The company, which is a subsidiary of Energy East Corporation, will add 9MW over the next three years to two of its plants - Station 2 and Station 5 - on the Genesee river in the City of Rochester. The plants have a total installed capacity of 49MW.
Planning work is to start this year to increase the capacity of Station 2 from 6.5MW to 13MW. The project will see 5.5MW of new capacity added plus a gain of an additional 1MW from improvement to the existing generator, Energy East said in a statement. The rewind work is due for completion next year, the full upgrade by 2009.
Further generator rewind work is planned for Station 5 at Middle/Lower Falls from mid-2008 to add 1.5MW of capacity.
CEO Jim Laurito said: 'Optimising the output of these plants is also an important step in diversifying the fuel mix for generating electricity.'
