At the last meeting (before the lease sale) on the Gulf of Maine’s offshore wind development, someone asked about Schiller Station. It has been mentioned several times in past articles, with the suggestion that it might serve (speculation) as a place to bring offshore wind power into the New England grid.
David ‘Whale killer’ Watters admits as much in that “last” meeting before the BOEM lease sale. GSP has a proposal to add infrastructure at Schiller.
[Granite Shore Power CEO Jim ] Andrews’ presentation focused on the Granite State’s burgeoning offshore wind industry and the vital role that Granite Shore Power (“GSP”) will play in helping to make wind power a reality for New England. Specifically, Andrews talked about GSP’s transformation of Schiller Station into a battery energy storage facility, which would provide storage for the wind power being built off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard and in the Gulf of Maine.
“The New Hampshire Seacoast is an area of high energy demand, and it’s well-positioned to take advantage of the potential sites for offshore wind,” said Andrews. “By repowering Schiller Station to a battery storage system, we will be able to provide reliable, carbon-neutral power to support the peak energy demands of New Hampshire residents every single day.”
There’s nothing carbon-neutral about battery storage, but let’s not get distracted.
GSP’s Schiller Station will be repowered to a battery energy storage system (BESS) called Jacona II. BESS is an optimal dispatchable resource for supporting decarbonization efforts when located in proximity to the load demand they are servicing. The Schiller Station, located on the Seacoast in Portsmouth, provides an ideal opportunity to site a critically needed resource utilizing existing infrastructure to meet reliability needs sensibly.
Again, there is no decarbonization, but the fisherman and other locals asked about Schiller at said meeting. There’s a lot of crosstalk (video below) but after Watters admits Schiller could become what GSP has proposed, someone asks about cabling from offshore wind to Schiller. It sounds like they say no. Watters and other board members also announced that the facility could store power from any source tied to the grid.
As part of the redevelopment plan, Schiller Station is building a battery energy storage system, taking energy from the grid during low demand and putting it back on the grid during peak periods. Schiller and Merrimack Stations have been an important, yet limited, part of New Hampshire’s energy infrastructure for many years now. Merrimack Station will continue to be a vital resource when energy demands are at their highest while GSP redevelops the facility on its nearly 400 acres of land into a Clean Energy Park for generations to come.
Sounds harmless and almost reasonable.
If, however, Maine lost a DOT contract to create an energy port specifically designed to receive Gulf wind power (which it did) and you needed someplace else to bring that power on land (before the so-called free federal money goes away), packing Schiller with battery capacity – at least on paper (for energy from, you know, wherever) – might be what the lying whale-killing wind monkeys ordered.
Later, when the offshore capacity is built, OMG, we must have the power inland somewhere. Oh, Look! Schiller station has these batteries, and they are designed specifically for this purpose. We could use that.
I feel comfortable saying that if someone said there would be no cable to Schiller, they lied and know they lied. After all, how else could there be a “vital role that Granite Shore Power (“GSP”) will play in helping to make wind power a reality for New England.” Cable into Schiller, that’s how.
One more point—well, three, actually. These facilities can and do ignite, and those emissions – No one counts them.
The relevant conversation begins just after 45 minutes.
