New York State Must Act Quickly to Meet Energy Demands
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s recent Future Energy Economy Summit was an important checkpoint for New York:Convened on the heels of the fifth anniversary of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, thesummit brought together industry experts to discuss where New York stands on the CLCPA’s nation-leadingclean energy mandates, and how to achieve them. This summit teed up three important issues to consider:ensuring the current reliability of New York’s grid, determining the future electric generation resourcesrequired, and assessing the impact on New Yorkers’ wallets.
And now, to make the dialogue meaningful, it’s up to the state to take swift action.
To maintain the current reliability of New York’s grid will take approximately 95,000 megawatts of emissions-free electric generation. For perspective, 1 MW powers roughly 1,000 homes. As the state continues to addlarge-scale businesses and factories, such as microchip facilities, a substantial amount of additional powerwill be required. Preliminary studies from the state’s grid operator are already showing energy shortages in the early 2030s due to this expected addition of large loads onto the system, coupled with the retirements ofcurrent generating plants.
While it is important that New York continues to bolster its economy by attracting these new businesses, itcannot be at the expense of reliability. Grid reliability must always be at the forefront of the minds ofpolicymakers on the state’s way to achieving its climate mandates.
The summit’s conversations on the future of new and existing nuclear, hydrogen, renewable natural gas,carbon capture and sequestration, and other technologies are a step in the right direction, but the state mustmove quickly to decide what the emissions-free resources will be, so that they can be developed and widelyavailable.
Appropriate programs for a properly trained workforce to operate these new technologies are also a criticalpiece of the puzzle.
Equally as significant as developing the needed resources for the state’s clean energy future is knowing howthe climate law will be paid for. Since the law was adopted, there has been no study to determine thefinancial impact on everyday consumers and businesses. Furthermore, the cost of economic developmentremains unknown, which could lessen the attraction of new businesses and jobs in our state. This topic mustbe addressed: New Yorkers need to know how the energy transition is going to impact their day-to-day lives.
New York’s electric generators have always supported the clean energy transition, and the members of theIndependent Power Producers of New York are ready to invest in the energy resources needed for a cleanerfuture. The conversations from the summit are certainly a step in the right direction, but the next phase mustbe thoughtful action by New York state.
