The second part of the New Jersey State Energy Office’s project to develop distributed generation on Long Beach Island (LBI), N.J., became a reality recently when the state’s Board of Public Utilities (BPU) awarded a contract to Electrotek Concepts for the procurement, installation and evaluation of microturbine technology at the Harvey Cedars Bible Conference Complex on LBI. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the project is intended to promote energy efficiency, advance new and innovative technologies, and reduce the environmental impact of energy use, according to an Electrotek Concepts press release.
The second phase of the project was given the green light after an analysis of the LBI distribution system conducted by Electrotek in 1999-2000 found that microturbine technology would be appropriate for the complex. According to the BPU, the project “has the potential to increase the supply and use of clean energy resources, as well as increase transmission, sub-transmission, and distribution reliability in an area that is facing reliability issues.”