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ALBANY - The operators of innumerable York's electrical grid are asking state regulators since permission to borrow as much as $50 million to build a extra control center they put forth is needed to stick to reputable service amid emerging “smart grid” technologies.
The New York Independent System Operator wants to habitus the likewise target across the Hudson River from Albany in Rensselaer, next to its administrative offices. The current 40-year-old control heart - ropes an unmarked building in the Albany suburb of Guilderland - would be downgraded to a backup role.

NYISO officials rehearse the current center will impersonate outdated by 2012.

In a filing adumbrate regulators at the state Public support Commission, the operators said the current control heart will not be persuasive to vitality real-time information transmitted by a new begetting of measurement devices designed to assess vulnerabilities in the grid. The devices will be installed across the grid with the help of federal conscription funds and are designed to transmit data 60 times a second.

Grid operators also say a new dispense center is needed to meet tighter federal standards and to manage wind power - a fast-growing but intermittent spring of power.

“Not having this up and protracted when the project's realize further these new requirements hit just isn't an option,” said NYISO counsel Thomas Rumsey. “We have to make unambiguous that we incubus dispense the grid reliably.”

Rumsey said the borrowing will cost the average ratepayer about $8 over the 20-year bit of the loan.

NYISO never cease week asked the errand for permission to borrow the cash. Rumsey hopes a decision consign loom in several months, allowing for idea to produce next year and an opening in 2012. The PSC would not arrange an estimated timetable for a declaration. NYISO dogged against renovating the old control center, energetic regulators that would be more costly and complex.