Ehrlich: I am skeptical of power plant

LYNN – State Rep. Lori Ehrlich told a Lynn business audience Friday she has doubts about a New Jersey company’s ability to build a power plant favored by Salem’s top elected officials.”I’m concerned they’ve never done this before,” she told a dozen Lynn Area Chamber of Commerce members.Ehrlich opposes the plant project and questioned Footprint Power LLC’s ability to finance what Mayor Kimberley Driscoll last week described as “a billion dollar project.”Footprint Chief Executive Officer Peter Furniss, in an interview Friday, said the firm’s four principals are “perfectly suited to doing this.” He said Footprint will turn to “project finance markets” to provide debt and equity for the plant project.”We all have decades of experience in the power industry. We’re very well versed,” Furniss said.Footprint wants to build a 674 megawatt natural gas power plant on the Salem Harbor site of a 62-year-old plant scheduled to close this summer. Driscoll and state Rep. John Keenan support Footprint’s plans and say the new plant will assure power supplies for the North Shore and boost the region’s economy.Conservation Law Foundation and other plant opponents – including Ehrlich – said a project the size of Footprint’s should receive additional state review and opponents have outlined their objections in legal challenges.Furniss said Footprint has worked for more than four years to develop the plant and win local support for it. Driscoll a week ago said Footprint faces a tight schedule to resolve disagreements over the plant and move ahead with ordering its turbines.Furniss on Friday said the turbines have already been ordered, but he acknowledged that continued disagreements over plant permitting and financing “put pressure” on a June 1, 2016 Footprint commitment to tie the Salem plant into the regional power distribution system.Ehrlich said adding another natural gas plant to the regional power supply heightens reliance on gas as an energy source.”It makes us very vulnerable to price spikes,” she said.But Furniss said Footprint “utilizes natural gas so much more efficiently” than other plants and said the plant will be “well positioned” as a supplier in the power grid.Ehrlich also questioned how much of the power plant’s price tag will ultimately fall on Massachusetts taxpayers.”Are three guys from New Jersey who never built a power plant before coming to Massachusetts and dropping $1 billion? I don’t think so,” she told the Chamber audience.On its website, Footprint states that offshore Salem winds are a strong source of wind energy and notes that the power plant could supply power, when needed, once wind and other energy sources are harnessed.The firm wants to build the new plant on 18 of the current plant’s 65-acre site, with the remainder of the site set aside for development projects advocated by Driscoll.Ehrlich on Friday said she understands Driscoll is “looking out for the tax base of her city,” but she questioned Footprint’s long-term commitment to Salem and the North Shore and speculated on what would occur if the firm builds the plant then sells it.”Suddenly the things they were going to pay for become a public burden,” she said.The “commitments we’ve made,” countered Furniss, “are embodied in binding documents.”