Renewable energy

A second utility grid-scale battery energy storage facility is in the review pipeline at Riverhead Town Hall, with more sure to follow, according to town officials. This proposal is for an Edwards Avenue site, adjacent to the LIPA substation that has attracted over 600 acres of utility-scale solar power facilities in the vicinity.

The proposal to build a 100 megawatt/200 megawatt-hour battery energy storage facility on Mill Road just north of West Main Street comes as the Riverhead Town Board is considering legislation to regulate this type of energy facility.

Census tracts in Calverton, Riverhead, downtown Riverhead, Riverside, Northampton, Flanders are among those identified statewide as "disadvantaged" communities that would be targeted for investment under the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.

The shared community loop system will use the heat stored 250 feet below the Earth's surface to heat 10 homes in the Riverhead senior community. In the summer, the system with withdraw heat from the homes and discharge it into the Earth, cooling the homes.

Even as the New York State's proposed energy plan calls for a 50 percent reliance on renewable energy by 2030, the governor has embraced nuclear power, advocating the continued operation of two nuclear plants upstate.

The electric utilities industry and their fossil-fuel backers are doing everything they can to stop the home solar energy insurgence because it cuts into their profits.