Proctors microgrid is a poor investment

Regarding the Aug. 15 article, (“Proctors grid still a go as costs climb and its impact shrink,”) about Proctor’s $15.6 million downtown grid. This innovative natural gas fired 850 kWatt co-generation facility is able to capture a large fraction of the waste heat of classical natural gas electric generation to heat buildings in the downtown area. Very impressive!

Maybe this saves Proctors money, but New York taxpayers are paying way too much for this boondoggle.

For the same $16 million, taxpayers could have purchased more than 10 times that amount of community solar anywhere in New York thus burning no natural gas at all to generate the same amount of electricity. The buildings served by this microgrid are still heated by natural gas, even with this new generator.

Clearly this “upgrade” is not........

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