The siting of new fossil-fired and nuclear power plants raises a number of complex and critical economic, social, environmental, reliability, and design issues that must be examined before the required permits can be issued. The impact of the proposed facility on the local community must be addressed, as well as social and environmental justice issues of whether the facility is being unfairly sited in a low income and/or minority community that already is home for more than its share of energy and industrial facilities.

The key reliability and economic issues that must be addressed as part of the power plant siting process include whether the new facility is needed to adequately and reliably serve system demand; whether there are renewable and demand-side alternatives to the proposed facility; and the economic costs and benefits of the proposed facility. These analyses frequently involve the use of system production cost simulation models.

The environmental issues that must be examined as part of the siting process include the impact that the proposed facility will have on local and regional air emissions and air quality and the emission of global warming gases; whether the proposed facility will offset emissions from older and dirtier power plants; and whether the proposed facility should have a closed water cooling system with dry or wet towers. Other critical environmental questions include whether the facility will have the best available control technologies for air emissions.

In addition, the impact of the proposed facility on the local and regional transmission systems also must be examined.

In recent years, Synapse has examined these issues in siting proceedings for proposed new fossil-fired and nuclear electric generating facilities in California, Illinois New York State, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.