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The Loss Of NRG Creates Many Holes In The County

The decision by NRG to end its effort to repower its Dunkirk power plant, while expected, is still a punch in the gut.

There is no use at this point in crying over spilled milk. The community, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo, did the best it could do to make the NRG repowering successful. Our best wasn’t good enough; it’s time to move on.

It was good to hear last week that Dunkirk officials, as well as state Assemblyman Andrew Goodell, R-Jamestown, and state Sen. Catharine Young, R-Olean, have been working on contingency plans for the past couple of years, including hopes that another power producer would step in and operate the plant. That would make sense in the wake of a story reported by our sister paper, the Dunkirk OBSERVER, on July 3. Without the NRG Dunkirk and Huntley power plants in operation, Western New York paid the highest rates for electricity in the state. As temperatures hovered near 90 degrees during 1 p.m. on Monday afternoon, the New York Independent System Operator zone maps and pricing showed our region at $168.17 per MWh — the highest across the state — while the marginal cost of energy to the state was $64.23 per MWh. As a comparison, the cost for power downstate was half of our amount — $82.78 in New York City and $84.30 in Long Island. Northern New York was paying the least at $45.85.

A second option is whether there’s a substantial electrical user that might be interested in the facility that could benefit from the existing electrical infrastructure. The final option would be to market the facility to anyone else interested in making a substantial investment and employment opportunities as well.

It is good that there are paths forward. We hope those paths pay dividends soon. In addition to spikes in the price of power, the loss of NRG creates holes in upcoming budgets for Chautauqua County, the city of Dunkirk and the Dunkirk City Central School District; finding a new tenant for the NRG property should take priority status for our county’s economic development officials.