CT company's large offshore wind farm moves one step closer to Martha's Vineyard coast

Alexander Soule Federal regulators signed off on an environmental review of the Vineyard Wind turbine farm, which would be the first large-scale offshore wind farm in the U.S.

Orange-based Avangrid, the co-developer of Vineyard Wind, indicated Monday it expects the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to issue a final “record of decision” within a month, at which point it will be ready to begin preparations for construction of wind turbines 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard.

The company projects it will support 3,600 “job years,” as it describes it, including through the hiring of outside contractors.

While Vineyard Wind electricity will be fed to Massachusetts utility customers, providing 800 megawatts of power — sufficient for 400,000 homes — the wind farm will lessen New England’s reliance on power plants that burn natural gas.

In approving the project, BOEM indicated it took into consideration any further construction delay on Connecticut’s own clean energy goals, as Avangrid moves ahead with Park City Wind — a Bridgeport-based project slated for a 2025 launch, with assemblies to be loaded onto ships for subsequent installation offshore.

Eversource Energy is also planning a wind farm off the Southern New England coast called Revolution Wind to benefit Connecticut.

On days with sustained winds, Vineyard Wind’s electric output would approach that of the smaller of Millstone Nuclear Power Station’s two reactors operated by Dominion Energy in Waterford, which paired with its larger sibling reactor forms New England’s largest power plant at more than 2,000 megawatts.

If approved by BOEM, Park City Wind will top slightly the power output of Vineyard Wind for Connecticut and Rhode Island customers. The bureau is currently analyzing a commercial operation plan submitted last year by Avangrid Renewables.

Vineyard Wind is structured as a joint venture of Avangrid Renewables and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, with its main office in New Bedford, Mass. The developer is aiming for the turbines to begin generating electricity in 2023 and achieve full power output the following year.

Avangrid is also developing a larger wind farm off Kitty Hawk, N.C.; the three projects come on the heels of Deepwater Wind, which was built in 2016 to supply electricity to Block Island, R.I.

“One of the things that we’ve learned is with Vineyard Wind [is] we’ve been the guinea pig with BOEM,” said Avangrid CEO Dennis Ariola, speaking two weeks ago on a conference call. “Our expectation is that, as we continue to go forward with Park City and with Kitty Hawk, the experience that we have and the comfort — hopefully — that BOEM has with our process is going to help us.”

In January, Avangrid received the final approval necessary to proceed with New England Clean Energy Connect, snaking transmission lines south through Maine to import power from hydroelectric dams on the St. Lawrence Seaway in Quebec, Canada, adding 1,200 megawatts of capacity to the New England grid.

And Avangrid envisions a similar project for upstate New York called Excelsior Connect, only with lines buried — the company describes it as “an underground clean energy superhighway” — to feed hydro power to the New York City region.

“The team has been working on this one for a while, looking at the most efficient and effective way from where we think we can receive energy from a renewable developer to get it all the way down to New York,” Arriola said in late February. “It’s something that we’re really excited about.”

Westport, Fairfield work to replace bridge over Sasco Brook

Katrina Koerting  FAIRFIELD — Fairfield and Westport are working to replace a bridge over Sasco Brook on the town line.

Officials say there isn’t any danger to the public using the structure, but they are starting the preliminaries to replace it now because the project will take years to complete.

Projected cost is about $3.2 million, with the majority paid for with state and federal grants.

“The bridge is listed in poor condition,” said William Hurley, Fairfield’s engineering manager. “Since it may take several years to prepare, design and construct a bridge, the state and towns are being proactive in designing the bridge at this time.”

He said the goal is to reconstruct the bridge before the rating “ever gets downgraded to serious condition.”

Preliminary design work is already under way on the Old Road #2 bridge, or the Wakeman Lane bridge, as it’s also known.

Hurley said bridge projects usually take 18 to 30 months for the design phase, permits and reviews. This will include at least one public informational meeting and a wetland public hearing in each town, he said.

The utility work and the bid process for the contract will happen in 2023 with construction scheduled for 2024.

The construction itself takes eight to 16 months, depending on the final design and type of structure, which is still to be determined, he said.

Under a pilot program, the state is covering 100 percent of the bridge design. The federal government will reimburse 80 percent of the construction costs with Westport and Fairfield each covering 10 percent.

The Town of Westport is considered the lead agency.

“Local and state policy encourages early information to citizens on such projects and encourages people to raise any concerns with municipal officials early in the planning process,” Westport officials said in a news release.

Federal stimulus money heading to Danbury area ‘unexpected’ but ‘welcome’

Rob Ryser, Currie Engel, Julia Perkins   The federal stimulus package expected to be signed into law this week that will provide more than $2.6 billion to Connecticut towns is being welcomed by leaders in the Danbury area, although some details, including how the funds can be spent, remain unclear.

The U.S. House of Representatives was poised to adopt the “American Rescue Plan” bill Wednesday, which was expected to be signed by President Joe Biden. In addition to aid for cities and towns, the bill includes stimulus checks for many across the country and includes funds for unemployment.

Funds for local communities come as local leaders look to set their town budgets for the fiscal year. Many had spent funds over the last year on unexpected COVID-19 pandemic-related costs, including Bethel where an estimated $1 million was spent on plastic barriers for the schools and municipal center, vouchers for students without internet, and part-time employees to staff the COVID vaccine clinic, First Selectman Matt Knickerbocker said. The estimation doesn’t necessarily take into account any shortfalls local towns may have had on the revenue side — from permits, taxes or other fees the town collects.

Bethel officials expect to get $9.89 million for the town and schools between the package expected to be approved Tuesday and one approved in December and tied to the pandemic.

“I was thrilled to see that there is recognition that, yes, this pandemic has affected the federal government, for sure, but it has also caused great disruption in state funding and local funding,” he said. “We’ve had to divert resources to do other things, as well.”

In Danbury, the city is receiving about $71 million from this stimulus bill and last year’s. Mayor Joe Cavo said the funds are “unexpected and would certainly be welcome here.”

“I have talked with [city Director of Finance] David St. Hilaire about the money and the portion that the school is getting, and I am a fiscal conservative when it comes to money,” Cavo said. “We want to make sure we don’t go on a spending spree that brings us to a money cliff that some administration four years down the road winds up falling off of.”

In Newtown, the combined money from the December package and the American Rescue Plan is expected to be $10 million — $1.9 million of which would be earmarked for schools.

The town’s top financial official said it his office is waiting for clarification from Washington, D.C.

“We've heard quite a few different figures,” said Robert Tait, Newtown’s director of finance. “We have not received instructions yet on how it can be spent.”

Newtown will be in a better position to plan once the government releases guidelines, Tait said

A lot of guidelines

Because the bill had not been formally approved as of Tuesday, guidelines for spending remain unclear. Most town leaders were in wait-and-see mode to learn how they could spend it.

“Certainly this money will come ‘with a lot of federal guidelines that we can’t use it for debt or for pension obligations, so we will have to see how best to use it when it finally comes in,’” Cavo said.

“I am certainly going to encourage the school board to do the same thing,” added Cavo. “They are going to have expenses coming up with the career academy in a few years, and I would like to see them use that money for one-time costs.”

Cavo will look at aiding local businesses and other groups, if possible.

In New Milford, the schools are expected to receive about $11 million in aid, while the town will receive about $7.9 million for a total of $18.9 million.

New Milford, expected to receive nearly $19 million from the federal government over two stimulus bills, is “grateful for the additional funding” Mayor Pete Bass said. He is looking at using the funds for one-time uses, including the capital improvement budget.

The town’s capital projects include improving and updating town infrastructure. That might mean putting the funds toward school roof construction and work on some of the town’s more than 60 bridges. After the stimulus has been finalized, the mayor plans to sit down with various department heads to discuss which projects should take precedence. These plans will then be presented to the Town Council and Board of Finance for approval.

Bass said that the additional funds would reduce the impact of future tax increases.

While the town had not yet made plans for the government funds, Bass said that the increase “would definitely be welcome to help us again with some of the projects that are much needed to be done here in New Milford.”

“I think people are taking a wait-and-see attitude,” he said. “I know on the town side we are just waiting to see when it comes to fruition.”

New Fairfield will get $7.97 million between the two packages, with the amounts roughly split between the town and the schools.

“I do think there has been financial impact on the town,” First Selectwoman Pat Del Monaco said. “That's an appropriate number, and we’re grateful for that number.”

New Fairfield may use the money for some capital items, but she is waiting on guidance from the federal government before determining how the town would spend the funding.

“Without having the federal guidance, I don't want to try to guess at what we might be able to use that for,” Del Monaco said.

The Connecticut Conference of Municipalities — a nonpartisan organization supporting towns and cities — told leaders on a morning Zoom call that it’s likely the money could be spent on revenue losses, unbudgeted COVID-19 expenses, and some capital and infrastructure costs, Del Monaco said.

If allowed, Bethel may provide grants to local businesses or sponsor children, who have suffered from lack of socialization, to go to summer camps, Knickerbocker said.

“I’m building plans around the assumption that these funds are going to be as flexible as possible,” he said.

In Brookfield, First Selectman Steve Dunn said that the town and schools would definitely be able to use the federal funds, but they’re waiting to see what the rules and stipulations are before deciding which projects to tackle.

“We have a general idea but not enough that we could say this applies, this doesn’t,” he said. “I have to know what I can use it for first.”

Dunn there were “literally dozens of things” for which the town use the funding.

“The devil’s in the details,” he said of the rules and regulations that will guide use of this money.

Lamont signs bill to lure high-tech industry to state

Stephen Singer  With the goal of attracting a new industry into Connecticut, Gov. Ned Lamont has signed legislation providing long-term tax breaks to data centers, the 21st century warehouses of countless bits of information stored by users as varied as medical researchers, academics and financial services companies.

To backers of a measure offering tax credits to the centers that house computers storing and processing data, it’s a start to making the state competitive in attracting high-tech industry and overcoming years of low-wage job creation.

“I’m just enormously pleased we’ve gotten focused on this,” said Fred Carstensen, a University of Connecticut economist who for years has pushed state policymakers to bring data centers to Connecticut. “The last 10 to 12 years we’ve had the worst performing economy. We’ve got to change that trajectory.”

Opponents call it corporate welfare that provides overly-generous tax breaks.

“We are gathered here to try to lure an industry to Connecticut that as far as I can tell will provide few lasting jobs, but provides major costs,” Sen. Matt Lesser, D-Middletown, said during recent Senate debate. “Those costs are to taxpayers who will be providing the industry with significant 30-year tax breaks, to our energy grid, which will be taxed by enormous strain when we should be working to double down on efficiency.”

Legislation overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives Feb. 24 on a 133-13 vote and was approved by the Senate, 29-5. Gov. Lamont, signed the bill into law on March 5.

The bill authorizes the state Department of Economic and Community Development to sign tax incentive agreements with qualified data centers for 20- or 30-year terms, depending on the size and location of the data center investment.

A data center’s owner must spend at least $50 million to qualify if the center is in a federal opportunity zone or an enterprise zone and $200 million if it is built elsewhere.

Supporters say data centers could be used to attract the financial services industry that handles trades once confined to the floors of stock exchanges but are now made online.

To organize support for data centers, Lamont turned to his economic development commissioner, David Lehman, who said he worked with data center clients in his years at Goldman Sachs, the New York investment bank and financial services company.

The Lamont administration began talking in 2019 with representatives of MEMX, a member-owned equities trading platform, about bringing trading business to data centers in Connecticut, he said.

Facing the prospect of taxes on financial services in other states, the industry sought a “back-up home,” Lehman said.

Pushing back against criticism of data centers’ consumption of electricity, Lehman said major companies with data centers are increasingly looking to use zero- or low-carbon energy.

Connecticut’s grid, with a large nuclear power component and agreements for future offshore wind, “would bestow (on) Connecticut...substantial new economic activity,” he said.

Carstensen blamed “some ill-informed environmentalists” who believe data centers increase demand for fossil-fuel electricity.

“They are wrong—because no industry is more committed of green energy than data centers; big tech already buys millions and millions of carbon credits,” he said.

For users of data, such as academic researchers, the proximity of a center could be an advantage, said Thomas Peters, a computer scientist and mathematician at the University of Connecticut.

New Torrington Middle/High School to have ‘smart’ design

Lance Reynolds   TORRINGTON — Architects and project leaders for the new Torrington Middle/High School are taking a “smart” approach in designing the $159.6 million building, which city residents passed last November. 

“The plan has smart design as a tenant for our firm, where we make sure to include socially responsible, measurable and artful design,” said Amy Christmas, academic programmer and planner for SLAM Collaborative. “We measure to make sure we’re within the allowable area, we’re including the program areas that have been requested, and we’re doing energy calculations.”

Christmas guided the project’s building committee on a virtual tour of the building last week through initial programming plans to align with the committee’s visions for school, which will receive an $85 million state reimbursement.

Construction of the school is expected to begin in spring of 2022 and be completed by summer of 2024.

Top programming goals Christmas said she received from building committee focus groups include a school that reflects community pride and has experiential learning spaces in a timeless design.

The overall size of the facility, which will separate grade 7-8 students from high schoolers, will be 284,295 square feet. About 196,873 square feet is targeted for program space, Christmas said. Program space is currently running over that target by about 29,000 square feet, she said.

“We have some extra areas where we can combine and be able to get multi-use out of a single space as opposed to building twice,” Christmas said. “We will get down to this with no problem.”

The high school wing of the building will take up about 129,600 square feet of programming, while the middle school will take up 79,900 square feet, Christmas said. Each school will have its own entrance, wing, cafeteria and gymnasium. An auditorium and a warming kitchen and survey will be shared, she noted.

A key feature of the new building will be its flexible classroom spaces and an emphasis on the career-and-college pathway program.

To meet the building committee’s requests for that program, SLAM has tentatively designed a preschool with space for 18 children and a separate room where high schoolers can observe the preschool for early childhood development classes. Health classrooms, a foods lab, sports medicine lab and mobile food cart are tentatively designed for the health and wellness pathway.

A shared resource for the program will be a team-based learning theater with 60 to 80 seats.

“This is in support of all the pathways and academics in the building and beyond,” Christmas said. “It is a collaborative theater in a U-shape that allows for eye contact for folks in the audience to have conversations and debates.”

The building committee also learned last week of three possible placements for the school at 50 Major Besse Drive, which is the current site of Torrington High School. All three would have parking lots on the current school’s 225,558-square-foot footprint, said Julia Singer, SLAM’s lead educational designer.

The first would be on the current athletic fields outside of the current school’s footprint, with the athletic fields relocating to the current parking lot, Singer said. The second would also be on the current athletic fields, but the building would allow for easier access for high school students and staffers to shared spaces. The third would be on the current parking lot and closer to Elise Besse park and pond, she said.

“We’re looking to build a very modern facility, but we also recognize the very rich past and history of Torrington, both industrial and cultural,” Singer said.