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Westfield gets insight into Empire Project

WESTFIELD — AES Solar held a public webinar further detailing the Empire Solar Project, which has been in development in Westfield since 2019. The purpose of the meeting was to introduce the AES company to the local community, and provide information, updates, and give the community the next steps as to how the project is being developed.

Originally, this project was being developed by Geronimo, which was acquired by National Grid, who then changed their name to National Grid Renewables. From there, sPower bought the project, sPower was half owned by AES, but is now owned by AES. The project has kept the same team, along with the benefit of having the original developers join the AES team to continue development of the project. Brett Hastings, the Senior Management of Development at AES, was one of those original developers, and is excited for the opportunity to continue working on the project.

“I’m lucky enough to get the opportunity to continue working on the Solar Project, as well as other AES projects,” Hastings said. “I’ve been working on the Empire Project for over two years and I’m happy to say we’re all happy to work with a company like AES.”

The project is a 125 MW solar project, which means when the sun shines brightest, it will create that much in solar power. AES is also looking at including 20 MW of energy storage, which the company will decide on before making their submission for the project in the spring. 20 MW will take about an acre of space near substation, and both economically and electrically, Hastings said it’s significantly more efficient to have the units on the grid.

“It’s way more efficient to have distributed energy storage units attached to the grid rather than one large speaker plant at one transmission input,” Hastings said. “You have a more instantaneous startup and it’s more efficient to build them as well.”

AES will also work directly with local Emergency Medical Service providers and Fire Departments to ensure maximum safety for the project. It will also comply with all federal regulations. The Development Team of the Empire Solar Project is taking steps to least interfere with the local communities, including reaching out to the Chautauqua County Snowmobilers club to ensure that they will not disrupt the trails, the Westfield Fish and Game club, who is neighboring the project, and they’ve joined the Westfield-Barcelona Chamber of Commerce to try and get to know the community better.

“We know that not everybody is as excited we’re here as we are,” Hastings said. “But we wanted to answer as many questions as we could and make people feel comfortable that the project will be beneficial, not only for the environment, but for the people in Westfield.”

The environmental benefits include the reduction of around 162,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions, and it will be able to power more than 20,000 homes when running at full efficiency. The project gives the village of Westfield added tax revenue, but AES doesn’t require additional services, as they plow their own access roads and don’t require a sewer connection. There will also be host community benefits for Westfield, such as an electric utility bill credit, which will distribute $625,000 in credits to the residential utility customers over the first 10 years of the project.

The project currently remains in the development phase. This includes obtaining necessary permits and preliminary assessing the local transmission substations and systems. Then they reach out to land owners and town leaders and assess everyone’s interest and concerns about the project. The project is expected to be operational by the end of 2023, following construction that is scheduled to begin near the end of 2022.

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