NEW SCOTLAND — Nearly a year after four companies vied to build transmission lines across the state — including in New Scotland, Bethlehem, and Guilderland — to increase electricity for the New York City metro area, projects are in the works downstate to increase energy production by 10 times the amount proposed last January.

Governor Andrew Cuomo’s 2012 New York Energy Highway Task Force created a plan to improve the state’s energy infrastructure. Part of that plan would have expanded more than 150 miles of power transmission lines across the state to develop and carry 1,000 megawatts of electricity.

Due to pressure from upstate residents worried about effects on health, view sheds, and tourism, Cuomo and the New York State Public Service Commission altered the plan early this year and announced siting incentives.

“On February 20, 2014, the PSC directed the administrative law judges overseeing the proceeding to establish a process by which competing developers in the initiative could submit new or modified proposals that make greater use of existing transmission corridors,” the commission states on its website.  

In other words, if developers could build the transmission lines on existing towers and within existing rights-of-way, the state would streamline the process, explained Daniel Mackay, a New Scotland Town Board member and director of public policy for the Preservation League of New York State.

In New Scotland, with its large power substation with tall towers on Game Farm Road, “siting incentives were easy to meet,” Mackay said this week. “What was proposed last year was shorter,” he said.

Since February, new transmission or energy-generation projects totaling 10,000 megawatts to be delivered to mid-Dutchess County have been proposed.

“These are not technically all under construction,” Mackay said. “They’re legitimate. They are moving through their environmental reviews.”

Asked if the 10,000 megawatt projects would negate the need for the 150 miles of lines upstate, Mackay said, “It’s a big set of puzzle pieces.

“We’re concerned that [the state] is rushing down the road to this transmission build-out,” he continued. “There’s no guarantee all 10,000 megawatts gets built. Even if over one-tenth gets built, we’ve eliminated [the need for them].”

The governor’s press office did not respond about whether or not the plan for the 1,000-megawatt build-out across the state will be altered as the downstate projects receive approval.

The New York State Public Service Commission has to evaluate whether there’s a need for it, Mackay said.

“The Hudson Valley Smart Energy Coalition is suggesting…the need argument is not really there, as far as delivering 1,000 megawatts,” he said. However, he added, the age of the existing lines in New Scotland requires that a new set of lines be built.

“The need argument — even if we prove that the need is not there, there may be secondary or tertiary arguments that win out because of the age of the lines,” he said. Allowing a “passing siding” to be built upstate would “allow electricity to move around the line of service” so that repairs of major components could be made, Mackay said.

The PSC seems to have anticipated this need.

“Upgrading our transmission system will also improve the reliability of our electric grid, so customers and businesses can count on having electricity when they need it,” the PSC states.

On Jan. 15, 2015, the companies’ new proposals are due. Three of the four companies — National Grid, NEXTera Energy Transmission, and North America Transmission — previously submitted proposals that would affect the town of New Scotland. A fourth, Boundless Energy, submitted proposals for points south of the town. (For details on their initial proposals, go online to altamontenterprise.com.)

“Everything has been on hiatus — has ground to a halt,” Mackay said. “The PSC and the governor’s office have been listening very carefully to the communities involved. The Hudson Valley communities have been very quick to speak out. The tourism and agricultural base in those communities…are rebuilding their historic [identities]. They don’t want another set of towers marring the view shed.”

Utilities are under pressure to deliver better products, he said.

“I’m eager to see what comes in January,” Mackay said. “It’s a complex issue.”