The state's power plant siting board approved plans Friday to build a 505-megawatt natural gas-fired electric generating plant in Rensselaer. The plant, to be built and operated by Besicorp, will be located on the site of a former BASF manufacturing plant.
Plans call for a recycled-newsprint manufacturing plant on the same site. The state Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment said that associated plant is the subject of a separate state approval process and was not considered by the board Friday.
Other than the 55 megawatts of power to be generated for the newsprint plant, the rest of the new plant's electricity will be sold in the wholesale electricity market, state officials said.
Rensselaer is directly across the Hudson River from Albany.
