"Starting next summer, the Independent System Operator [NYISO] anticipates its reliability margins in New York City will be dangerously thin, making the grid more vulnerable to failures. In addition to potentially losing anticipated wind power, the system is strained by generator deactivations, increasing consumer demand, transmission limitations and difficulties in developing new resources, the ISO said in a statement highlighting a pair of reliability reports." -- Utility Dive, October 14, 2025
Yet, as long ago as 2010, NRG Energy—where I worked as Senior Communications Director and Spokesman—had already offered NYISO and the local utility, and had already permitted, a solution to a shortfall that was previously anticipated.
NRG owned and operated a power plant in Astoria, Queens, on a larger space where two other companies had facilities, including Astoria Energy I and II, that had replaced the old, dirty, Charles Poletti Plant. Consolidated Edison also had a facility there. NRG's plant consisted of 31 units,1970s-era aero-derivatives, meaning they were adapted models of commercial aircraft engines, with relatively high emissions profiles and relatively low efficiency. While capable of delivering 600 MWe, these were operated almost exclusively as peakers, mostly on hot summer days when the air conditioning demand in the five boroughs massively ramped up by noontime and stayed well higher until long after the sun had set. When NYISO called, the units ran; in fact, NYISO could start, ramp up, and run the units remotely from its headquarters, and did. But one could see the thick blue emissions haze coming from the units' exhaust stacks from the nearby elevated subway, and it wasn't the best thing. I saw it myself.
But the NY grid needed the power. They told us so.
So, we offered a near-as-perfect-as-possible solution to NYISO, replacing those older units with just four, new, dramatically cleaner units generating 1,040 MW in two phases, enough to power 832,000 average households. And just two would be natural gas-fueled turbines, driving generators, but also leveraging their exhaust heat with a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG), to each drive a steam generator, a so-called one-on-one configuration that is vastly less polluting and effectively powers four generators while needed a fossil fuel for only two. The project was fully permitted, with a Title V Air Permit, Siting Permit, Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN), and completed Interconnection Studies. The plant could be interconnected to the grid in at least three locations, providing unmatched flexibility to the system for reliability purposes, and offered fast-start capability that could be up and running in 10 minutes. The project supported grid stability and “firming” capability for renewable resources including wind and solar farms, and even “black-start” capability to start itself and other plants in the case of blackout, which, while rare, had happened in the City in 1959, 1961, 1965, 1967, and 2003. It would be able to replace fully half of the capacity that would later be lost when then-Governor Cuomo eventually forced the closing of the Indian Point Nuclear Power under the pretext of security issues. Dramatically cleaner and able to ramp up and down rapidly, the units would be able to operate as a so-called mid-merit plant, providing power more economically more of the time than a peaking plant. And it would have been online years ago, while the Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE), a single point of failure DC cable project that has been promising completion since 2013, is still not delivering a single electron to New York City.
Community support? Yes, we had it. Community Board 1; United Civic Community Association; Coalition Helping Organize a Kleener Environment (CHOKE); NYS Senator Michael Gianaris; then New York State Assemblymember Aravella Simotas; the then Queens Borough President Helen Marshall; the Queens Chamber of Commerce; Utility Workers Union of America Local 1-2; the then-Speaker of the New York City Council; The New York Lung Association (!), The League of Conservation Voters, and many others.
Even regulators and politicians went public with their support. For example, The Queens News Service, in a January 31, 2011, article still online, said:
“This repowering project will replace older units with state-of-the-art combined cycle units operating primarily on natural gas,” said Garry Brown, chairman of the [New York State] Public Service Commission, which granted the approval. “The new units will provide reliability and environmental benefits and will be significantly cleaner and more efficient than the existing units.
The project was supported and listed by name in the New York State Energy Plan:
“Repowering of existing power plants under the right circumstances can provide environmental and economic benefits. For example, NRG has proposed repowering of its Astoria facility in New York City and has estimated that the repowering would result in a reduction of annual on-site air emissions of over 75 percent for NOx and CO and over 50 percent for particulate matter, while simultaneously increasing power output by over 70 percent. In addition, NRG estimates that the repowering would displace 1 million tons of CO2 emissions annually.” (New York State Energy Plan, December 2009, Volume 1, Section 4.2.1 @ page 65).
NYS Senator Michael Gianaris's own page, still visible today as he's still in office, titled "The Reboot" and dated November 15, 2011, quotes him widely on the project:
"NRG Energy is ready to tear down its power plant in Astoria and build a new one that’s cleaner, more efficient and more productive....Many of the plant’s neighbors back the idea, the state’s Public Service Commission has given the go-ahead, and now Gov. Andrew Cuomo is citing repowering projects like NRG’s as a source of replacement energy if he succeeds in shutting down the nuclear reactors at Indian Point."...“It’s foolish that we haven’t been aggressively promoting this, because it both deals with our energy needs by creating more megawattage and also reduces pollution dramatically.“..."That’s the one gaping hole that could have a real, significant impact on the environment that we are not pursuing aggressively enough.”
Those who've paid attention may know that Senator Gianaris, an original, powerful, and publicly vocal supporter, eventually and ultimately did a 180, and denounced the project in unambiguous terms. This received almost no media attention, oddly.
So, why didn't we build it? That's simple. NRG couldn't invest a massive sum to build a new, dramatically cleaner, modern power plant in the costliest city in the US (for developers, and for organized power market participants), without having a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), a contract to buy most or all of those 1,040, much cleaner-generated megawatts. And we were never able to get one, even to benefit hundreds of thousands of people in the most power-constrained load pocket in the USA at the time.
The project, which would have solved a lot of NYC's current electricity scarcity, was first announced in 2006. And a lot of people and community organizations, and just simple, well-intentioned New Yorkers, worked very hard for many years to make it happen. Sadly, it died a mostly quiet death in 2023.