The Town of Southampton is the oldest English settlement in the State of New York. Southampton is on the south fork of Long Island, about 90 miles east of Manhattan and 25 miles west of Montauk Point. As of the 2010 Census, the permanent population of the town was about 56,000. During the summer months, it increases to over 115,000.
The incorporated Village of Southampton (SHV) contains a vibrant commercial center and is a world-class resort destination. The year-round population is about 3,100 and the summer population is tenfold. SHV is the commercial center of the south fork of Long Island. The village has facilities that are critical to both the village and the south fork in general, and they are vulnerable to storm impacts. These establishments include two pharmacies, a hospital, a bank, a grocery store, numerous restaurants, shops, and stores. The most important regional facility is Southampton Hospital (SHH), which is the only hospital serving Riverhead to Montauk Point, an area more than 40 miles long. Also, government buildings and schools, as well as fire and police departments, are all in the Village of Southampton.
Southampton is geographically remote, isolated, and highly vulnerable to storm impacts. The project aims to improve reliability and help address projected shortfalls in peak power supply in the area. The village lost power following Hurricanes Sandy (seven days) and Irene (two days) as well as in the Northeast Blackout of 2003 (three days).
The project includes an optimized mix of DERs that will provide power for the microgrid and/or deliver power to the main grid, depending on operating conditions. The non-coincident peak microgrid load is 5,980 kW, which includes critical facilities and about 2,634 kW for 150 small commercial establishments and about 800 residences near the downtown area.
The Southampton microgrid will enable continued normal life and economic activity in a large section of downtown SHV during outages to the main grid.
Facilities will be connected using portions of the existing PSEG Long Island (PSEG-LI) above ground feeders that will be hardened in areas where there is the risk of tree damage. The existing PSEG-LI system will allow the DERs to connect with all the critical facilities and supply other customers served by PSEG-LI. Switches will enable the microgrid to operate in island mode during outages to the main grid.
The capacity new and existing DERs will be 6.25 MW. This does not include 78 kW of smaller backup generators that will not be connected to the microgrid, but will be available to supply their hosts if needed. The project assumes 126 kW of load curtailment, which represents 5 percent of the peak load for the hospital and high school, and a new absorption chiller that will reduce the peak hospital load by approximately 289 kW. The CCHP, battery, and photovoltaic (PV) facilities will supply energy behind the meter, and the electric generation system will sell energy to the NYISO and use the existing PSEG-LI distribution system.