YONKERS, NY-The Yonkers Industrial Development Agency said Tuesday it had voted to negotiate an economic incentives package with Champlain Hudson Power Express Inc. to build a 1,000-megawatt power converter station in the area. The station would be part of a $1.9-billion project being developed by Albany-based Transmission Developers Inc. to bring wind and hydro power to the New York City metro area.

“Yonkers recognizes that this TDI transmission project, with its environmentally responsible design, will result in clean, low-cost renewable energy and jobs – both critical to the economic future of the entire New York metro area,” says Yonkers Mayor Philip Amicone, who chairs the Yonkers IDA, in a release. “We will work with CHPE and TDI to create a fair agreement so this project can move forward and bring numerous benefits to Yonkers, including significant tax revenue.”
As Amicone pointed out in an August letter to Jerry Pell at the US Department of Energy, the converter station would represent the only place along the project’s planned 385-mile route from the Canadian border “that would be subject to a permanent, visible installation.” Most of the route would consist of underground or underwater transmission lines.

The 23,000-square-foot CHPE station would convert the 1,000 MW of direct-current electricity into 345 kilovolts of alternating energy AC for distribution to the metro area market. A study commissioned by TDI says the project would save New York State residents and businesses an estimated $900 million in energy costs in the first year alone.

The proposed site for the CHPE station is between the Metro-North rail lines between the Hudson River and Kawasaki Rail Car Inc. It would cost an estimated $200 million to build and include a separate “gateway” building that would house administrative staff and a security checkpoint, according to a release.

The IDA’s resolution, passed last week, also called for a public hearing to be held on the CHPE project. Date and time of the hearing are still to be determined.