New York Power Authority

The New York Power Authority (NYPA), officially the Power Authority of the State of New York, is a New York State public-benefit corporation. It is the largest state public power utility in the United States. NYPA provides some of the lowest-cost electricity in the nation, operating 16 generating facilities and more than 1,400 circuit-miles of transmission lines. Its main administrative offices are in White Plains.

New York Power Authority
TypeNew York state authority
IndustryPower generation
Founded1931
FounderFranklin D. Roosevelt
Headquarters
White Plains
,
United States
Key people
Gil C. Quiniones - President and CEO
ProductsElectricity generation
OwnerState of New York
Websitewww.nypa.gov

NYPA uses no state tax dollars and incurs no state debt, financing its projects principally through the sale of bonds. The bonds are repaid and the projects operated using revenues from operations.

State and federal regulations determine NYPA’s customer base, which includes large and small businesses, not-for-profit organizations, public power systems and government agencies. NYPA also sells electricity to private utilities for resale (without profit) to their customers, and to neighboring states, under federal requirements. Approximately 70 percent of the electricity NYPA produces is clean renewable hydropower.

The New York Power Authority has been financially responsible for the New York State Canal Corporation since April 2016 and has owned it since January 1, 2017.[1]

Organization

Since 2011, the President and Chief Executive Officer has been Gil C. Quiniones. The executive staff report to a 7-member board.[2] In 2017, it had operating expenses of $2.335 billion, an outstanding debt of $1.305 billion, and a staffing level of 2,327 people.[3]

Operations

Electric power produced from NYPA's facilities – in addition to being sold to large and small businesses, not-for-profit organizations, public power systems, government agencies, private utilities for resale (without profit) to their customers, and neighboring states, under federal requirements – is sold into the wholesale electricity market of New York State, which is administered by the NYISO. One of the larger direct sales customers of electric power is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. NYPA also provides electrical engineering consulting services to the MTA when the MTA is planning for and building new power facilities.

Facilities

Hydroelectric generation

NYPA operates three large hydroelectric complexes: the 2,441-megawatt (MW) Niagara Power Project, on the Niagara River in Lewiston; the 800-MW St. Lawrence-Franklin D. Roosevelt Power Project, on the St. Lawrence River in Massena; and the 1,160-MW Blenheim-Gilboa Pumped Storage Power Project in the Catskill Mountain towns of North Blenheim and Gilboa.

NYPA also has four small hydro facilities with a net capability of 10-MW: the Ashokan Project in Ulster County, the Crescent Plant in Albany and Saratoga counties, the Gregory B. Jarvis Plant in Oneida County and the Vischer Ferry Plant in Schenectady and Saratoga counties.

Gas-fired generation

Other generating facilities include two highly efficient natural gas-fueled combined cycle power plants: the 150-MW Richard M. Flynn Power Plant, in Holtsville, Long Island and a 500-MW facility, in Astoria, Queens.

Additionally, NYPA operates ten small power plants also fuelled by natural gas. Those sites – six in New York City and one in Long Island – combined output 460-MW.[4]

Electric transmission lines

The hub of NYPA’s statewide power transmission facilities is the Frederick R. Clark Energy Center, in Marcy, New York. NYPA’s high-voltage transmission assets include a 765-kilovolt (kV) line that stretches more than 100 miles from the Canada–US border to the Clark Energy Center and almost 1,000 miles of 345-kV power lines that crisscross New York State, including the Marcy South line and a 26.3 mi (42.3 km) transmission project, that follows an underground and underwater path from Westchester County to Long Island.

New York State Canal Corporation

The New York Power Authority has been financially responsible for the New York State Canal Corporation since April 2016 and has owned it since January 1, 2017.[5]

History

Governor Roosevelt signed the Power Authority Act into law on April 27, 1931.

St. Lawrence Power Project

St. Lawrence-Franklin D. Roosevelt Power Project

The International Joint Commission granted its approval for a cross-border construction project in 1952. In 1953, the Federal Power Commission issued a license for NYPA to develop the U.S. portion of a power dam crossing the Canada–US border. On May 13, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation that cleared the way for construction of both a hydroelectric facility and the St. Lawrence Seaway. First power was achieved in July 1958, and on June 27, 1959, Queen Elizabeth II and Vice President Richard M. Nixon formally dedicated the St. Lawrence Project as a symbol of international cooperation. In 1981, NYPA’s half of the cross-border power dam was renamed the St. Lawrence-Franklin D. Roosevelt Power Project in honor of the man who founded the Power Authority half a century earlier.

Niagara Power Project

Niagara Power Vista

In 1956, a rock slide destroyed most of the Niagara Mohawk Power Corp.’s Schoellkopf hydropower plant, resulting in a power shortage that endangered thousands of local manufacturing jobs. In response to the emergency, Congress passed the Niagara Redevelopment Act in 1957. After obtaining a license from the Federal Power Commission, Robert Moses commenced work on NYPA’s second hydroelectric generating station in early 1958. When it was completed, three years later, the Niagara Power Project was the largest facility of its kind in the Western world. In a recorded message broadcast February 10, 1961, to mark first power, President John F. Kennedy called the Niagara project “an outstanding engineering achievement” and an “example to the world of North American efficiency and determination.”

Blenheim-Gilboa Power Project

Blenheim-Gilboa Pumped Storage Power Project
Legislation signed by Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller in 1968 allowed NYPA to expand its generation assets and build nuclear and pumped storage power projects. This led to construction of the Blenheim-Gilboa Pumped Storage Power Project, which produced electricity for the first time in July 1973, and the James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant (named after a NYPA chairman), in Scriba, Oswego County, where power was first generated in February 1975.

See also

References
  1. "N.Y. Power Authority to Assume Ownership of Canal Corporation on New Year's Day". New York Power Authority. January 2, 2017. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
  2. "NYPA Org Webpage". November 5, 2018.
  3. "NYSABO 2018 Report" (PDF). November 5, 2018. pp. 16, 29, 44.
  4. "NYPA Generating Facilities".
  5. "N.Y. Power Authority to Assume Ownership of Canal Corporation on New Year's Day". New York Power Authority. January 2, 2017. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
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