The National Grid utility wants to increase its efforts to heat its customers’ homes and businesses with gas produced from recycling human and food waste – and wants you to pay for it as part of a proposed rate hike.
National Grid says its proposal to use biogas and sewage as fuel for customers – which it is already testing at the Newtown Creek wastewater treatment plant – is part of its efforts to go green: it will avoid carbon emissions and replace them. broken gas.
But some environmental activists warn against the proposed National Grid projects. They pointed to the continued deterioration of the company’s existing system at the Newtown Creek wastewater treatment plant in Greenpoint, where much of the methane created ended up being flared into the atmosphere instead of being sent to gas customers.
The state Public Service Commission must approve the proposal, or an amended version of it, for National Grid to move ahead with the landfills and raise customer bills to pay for them.
If cleared by regulators, National Grid could charge its New York City customers about $13.2 million to cover capital costs (Long Island customers could be at risk of about $9.9 million). The company expects these four systems to be operational by mid-2027.
Like a stomach, the Newtown Creek plant digests sewage and food scraps that the Department of Sanitation collects in orange bins on street corners, in public schools and curbside in brown household bins. That digestion process creates biogas, which helps power the plant. Excess gas must go to the homes and businesses of National Grid customers.
When the biogas cleaning equipment is at a high level and injected into the grid is down – whether for maintenance, malfunction or testing – the excess gas is “flared”, releasing carbon dioxide, instead of being used to heat homes. Between April 2023 and March 2024, the system was offline almost as often as it was online, records show.
“Why are we bringing more industrial pollution to these communities?” said Meagan Burton, senior attorney for Earthjustice, which is also representing the WE ACT for Environmental Justice in the National Grid rate hearings.
He said that between the financial costs to customers and the greenhouse gas impacts of the new facilities, the proposed projects would amount to a “double whammy for taxpayers” – and the company has not shown it can handle the work it already has.
In an email to ETHEKWINI, National Grid spokeswoman Karen Young said converting organic waste into usable gas could play a “huge role” in meeting climate goals.
“The Newtown Creek facility is an innovative project that has had a positive impact on reducing emissions from our network,” he wrote. “Like many pilot projects, we encountered some challenges when we first started working.”
Meanwhile, the mayor’s budget cuts are closing dozens of composting sites and community collections that turn food scraps into nutritious soil. As the city develops its municipal waste collection system, wastewater treatment facilities are poised to play a major role in processing that material.
According to the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, Newtown Creek overflowed 80% less in the first four months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2022, before the National Grid project began operating.
“While we have enjoyed a significant decrease in fires year over year, we are working hard to reduce that number,” DEP spokesman Ted Timbers said in an email.
Will It Work?
Under the proposal, National Grid wants to connect its gas system to the grid at two existing wastewater treatment facilities: the city’s plant in South Ozone Park, Queens, and one in Nassau County. The company is also proposing to stop its joint venture at two plants that have yet to be built, one in Staten Island and the other in Suffolk County.
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