PSNH’s Clean Energy Plan

Strategy #2.   Advance Renewable Energy

With nine hydroelectric stations and a 50-megawatt biomass plant, PSNH has a higher percentage of renewable energy (17%) than any other major utility in New England—and we’re working to build even more.

Cocoa Bean Energy Partnership

In early 2009, PSNH partnered with local chocolate maker Lindt & Sprungli to test a new renewable fuel source at PSNH’s Schiller Station in Portsmouth—waste cocoa-bean shells. Results from this first-in-the-nation pilot project are currently being verified by a third-party auditor. Pending approval by the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, the Lindt plant in Stratham, NH, will begin trucking cocoa-bean shells to Schiller Station in early 2010. Every ton of cocoa bean shells used to generate electricity for PSNH customers will displace the need to burn one half-ton of coal.

Solar at PSNH

In 2009, PSNH will install the state’s largest array of solar panels on the roof of its Energy Park headquarters building in Manchester. This 51-kilowatt array is expected to produce enough power to satisfy about five percent of the facility’s energy needs, or the same amount of energy used by about seven average New Hampshire homes. The power produced by the Energy Park solar array will offset more than 100,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions each year that would otherwise be created through the burning of fossil fuels.

Lempster Wind Power

In 2008, PSNH began purchasing power for its customers from the state’s first commercial-scale wind farm, in Lempster, NH. Long-term “power supply agreements”—such as PSNH’s contract with the Lempster wind farm—help support private renewable energy development in New Hampshire by providing developers with a higher degree of financial certainty. PSNH’s power supply agreements also include contracts with several privately owned wood-fired and hydroelectric stations in New Hampshire.

Northern Wood Power Project

Completed in December of 2006, the Northern Wood Power Project (NWPP) permanently replaced a 50-megawatt coal-burning boiler at PSNH’s Schiller Station in Portsmouth, NH, with a state-of-the-art, wood-burning boiler of the same capacity, effectively reducing air emissions by more than 400,000 tons annually. The NWPP is unique in that it replaced an existing utility coal-fired boiler with one that runs on wood chips, thereby reducing PSNH’s coal use by 130,000 tons a year. To our knowledge, this project represents that largest coal-to-wood repowering conversion in the nation.

Canadian Hydro

Today, about 75 percent of the proposed generation in New England is fossil-fueled. We can reduce the need for these new fossil-fuel power plants by connecting to the massive hydroelectric reserves just over the border in Canada. PSNH’s parent company, Northeast Utilities, is forwarding a plan to help bring 1,200 megawatts of clean hydro power from Quebec into New England.

Reducing Emissions at Existing Power Plants

While PSNH is working to increase New Hampshire’s share of renewable energy, it is also investing in its existing power plants to make sure they’re operating as cleanly as possible. Cutting emissions at existing power plants is critical, because we will need these resources to serve as a “bridge” over the next 10 to 20 years while New Hampshire strives to increase its total share of renewable energy from 11 percent (2006) to 25 percent or more.

Since 1989, PSNH has invested more than $125 million in power plant technologies that have dramatically reduced pollutants such as nitrogen oxide (NOx) and particulate emissions at its three fossil fuel-burning generating stations. PSNH has also taken innovative steps—such as switching to a low sulfur content coal—to further reduce emissions. In recent years, efficiency upgrades at PSNH’s fossil fuel and hydroelectric stations have contributed to reductions in carbon dioxide, and a major project is currently underway at Merrimack Station to significantly reduce mercury and sulfur dioxide emissions.

‹‹  1. Increase Customers’ Energy Savings

3. Green PSNH’s Business  ››