In his Sept. 12 letter to the News, Richard Kaye tries to paint some local candidates into a political corner with the microgrid, but this attempt falls flat. Mr. Kaye should take his own advice and stop playing politics with a serious matter. He asked for facts, so here are some that he didn’t mention.
First, as Dr. Marathe has pointed out and what’s in the advocates’ own record, the proposed battery system would last only 4 to 6 hours if the PSE&G grid were to be down at night or in bad weather. That’s less time than an ordinary battery-powered home lantern would stay on during an outage.
Second, the July 13 Gabel Associates report says that the necessary wiring would have to cross two lot lines, which they state is illegal for a net metered solar array. The lot lines would have to be changed, which would involve the planning board, an ordinance, two attorneys, public hearings, and extra taxpayer expense for staff.
As I have pointed out elsewhere, there are also specific zoning issues that have not yet been fully addressed. These future costs, as well as all the staff costs to date, should be deducted from any proposed gross benefit to get the net benefit, if any. Knowing what these sunk costs are would be helpful.
It would be much simpler and better to have all the current generators in the municipal complex, in addition to the already-approved but not installed fire and emergency services generator, wired together to form a robust internal grid permanently owned and operated by West Windsor.
The new generator is urgently needed anyway for the upcoming winter, and because it will be permanently ours, we will have to pay for it one way or another. The one-time expense for adding the extra wiring would preserve total control, give us full resiliency, and would not get us bogged down into a dubious long-term arrangement with unknown present and future costs.
I don’t think it’s advisable on general principles to get the town tied up with a third party private contractor who’s in business to make a profit by collaborating with PSE&G. Plus, we should save the open land surrounded by Everett Drive for other and more attractive uses.
—John A. Church, West Windsor
