Renewable Energy: Challenges on Fishers Island

August 19, 2020
By Tom Siebens, Director
Fishers Island Electric Corporation

Over the past two decades, Fishers Island Electric has researched three forms of renewable energy generation: wind, tidal and solar.  The island’s current source of supply from the New England grid via an undersea cable from Groton Utilities has proven reliable for decades and is expected to remain so.  Renewables, however, offer carbon-free generation, enhanced energy security and, potentially, a hedge against rising costs of conventional power.

The research shows that renewables face technical, regulatory and economic challenges, some of which are unique to the island.  A way forward is becoming clearer, though it will require overcoming significant obstacles.

Technical Challenges

Wind Energy. Onshore, studies commissioned by the Electric Company over a decade ago indicated that the airfield is the only viable location on the island for a mini-wind farm of several turbines.  The airfield has the best wind profile with little topographical interference and, given some concern with generator noise, has the benefit of some distance from residential areas.  However, abandoning the airport in order to install wind turbine towers would likely be a non-starter for the island community and the Town of Southold, which owns the airport.

Offshore, the Electric Company has considered whether it might tap into any of the wind farms being developed far offshore of Montauk and Block Island.  To date, the Company is unaware of any plans to route transmission cables near Fishers Island from these projects.

Tidal Energy.  In 2015, the Electric Company consulted a developer of tidal power on the viability of installing tidal turbines in The Race.  The evidence available indicated that the tidal velocities in The Race are insufficient to make the tidal turbines currently available cost-effective.  An application to the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority for grant funding for a survey to confirm velocities in various water columns in The Race was denied because the Authority views tidal technology as unproven.  Given the costs for further research and the limitations of turbine technology, the Electric Company did not pursue tidal energy.

Solar Energy.  The Electric Company first considered in 2013 whether it could take electric power from a house built with a solar photovoltaic system on its roof.  Proposals for a solar farm on the Pickett Landfill were considered in 2014 and 2017.  These initiatives highlighted two technical challenges to incorporating solar or other renewables into the island’s energy mix.

The first is load balancing.  The entire demand for electric power on the island, the “demand load”, is met today with power supplied by Groton Utilities.  Taking power from a second source, such as a solar farm, will require “load balancing”, controlling power input from two sources so that it matches the demand load.  Additional infrastructure will be needed, as well as operating agreements among Groton Utilities, the Electric Company and whoever owns the second power source.  Load balancing will get more complex if power input to the island’s electric grid comes from multiple sources such as solar panels on houses and commercial buildings.

The second technical challenge is the seasonality of the demand load.  The island’s demand for electricity fluctuates significantly between its low point in winter and peak in summer.  Micro-generation capacity, from solar panels or otherwise, that can meet the low demand could be used year-round.  Generation capacity beyond that might make sense to supply high demand load in summer, but would be under-utilized and wasted in lower demand periods.

Regulatory Challenges

An electric utility generally is required to maintain electricity distribution infrastructure with enough capacity to provide 100% of each customer’s power needs, even if some customers, at times, use solar or other renewable sources of power.  Maintaining that capacity represents a fixed cost that the utility recovers in electric rates, which include a “capacity charge” component.  Yet rate revenue from a customer that uses its own renewable generation typically drops.  The customer buys less power from the electric utility.  In addition, under “net metering”, revenue from power the customer does purchase is reduced by credits for surplus renewable power the customer does not use but supplies to the electric grid.

Faced with such a reduced revenue scenario, Fishers Island Electric would have to increase rates to recover its fixed costs, resulting in higher electricity bills for customers, including those who do not have renewable energy facilities.  An upward spiral of rates could drive still more customers, if they could afford it, to install solar or other renewable power generation, compounding the problem.

In effect, although more renewable generation would be good for green energy, it could conflict with the Electric Company’s policy goal of recovering its fixed costs in a way that is fair and keeps electricity as affordable as possible across the community.  To accommodate net metering, the Company would need to introduce a system charge, applicable regardless of power consumption or net metering.  Revenue would have to increase to cover the financing of load balancing infrastructure as well as a costly rate study required by the Public Service Commission to help it evaluate whether the new rate structure unfairly impacts different groups of customers.

The challenges of designing fair rate structures and revenue recovery is the reason small electric utilities like Fishers Island Electric are not required to offer net metering.

Economic Challenges

Given its other investment needs, the Electric Company cannot justify to its ratepayers or the Public Service Commission building its own renewable generation capacity, especially with the risk that the power produced would cost more than power purchased from Groton Utilities.  Similarly, if renewable generation capacity is built by others, the Electric Company cannot commit to purchasing the power produced unless the price is competitive with Groton Utilities.  The Company has not yet seen a proposal that addresses the competitive cost challenge.

Another challenge to renewable power developers generally is the uncertainty of subsidies and tax incentives for renewable energy.  Government tax credits for construction are changeable.  State tax credits for building renewable generation facilities in New York may not be available if the power is transmitted out of the state to Connecticut and the New England grid.  In New York, rate subsidies are not currently available to enable renewable power producers to sell their power at rates low enough to compete with power from conventional generation.

The Way Forward

Despite the challenges, renewable energy is being incorporated into the Electric Company’s plans for modernizing the electricity infrastructure on Fishers Island.  The modernization has three goals: (1) updating obsolete and aging infrastructure, (2) expanding the infrastructure to supply higher demand loads and (3) integrating renewable on-island generation.  Planning is needed to ensure that these goals are addressed in a coordinated and cost-effective way.

Three main issues have to be addressed.  First is how to ensure the ability to load balance power supplied from micro-generation, which may be configured in different ways.  Solar power, for example, could come from individual houses, from a solar farm, or from micro-grids.  These grids are small networks that share renewable power generation and power storage but at times produce surplus power in excess of the network’s needs.

The second issue is how to make development of renewable generation cost-effective.  It will be less economic to build micro-generation capacity that produces power in excess of the island’s lowest average demand during the off-season if that excess capacity cannot be fully utilized all year long.  The Electric Company might be the off-taker for some of the surplus power during higher demand periods.  But power beyond the needs of the Electric Company will be lost unless it can be sold to a purchaser off-island.

This leads to the third main issue: how to plan for an additional undersea cable that provides more power transmission capacity than is available with the present cable.  Among the justifications for a new cable is that it would provide capacity for producers of surplus renewable power to deliver and sell that power to an off-taker on the mainland.

Modernizing the island’s electricity infrastructure with these issues and goals in mind will take time, engineering studies and, eventually, financing, supported by rate increases.  The challenges to bringing cost-effective renewable generation to the island are significant.  A number of modernization projects will have to take priority over renewables.  The technical and regulatory environment will continue to change.  But the Electric Company fully supports renewable generation as an objective and looks forward to the community’s continued interest and support in achieving it.

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Image credit: Harvesting Solar, Wind and Tidal Power – Environment for Kids | Children’s Earth Sciences Books

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Important Information in case of Emergencies: Code Red

Important Information in case of Emergencies: Code Red

From the CodeRED Community Notification System c/o FI Utility Co.

SIGN UP TODAY

We want to remind you that Fishers Island has licensed the CodeRED Community Notification System to help disseminate important or critical information or in the event of an actual or impending emergency. We encourage all residents and businesses to go to the www.fiuc.net/emergencies Website and click on the Code RED text located in the left-hand column and follow the instructions to enter their contact information, including additional phone numbers, and text and email addresses, to ensure all of the data in our system is accurate and current.

Alternatively, you may also call Office of Emergency Management’s Customer Service Center 631-852-4900, Monday through Friday, (9AM-5PM) to supply your information over the phone.

In the off chance 911 is down, and you reside in the Southold Town Police jurisdiction including Fishers Island or Shelter Island and have an emergency please call Southold Town police at 631-765-2562.

On Fishers you can also call directly to the Trooper (788-7600), constables or doctor on Island. Southold Town police (non-emergency) # is 631 765-2600

On Fishers you can also call directly to the Trooper (788-7600), constables or doctor on Island.

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Sharing the Cost to Renovate Our Island Water Distribution Network

February 21, 2020

The Water Company is planning a major renovation of the water distribution system on Fishers Island.  This multi-year, multi-million-dollar infrastructure project has to be undertaken given the age and condition of the island’s network of cast iron water mains, many of which date back to the early 1900s.

This article is an overview of the investment required for this project, plans for financing that investment and the Company’s review of its rate structure.*

Project investment and borrowing.  Based on preliminary estimates, the investment required for the renovation will be substantial.  For example, the cost of detailed engineering plans for a network of replacement water mains is estimated at over $1.0 million.  Phase 1 of actual construction, a new trunk main running west from the wells at Middle Farms to the intersection of Montauk and Oriental Avenues, is estimated at around $4.0 million.

The Water Company expects to finance the renovation by borrowing.  It plans to do so in several tranches of loans over a period of years as the design and construction phases progress.  In parallel stages, the Company will have to increase its revenues in order to finance the borrowing costs, mainly interest and principal payments, over the life of the loans.

The Fair Allocation Issue.  Given the size of the impending financing costs for the renovation, the Water Company is considering whether its rate structure allocates the costs of the water system fairly between water customers, who benefit from potable water services, and property owners, who benefit from the fire protection infrastructure.

This allocation issue was debated in many water districts during the 20th century as water systems originally built exclusively for potable water were made more robust for fire protection or, conversely, systems built for fire protection were adapted to add potable water services.  While charging customers based on water consumption is fairly straightforward, charging for fire protection infrastructure that is used sporadically in emergencies is less so.  That infrastructure includes hydrants, standby water reservoirs for surges in water demand during a fire, supplemental high lift pressure pumps, and over-sized water mains to deliver higher volumes of water than needed for potable water services.

In the end, the water industry developed an allocation formula, now widely accepted, for estimating a water utility’s costs that are fire-related based on fire demand vs total utility demand for water.  Applying the industry formula to Fishers Island, 70% of the Water Company’s revenue would come from water customers. The remaining 30% would come from property owners via property taxes allocated to the Fire District, which leases the fire protection infrastructure from the Water Company.

The Company’s current revenue split between these two sources is 93% from water customers and 7% from property owners via the fire infrastructure lease.  In effect, according to the industry formula, water customers are providing a 23% subsidy to property owners for fire protection infrastructure.  Year-round water customers pay a disproportionate amount of this subsidy.

The Goal.  The Water Company has not made a final determination on how to change its rate structure to ensure that it has funds when needed to finance each phase of the distribution system renovation.  The goal will be to raise Company revenues, in stages over time, in a way that spreads the costs the entire water system more in line with industry standards.  The process will involve migrating the rate structure by weighting rate increases more toward property owners.

This could mean, for example, increasing incrementally charges to the Fire District under its infrastructure lease, leading to increases in property taxes to fund the resulting increases in the District’s annual budgets. However, the Fire District faces other budget considerations, such as financing a proposed firehouse renovation and housing a paid professional.

In any case, the Water Company is continuing its discussions with independent professional advisors, the Public Service Commission and the Fire District as a matter of priority given the critical nature of the renovation project.  Fishers Island is not alone.  Fresh water for daily use and water at high pressure from neighborhood hydrants have been taken for granted in water districts across the United States for decades.  But water main networks over 100 years old are now in many ways obsolete.  Across the country, water districts are facing this issue and an estimated $1 trillion of renovation costs.

The good news is that, by spreading the financing costs over time and across water customers and property owners, the community can support the renovation.  Moreover, with modern materials and engineering, renovated water distribution infrastructure is highly cost-effective: it is easy to maintain, reliable and can serve for another 100 years.

Tom Siebens, Director
Fishers Island Water Works Corporation

*This is the second in a series of articles about the renovation of the water distribution infrastructure on Fishers Island.  See “Renovating the Island’s Water Distribution System”, January 27, 2020, posted on www.FishersIsland.net and included in the February 2020 Fog Horn e-newsletter.

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Renovating the Island’s Water Distribution System

January 27, 2020

The Challenge

The water distribution system on Fishers Island — it’s 22 miles of water mains, control valves and 148 hydrants – needs major renovation. Most of the system’s cast iron pipes are between 100 and 120 years old and increasingly at risk of collapse due to corrosive processes in buried iron pipe. The potential for a collapse is high based on the average pipe age and corrosion observed in samples of pipe. In addition to becoming brittle with age, cast iron mains over time become coated with iron and other minerals, reducing water pressure and flow.

The water system suffers from other constraints as a result of how it was created. Originally, Fishers Island had three systems, operated independently by the East End Water Company, the West Water Company and, at Fort Wright, by the U.S. Army. These were retrofitted into a single system over time as the demands for water services on Fishers Island grew beyond what was envisioned a century ago.

Fishers Island is not alone. Water systems across America, built early in the 1900s, face these issues with water main networks. In 2017, the American Water Works Association estimated that $1 trillion of investment is needed nationwide to renovate the country’s water distribution systems. The costs will only increase over time. Deferred renovation leads to greater system deterioration and requires expensive, crisis interventions.

The good news on Fishers Island is that plentiful, quality fresh water sources at Middle Farms have been secured for the foreseeable future as the result of recommissioning a third well, building a state-of-the-art well filtration plant and, as a back-up, taking steps to better protect the area’s aquifers and the interconnected reservoir ponds. With continued responsible stewardship of the island’s aquifers, the community should not face the hazards of saltwater incursion or toxic chemicals and waste leaching into its fresh water sources.

We now have a golden opportunity to ensure the reliable delivery of water over the next 100 years from Middle Farms to the rest of the island for both potable (drinking) water customers and the fire protection infrastructure needed by property owners. In the process, much can be done to rectify the constraints of the distribution system pieced together as the three separate water systems were interconnected and water reservoirs at the West End and Fort Wright were abandoned. The system can become first rate, with properly integrated engineering design and planning.

The Solution

As a first step, an engineering study and a map of the water distribution system were completed during the fall of 2019. (Some may recall the blue lines and flags on the main roads and adjacent rights-of-way.) As a next step, the Water Company will be developing a Master Plan for the renovation. This will require a detailed engineering design for precise routing of the new mains and for breaking the construction work into manageable phases that can each be completed between summer seasons over a number of years. For example, Phase 1 of construction will likely be a new trunk main, including new hydrants, from Middle Farms to the road intersection by the entrance to the Navy’s Underwater Laboratory, a distance of 2.37 miles. Additional construction phases will follow from Phase 1, continuing west to replace trunk mains on the more densely populated West End out to the Fort area, then east from Middle Farms to the East End and finally renovating lesser loop mains.

During construction of a new main, the existing main will remain in place so that water services are not disrupted. As a section of the new main is completed, it will be interconnected with the existing parallel main. This will avoid disrupting water service. Eventually, the old main will be abandoned and water lines that tap into it will be transferred to the new main.

The new mains will be made of well-proven modern materials that do not corrode. These mains will also be larger than existing mains in order to ensure water volumes that meet the current standards for fire protection. The engineering will address pressure challenges as well.

Cost & Timing

The engineering design is also needed to refine cost estimates, put the work out for bid and get contractor quotes. But there is no question that the renovation will require a multi-million-dollar investment funded over many years.

As part of the Master Plan, the Water Company is considering how to spread the financing costs of the renovation over time. It is also studying how to fairly allocate the financial burden between water rate payers and property taxpayers. As these aspects of the plan become clearer, they will be shared with the Fishers Island community.

Tom Siebens, Director
Fishers Island Water Works Corporation

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View Electric & Water Usage on Utility Co. Website

January 9, 2020

To All Fishers Island Utility Customers:

After many requests we have added a new feature to our website to enable you to view twelve months of your water and electric usage. Our website will also allow you to view or download at least two years of your past bills. You may also choose to have your bills emailed instead of sent through the regular mail.

To utilize this feature, you must first sign up for online bill viewing. The steps to do this are listed here.

  • Go to the FIUC WEBSITE
  • Click on the “view my bill” link on the top of the screen.

If you already have a username and password just sign in and the usage should be on the first screen. You may change usage type or meter (if you have multiple) by clicking on the drop-down menu.

If you do not already have a username and password:

  • Click on new user register button. You must have your full account number including all leading zeros.

Once signed up you will be able to view your usage history, as well as past and current bills.

If you have any issues trying to sign up or sign in, please contact our offices and we will be happy to assist you.

631-788-7251

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FI Drinking Water Resources: Study of Middle Farms Pond

By Professor Pete Raymond
Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
peter.raymond@yale.edu
May 22, 2019

Clean and sufficient water is an important part of any community’s well-being. As stated in the Fishers Island Watershed Protection Standards set by the Suffolk County Health Department, our community relies on “an interrelated fragile system of ground and surface water sources for public water supply.” Currently, we rely on a mixture of groundwater from wells and surface water from Barlow Pond. The ponds, in particular, Middle Farms Pond, are also connected to the groundwater we rely on. That is, water from the ponds flows directly into the groundwater aquifers that are used by our community.

Historically, the Island started by consuming untreated surface water. In the early 1900s water was sourced from Barlow Pond and into a distribution system without any treatment. In the 1920s a water treatment facility was built and a number of the other Island ponds, including Middle Farms, were connected to Barlow in order to augment Barlow during times of water shortage. In the 1960s two groundwater wells were placed in the Middle Farm Flats to the west of Middle Farms pond, with additional wells and a groundwater treatment facility added in the 1980s. Currently, via the new well filtration plant, the groundwater wells provide water to the Island year round. Reserve capacity can be provided with treated surface pond water from Barlow.

Google Earth image showing algal bloom in Middle Farms Pond during the early summer of 2016.

In 2016 the Northeast was hit with a major drought. During the drought, I had an active project on the Connecticut River and many of the streams of Connecticut witnessed their lowest flow in 80 years of record. This was a historic one hundred year drought. The Water Company saw signs of an algal bloom at Middle Farms Pond. In fact, the algal bloom could be seen by space from a May aerial from Google Earth. Due to the bloom, the Water Company restricted recreational use of the pond and asked me to do a preliminary evaluation of Middle Farms Pond. During the summer of 2018, I deployed an instrument, and with help from the Water Company took water samples for a number of months. I also reviewed the information made available to me from past measurements and studies. My more detailed preliminary report can be found here: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8168042.

During 2018 there were no indications that Middle Farms was in, or near, bloom conditions. Oxygen and nutrient measurements were not consistent with an algal bloom, nor was the pond visually impacted as it was in 2016. My initial assessment, informed from some depth profiles of oxygen, is there is likely a large amount of organic matter, with its associated nutrients stored in the sediments of Middle Farms. This organic matter has probably accrued slowly over the past decades due to inputs of nutrients from the human activities in the watershed and with rainfall. During the summer, as water temperatures warm, this organic matter is decomposed by natural communities of bacteria and the nutrient associated with the organic matter are released. Since Middle Farms is shallow it does not thermally stratify like many deeper lakes, and these nutrients can easily and quickly diffuse into the surface waters where they support summer algal growth. During most years it appears this growth is moderate. During drought conditions, however, the water temperatures of the pond become higher due to a lower lake volume and increased sunlight. This likely leads to greater organic matter decomposition and better conditions for algal growth. Furthermore, droughts are also associated with optimal sunlight due to less frequent cloud cover that can also stimulate aquatic plant growth.

In addition to warmer water temperatures and more sunlight that stimulate algal growth from nutrients stored in the lake sediments, algal growth can be stimulated by other factors. Other potential sources of nutrients to the pond include bird waste, fertilizer and septic input from properties within the watershed, and atmospheric deposition. Furthermore, any other processes that alter the water balance of the pond and lead to low summer water levels will exacerbate the problem. Fortunately, the low level of recreational swimming does not likely have any significant impact on lake nutrient concentrations or volume.

The ponds of Fishers are an asset. They are an integral component of our water resources. They are also unique ecosystems, offering great habitat for aquatic, terrestrial and even marine organisms. As others have noted, however, the ponds of Fishers Island are also fragile. As part of my recommendations, which are expanded in the online preliminary report, I urge the Water Company to continue to understand how these ponds function, and to work with the Fishers Island community to ensure that the ponds will have an adequate amount of clean water to support the community and the organisms that rely on them.

Middle Farms Pond November 17 Photo Credit: Jane T. Ahrens

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Telephone Company re: @fishersisland.net email

October 1, 2018
Dear @fishersisland.net email users,
At 9:00 a.m. on Nov. 6th, 2018 your email account will be moved to a new host. You will not be able to access email during this time. It is your responsibility to backup before Nov. 6th your current emails, contacts and address books, if you wish to keep them. We can help with data migration for a fee, if desired, and by appointment only. So please call us first. Please understand that we cannot guarantee the retention of data thereof, nor will we be held responsible for the loss of data.
Contact us after the migration to get reconnected. You will receive a new password and instructions for setup at this time. The “fishersisland.net Webmail” link on the FishersIsland.net homepage will still be an option but with new login credentials.
Remember, your email address will stay the same.
Other Ways to Access Fishers Island Email Account
  1. Web Mail: Any computer, any browser; Go to email.fisherisland.net, Log in
  2. Windows PC: Outlook 2010+
  3. Apple (all platforms): Outlook App; Spark
  4. Android: Outlook App
These are methods we have tested and recommend. You are on your own with any other client software or method.
Please contact our office with any questions.
Apologies in advance for any inconvenience.
Sincerely,
Staff
Fishers Island Telephone Corp.
631-788-7001 option 4

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