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Fair RVC gets $100,000 grant to study ‘microgrid’
Will explore methods of maintaining village’s power supply in a blackout
Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced last week that Rockville Centre was one of 14 Long Island municipalities to be awarded grants to help develop resilient and clean energy.
The grant, part of a competition called NY Prize and the governor’s Reforming the Energy Vision initiative to develop more clean and reliable energy, is one of 83 that was awarded to municipalities across the state. The approximately $100,000 prize will be used for an engineering study of how the village can add power generation capability and develop a community “microgrid” — an independent energy-generation system that can help in the event of large-scale power outages.
Other Long Island communities that won grant money included the City of Long Beach, the Town of Hempstead and the villages of East Rockaway and Freeport.
“New Yorkers have firsthand experience regarding the need for resilient and efficient power systems that can withstand whatever Mother Nature has in store for us,” Cuomo said in a release. “This funding will help communities across New York invest in these new systems, which will ensure critically important institutions such as police and fire stations, hospitals and schools can continue operating during and in the aftermath of an extreme weather event.”
Phil Andreas, who heads Rockville Centre’s Electric Department, led the village’s effort to apply for the grant, which is being offered by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. The goal of the competition is to improve the resiliency of power systems so they can better withstand storms like Hurricane Sandy.
Under its proposal, the village’s Electric Department would add solar panels to its grid, as well as more dual-fuel or gas-fired generators. This would add six to 12 megawatts to the village’s power output, which is about 33 megawatts.
The new systems would help the Electric Department better handle day-to-day usage. And in the event of a storm, the microgrid system would keep power flowing to some key locations.
