: Walleye, Sturgeon Spawning Beds Completed— As part of its new federal license for the St. Lawrence-FDR Power Project, renewed in 2003, NYPA committed $9 million to create and maintain 10 Habitat Improvement Projects (HIP) to benefit a variety of birds, mammals, fish and plants native to the North Country. Construction of two of the HIPs was completed in October. They are designed to enhance spawning opportunities for walleye and lake sturgeon in the St. Lawrence River. Under a contract with NYPA, Perras Excavating Inc. of Massena placed a layer of cobbles and rocks upstream and downstream of an existing walleye spawning area on Brandy Brook, a tributary of the St. Lawrence in Waddington. The St. Lawrence River Walleye Association reports that similar walleye spawning beds on the Canadian side of the river have produced excellent results. Walleye are a popular sport fish on the St. Lawrence. J. E. Sheehan Contracting Corp. of Potsdam installed lake sturgeon spawning beds, intended to create conditions and substrate similar to natural spawning areas, upstream and downstream of the Iroquois Dam. Each of the two large-gravel, one-foot-thick beds covers about 10,000 square feet of river bed. Lake sturgeon are a threatened species in New York State. If the sturgeon spawning bed is successful, NYPA will install up to four more on the St. Lawrence. NYPA will monitor both the Brandy Brook and Iroquois Dam sites in the spring. Construction of eight of the 10 promised NYPA HIPs has been completed, supporting grassland birds, Blanding’s turtle, common loons, common terns and osprey. One project facilitates passage of spawning fish – particularly northern pike – into Coles Creek during spring and the exit of young fish from the creek to the river in late summer.

LEWISTON: Western New York Businesses Get Power Allocations—Power Authority trustees have approved low-cost hydropower allocations to four companies in Niagara and Erie counties: Niagara Sheets, Wheatfield; Hurtubise Tire, North Tonawanda; Ashton Products, Depew; and Great Lakes Concrete Products, Hamburg. The allocations will help create a total of 173 new jobs and lead to $18.5 million in capital investments. The power allocations will total 1,990 kilowatts (kw) from the Power Authority’s Niagara Power Project here. Niagara Sheets, a new company that will produce corrugated fiberboard sheets used in manufacturing boxes, will receive a 1,000-kw allocation in return for 64 new jobs. Niagara Sheets is a joint venture by three local companies: Jamestown Container Corp., Smurfit-Stone Container Enterprises and Norampac Industries. Hurtubise Tire, a truck tire recapping business, will be allotted 180 kw in return for 15 new jobs. The low-cost power is expected to build a case for the company to expand in Western New York rather than out-of-state. Ashton Products, a print manufacturing company whose clients include the U.S. Postal Service, will receive 700 kw and create 48 jobs at a newly leased building in Depew. It has an existing facility in Amherst. Great Lakes Concrete Products, which distributes products for road construction, parking lots and home and building use, will receive a 110-kw allocation and plans to add 46 new jobs.

NEW YORK CITY: NYPA Engineer Named ‘Woman Leader’—Jennifer Mayadas-Dering, a resident of Katonah, Westchester County, was selected as NYPA’s 2007 Woman Leader and honored at the 34th Annual Academy of Women Leaders Salute Lunch, sponsored by the YWCA of the City of New York, on Nov. 15, at the New York Hilton. Following a lifelong love of power engineering, Mayadas-Dering came to the Power Authority as an intern in 1994. Her leadership skills and technical insight drew her to increasingly challenging assignments that parallel many of the Power Authority’s recent major achievements. Her career advancements led to her current position as as manager, operations planning, for NYPA’s Transmission Business Unit. Mayadas-Dering cites her work as construction engineer for NYPA’s ambitious In-city Generation Project, where she oversaw the design, construction and testing of 11 small generators at seven sites in and around New York City in 2001, as a career turning point. Due to the project’s compressed time frame, Mayadas-Dering says working on it gave her the equivalent of three years of education in six months.

QUEENS: City’s Greenest Building Has NYPA Solar Panels—When New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled his city’s greenest building earlier this fall, some of the electricity used to power the event came from a rooftop solar photovoltaic system installed by NYPA. The Queens Botanical Garden’s new Visitor & Administration Building, which opened to the public on Sept. 28, was designed to achieve the highest rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. The main roof of the $12 million center includes 5,544 photovoltaic cells capable of generating 15 kilowatts of solar power, meeting about 20 percent of the building’s electricity needs. NYPA’s installation includes a touch-screen kiosk, allowing visitors to monitor the solar system’s energy production. A green roof over the auditorium has native plants that insulate the room below, and a sloping canopy roof over the terrace collects rain run-off into a pond for filtering and reuse. The new center uses 40 percent less energy than a typical building of its size. To learn more, visit: www.queensbotanical.org .