N.Y. Power Authority and N.Y.C. Transit CEOs Unveil Solar Thermal Project at Coney Island Train Yard

Contact:
Michael Saltzman
914-390-8181
michael.saltzman@nypa.gov

June 3, 2010

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

BROOKLYN—Brooklyn’s Coney Island, known for its world famous ocean front, beach and boardwalk, is now home to an advanced solar thermal system that was unveiled Thursday by Richard M. Kessel, president of the New York Power Authority, and Thomas F. Prendergast, president, MTA New York City Transit, at the New York City Transit Complex, where many of the city’s subway cars are maintained and repaired.  
The application of this type of large-scale thermal system relies on water instead of a chemical mixture as the heat-exchange medium for providing hot water for the transit complex’s maintenance facility.  The system is also designed so that the heat-exchange water, in a closed-loop pressurized system, doesn’t freeze in the winter, making the solar installation at Coney Island the first of its kind in the U.S.    

In addition, newly installed lighting equipment at some New York City Transit facilities will provide better, more efficient and longer-lasting illumination. Together these projects will save commuters and taxpayers $170,000 annually in energy costs and avoid over 3,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year.

“It seems fitting that we’re pioneering this advanced solar-thermal technology in a community whose iconic attractions include the beach and sun,” Kessel said. “This initiative, and a new lighting upgrade, are the latest of a series of innovative energy-saving endeavors that the Power Authority and MTA have partnered on to lower the utility bills and carbon footprint of the Coney Island Train Yard.  
“Initiatives like this contribute to reducing fossil fuel use, which is an imperative we can all agree on, with the disaster in the Gulf now giving us daily reminders of everyday.  We need to take advantage of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies, not only for reducing environmental risks like oil spills and global warming, but for capitalizing on the economic development benefits of these clean energy technologies,” Kessel added.

“The MTA and its agencies are working hard to make sure that every dollar we receive is used wisely, and that applies to our energy bill as well,” Prendergast said.  “I want to thank the New York Power Authority and NYSERDA for helping MTA New York City Transit save money and go even greener.”

The more than $1.1 million for the solar thermal project and latest energy efficiency upgrades, for which installations began last November, bring to more than $3 million that NYPA has invested over the years in energy efficiency projects at the transit complex.  The overall measures are providing annual savings of nearly $460,000 and reduced greenhouse gas emissions of more than 2,600 tons a year. 

The solar thermal system, at the 75-acre Subway Maintenance Facility, consists of 48 panels that are mounted on the building’s roof. They capture and retain the radiant heat from the sun and transfer it to water in interconnected pipes.

The system functions as a water heater for domestic and other hot water use at the Maintenance Barn. The water is used for cleaning and washing trains during their scheduled maintenance and for domestic-use needs by staff.

A notable feature of the system—and what makes its application at Coney Island Subway Maintenance Facility pioneering—is that the heat-transfer medium is water instead of an anti-freeze-type liquid chemical mixture (glycol) that is typically used by such systems in cold climates. The alternative water medium avoids any potential environmental impacts, and the system is vacuum-insulated to achieve high-thermal performance during the cold weather without freezing. 

The solar water heating equipment replaces an electric hot water tank for meeting the Maintenance Facility’s hot water needs, with NYPA also installing an instantaneous steam-powered hot water heater as a backup. The reduced demand for electricity from the enhancements will result in annual savings of $94,000 and avoided emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary greenhouse gas, by 86 tons a year.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) provided a $150,000 grant to offset a portion of the $550,000 cost of the new hot water system.

“NYSERDA is pleased to partner with NYPA and the MTA on a system that is notable both for reducing energy use, protecting the environment and reducing costs.  We commend the leadership of these two authorities for developing an innovative solar thermal project that we hope will serve as a model for other significant energy users,” said Francis J. Murray, Jr., NYSERDA president and CEO.

The newly installed lighting equipment, valued at nearly $585,000, was undertaken at the Maintenance Barn and the transit complex’s Storage Building and Pneumatics Shop, which supplies air brake units for the subway cars. The new lighting includes high-output fluorescent fixtures—T5 lamps—that are more efficient, last longer and provide better illumination than the light sources they replaced.

The lighting upgrade, which includes occupancy sensors, will provide annual savings of $76,000 and cut CO2 emissions by more than 480 tons.

This is the second lighting upgrade that NYPA has undertaken at the train yard since 1996.  In the last few years, it has also installed new air compressors for air-driven equipment at the Pneumatics Shop and has refurbished three aging boilers to use natural gas and low-sulfur light fuel oil instead of a dirtier-burning heavy fuel oil. 

NYPA and MTA have collaborated on a wide range of other energy-saving and clean-energy initiatives in a partnership stemming from NYPA’s meeting the electricity requirements of the subways and commuter trains with economical power that has typically saved the MTA more than $100 million a year.  The Power Authority is the electricity service provider for the thousands of public facilities and services in New York City and Westchester County, including schools, hospitals, municipal buildings, and mass transit.  They have a peak electricity demand of more than 1,800 megawatts (mw) of power, which would be enough electricity to serve about 1.5 million homes.  (One mw equals 1,000 kilowatts.) 

Specifically, NYPA has partnered with the MTA on 85 energy services projects over the years for savings of nearly $5.7 million a year for commuters and taxpayers and annual reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of more than 34,000 tons.  Among these initiatives have been:

--New traffic signal lighting at subway locations using light-emitting diode (LED) fixtures, with the installations more efficient and producing more light per watt than the bulbs they replaced;  
--Wireless equipment for the remote control of electric resistance heaters on the third-rail systems that provide power to the subways. The remote-control feature contributes toj minimizing electricity use when the weather conditions don’t warrant heater use;  
-- A 200-kilowatt (kw) fuel cell at NYC Transit’s New Corona Car Maintenance Facility in Queens, providing a continuous source of nonpolluting, on-site power and residual heat for the shop’s domestic hot water system;
--A 300-kw roof-mounted solar photovoltaic (PV) array at the Gun Hill Bus Depot in the Bronx; 
--LED necklace lighting at the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, replacing less efficient conventional lights.

“We’re continuing to forge a successful ‘green’ partnership with the MTA on a number of different fronts for lowering its electricity costs and reducing emissions,” Kessel said. “Its diverse network of trains, subways and buses provides abundant opportunities to apply the latest technologies to use less energy and for ‘greening’ the electricity that it uses. Together our two organizations and the City of New York are treating every day as Earth Day, in mobilizing efforts for protecting the environment.”

To date, NYPA has invested more than $770 million in energy efficiency and clean energy initiatives throughout New York City for savings to public facilities of more than $73 million a year, reduction in greenhouse gases of about 476,000 tons annually and displacement of over 1.43 million barrels of oil a year.   

The Power Authority provided the upfront financing for the energy-efficiency and clean energy improvements for these projects as it has for similar initiatives over the last two decades at more than 3,300 public facilities throughout the state.  It typically recovers its costs by sharing in the savings in energy bills, after which the beneficiaries of the improvements retain all the savings.

ADDITIONAL STATEMENT ON SOLAR THERMAL PROJECT AT NYC TRANSIT COMPLEX
Councilman Domenic M. Recchia, Jr., said, “Coney Island has an abundance of sun and water, and this is a great way to use it.  This initiative is perfectly suited for Coney Island, and it serves the dual purpose of reducing our dependency on foreign oil while furthering the green technology industry.  I would like to thank New York Power Authority and New York City Transit for implanting this forward-thinking, common sense program in my district.”

About NYPA
NYPA is the nation's largest state public power organization, through the operation of its 16 generating facilities and more than 1,400 circuit-miles of transmission lines. NYPA uses no tax money or state credit. It finances its operations through the sale of bonds and revenues earned in large part through sales of electricity. More than 70 percent of the electricity NYPA produces is clean renewable hydropower. Follow @NYPAenergy on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, WordPress, YouTube, and LinkedIn.