On November 4, ISO-New England sent a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) requesting to terminate its contract with NTE Connecticut LLC, the developer of the proposed 650 megawatt fossil fuel power plant in Killingly, CT, citing the developer’s inability to deliver capacity within the tariff’s mandatory deadline.

When ISO New England filed to cancel Invenergy‘s electricity supply commitment in September 2018, it effectively was the beginning the end of Governor Gina Raimondo‘s proposed $1 billion fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant planned for Burrillville, Rhode Island. Less than a year later the power plant was officially dead.

“As in Rhode Island, in Connecticut we found that delaying them, defeated them. Early local opposition was key in both states,” said Killingly resident Earl McWilliams, a member No More Dirty Power in Killingly.

“Soon after the Connecticut Siting Council first approved the Killingly power plant proposal in June 2019, a public outcry about the climate impacts of the plant began,” writes the Sierra Club in a press release. “Organizations and individuals from around the state have since fiercely advocated for the plant to be rejected. Concerned citizens have demonstrated at rallies in Killingly, the Governor’s residence in Hartford, in front of the State Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and at the State Capitol, dozens of op-eds and letters to the editor have appeared in local papers, thousands of messages have been sent to Governor Lamont, and a lawsuit was filed by Not Another Power Plant challenging the Siting Council decision.”

Kate Donnelly, a member of No More Dirty Power in Killingly, said, “The Killingly Energy Center is a bad idea for eastern Connecticut. It would increase the pollution in Killingly, a town with high asthma rates that already houses a fracked gas power plant. Its construction would make it impossible to meet Connecticut’s goals to address the climate crisis. The energy from this plant wouldn’t even be used in our state. For these reasons, people have been fighting construction of the power plant since it was first approved. Even though we were repeatedly told it was a “done deal,” we fought on. With this news we are hopeful that it is the beginning of the end of the Killingly Energy Center and we can all focus on meeting our climate goals through energy efficiency programs and the development of renewable resources.”

This has been a long fight, and it’s not quite over yet. RIFuture covered the fight against the proposed Killingly plant way back in 2016.