NECA And Hydroelectric Power Generation Initiatives
In a 2007 conference ,sponsored by the Northeast Energy and Commerce Association in New England, Gordon van Welie, President an CEO of ISO New England Inc, said that the only way New England will meet new carbon-emission standards by the year 2020 is by changing fuel generation mixtures from natural gas and coal-fired generating plants to nuclear energy, renewable energy and by importing hyrdroelectric energy from Canada.
According to van Welie, natural gas is the primary fuel for 40 of New England’s power plants, an increase from 17 in 2000, and that natural gas combined with oil are the primary fuels for 60 of the region’s power plant generation.I found some more information here.As long as this continues, New England will remain captive to the volatile global oil and natural gas markets.
Along with the volatile gas and oil markets, new standards imposed on carbon-gas emissions by the Regional Green House Gas Iniative, going into effect in 2020, will not be met by gas and oil-fired generating plants. But, shifting over to nuclear, renewable resources and hydroelectric importation from Canada bring an additional set of problems to the New England energy market that serves 6.5 million electricity customers.
There are huge development costs, as well as engineering issues, not only in building nuclear energy plants, but in developing technology for the renewable resources, such as solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, and enabling New England power plants to produce energy cheaply and efficiently from these sources. There are also problems with the transmission of these sources of energy that would be costly and may have to be developed.
Right now combined, renewable resources and hydroelectric power make-up around seven percent of the generating capacity in New England. While in 2020, renewables, primarily wind and bio-mass, are expected to supply 17 of the energy supply in the region.