NRG Energy Inc. plans to file an application with the state in which it will expand upon unit conversion plans at its Montville power plant, something company officials say could create as many as 200 full-time jobs.
New Jersey-based NRG has scheduled a news conference for 1:30 p.m. Monday at the Lathrop Road plant. David Gaier, spokesman for NRG’s Northeast operations, declined to give details of the filing.
“It will be a little bit of a departure from our regular biomass project,” he said Thursday.
Last year the company announced plans to convert Unit 5 at its Montville plant from an 82-megawatt oil and natural gas-fired unit to a 40-megawatt biomass-, or wood-, fired facility. Local leaders formed a group called the Renew Montville Coalition to support the project with Montville Mayor Ron McDaniel as its chairman.
“I’m pleased with what’s happening and I’m looking forward to Monday,” McDaniel said Thursday.
The filing is to be made Monday with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and will include solar and wind components, according to state Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague. Osten and state State Rep. Timothy Bowles, D-Preston, met recently with NRG representatives.
DEEP spokesman Dennis Schain didn’t have any comment Thursday on NRG’s plans, but promised to check into the matter.
The DEEP is expected to reply within two weeks, Osten said. NRG seeks to receive U.S. government tax credits that expire in December, she said. Construction crews at a planned Plainfield biomass plant are working around the clock to meet the tax credit deadline.
“It’s a super-good project,” Osten said, saying it could create 200 full-time jobs. “It’s going to be a quick turnaround, which is unusual for Connecticut.”
Ray Long, an NRG manager, is a member of a clean energy campus task force chaired by Bowles. The task force is considering whether to establish clean energy operations at the former Norwich Hospital property in Preston that may include manufacturing of fuel cells and solar panels as well as job training and electricity generation.
Bowles said recently the NRG plant should be included in a energy corridor concept that would stretch across New London and Windham counties and include the University of Connecticut branches in Storrs and Groton. The task force’s report is scheduled to be published by Jan. 1.
Bowles classified NRG’s expansion plans as “a renewable energy park” that will include solar and fuel cell technology. NRG, which had $8.4 billion in revenue and $579 million in net income in the year ended Dec. 31, 2012, has sufficient financial resources to make good on its proposals, he said.
“It’s a very exciting project,” said Bowles, a former chairman of the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund. “If we can string these projects together along the (Interstate) 395 corridor some great things will happen.”
NRG will be able to provide the lowest-cost electricity generation in the Class I category under Connecticut Renewable Portfolio Standards monitored by the DEEP, Gaier said recently. The standards include a goal of having 20 percent of Connecticut’s energy produced by Class I sources by the year 2020. Plants using “sustainable biomass” are considered Class 1 sources, state DEEP regulations say.