State energy plan undermines emissions targets, experts say

This article was originally published on December 16 at 5:57 PM EST by THE CITY

New York State on Tuesday, Dec. 9, approved a roadmap to meet the state’s energy needs for the next fifteen years — but the plan could make it harder for New York City to reach its own green goals, city officials said.

Although the plan calls for the development of large amounts of renewable energy, such as solar and wind, but also specifies keeping fossil fuels in the mix and does not match the mandates of the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019. That law requires cutting carbon emissions and transitioning to clean energy.

Recently, Governor Kathy Hochul has backed away from these goals and willingness expressed to postpone the mandates. She has embraced an “all of the above” energy strategy that includes a continued energy strategy dependence on natural gas – as well as new forms of nuclear energy – to meet the growing need for electricity.

“The state energy plan is a realistic assessment of where we are, and a roadmap for where we need to go,” Doreen Harris, president of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), said Tuesday, reading from a letter Hochul wrote. “It is candid about the challenges ahead and confident in what New York can achieve.”

The plan codifies Hochul’s approach, and local officials and energy experts warn it poses special challenges for New York City: The plan projects that gas-fired power plants in the city could operate longer than expected, and that some could be turned back on. The plan will also make it more difficult for large buildings in the five boroughs to reduce carbon emissions, as required by city law. And the city’s own emissions will remain higher than its own targets indicate.

Elijah Hutchinson, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice, said the energy plan puts New York City “on a path of deferred action.”

“To ensure New York City has affordable and reliable energy in the 2030s, we must invest now in our aging infrastructure,” he said in a statement Tuesday. “We can start planning projects that will bring renewable energy to New York City in the 2030s, or we can delay action, leaving no choice but to rely on existing and new polluting fossil fuel infrastructure that will make New York City less affordable, less healthy and less resilient for generations to come.”

And when and how New York City takes action to achieve these long-term goals could soon impact New Yorkers – very soon. New York City’s power grid faces reliability issues — possible brownouts and blackouts — starting next summer. according to Unpleasant NARRATEthe national grid operator. NYISO has linked the problem to fossil fuel plants being retired faster than new sources are coming onto the grid, along with rising energy demand.

Among important ongoing projects: the Empire Wind offshore wind project and the Champlain Hudson Power Express, a transmission line to transport hydroelectric power from Canada, are completed on time, NYISO predicts that the lack of reliable power will begin later, in 2029. Con Ed, New York City’s electric utility, also has prediction reliability issues for New York City starting in 2030. (The federal government said Monday it would pause leases for Empire Wind and other offshore wind farms.)

In comments submitted to NYSERDA in October, New York City accused the state of failing to find a solution to ensure the city has enough energy generation to avoid energy droughts and meet climate goals.

Eyes on Peakers

The state government’s measure reignites a debate about particularly polluting facilities designed in an emergency to provide more power to the city: peaker power plants.

This state maker, Assembly Mamdani cheered the state’s 2021 decision to refuse a business license to replace an old, gas-fired power plant with a new one in Astoria, Queens. Peakers run when electricity demand is high, such as during heat waves or cold weather, but they are dirtier and emit more nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide than typical power plants. Such pollution contributes to climate change and harms the health of nearby communities.

At the time, Hochul praised the denial, saying: “Climate change is the greatest challenge of our time, and we owe it to future generations to meet our industry-leading climate and emissions reduction targets.”

But now that Mamdani is about to become mayor, the picture has changed at the federal and state levels, and projects that would have allowed the closure of even more peaking power plants in New York City have stalled.

“Every New Yorker deserves affordable, clean energy, and the guarantee that access will be critical to new Mayor Mamdani,” said Mamdani spokesperson Dora Pekec. “The mayor-elect knows that the fight against the climate crisis is inextricably linked to the fight for affordability – and that meeting this moment requires us to confront the intertwined challenges of climate change and its growing impact on working New Yorkers.”

As mayor, Mamdani has limited ability to decide on peak opening and closing, but he can use the pulpit to advocate for clean energy investments for the city.

“The mayor should be reaching out for the help that the city needs, whether it comes from the federal government, from the state government, from the private sector,” said Daniel Zarrilli, a former chief climate policy adviser in the de Blasio administration. “The mayor’s vote really matters.”

President Donald Trump is hostile to renewable energy development across the country, and especially here in New York. His administration has rolled back clean energy tax credits and implemented policies that prevent projects that require federal permits, such as offshore wind. Tariffs, inflation and supply chain tangles further complicated the feasibility of developing new clean energy projects.

New York City’s electrical grid is powered almost entirely by fossil fuels. Indian Point, the zero-emission nuclear power plant that then-Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered closed, was largely replaced by gas-fired generators, which Greenhouse gas emissions have increased and the associated costs have risen with electricity consumption.

At the state level, several projects to bring more clean energy to New York City and enable the replacement of fossil fuels have been canceled or postponed, including Clean Path New York, a transmission line which would run from New York State to Astoria.

Only two offshore wind projects to power New York City are moving forward, not including the the ambitions of the state years ago. Amid the uncertainty regarding wind, so does the state work stopped developing transmission lines to connect future wind farms to the city.

The lack of new clean energy sources — and the means to bring the energy to the city — creates a void, said Rob Freudenberg, vice president of energy and environment at the Regional Plan Association.

“The peakers are unfortunately a necessary evil at this point because they are there and we haven’t replaced them,” he said.

The state’s progress in decarbonizing the electric grid is directly related to the ability of city building owners to comply with Local Law 97, which sets limits on the amount of carbon large buildings can spit. Buildings are the largest source of global warming emissions in New York City. The longer it takes for the state to switch to cleaner energy sources, the more expensive and complicated compliance with emissions caps will be. 2021 report found.

Local Law 97 also requires city government operations to reduce emissions further and faster than private properties: 50 percent by January 2030. The reductions are compared to 2006 baseline levels. But the state’s energy plan means that goal is even further away, with higher urban emissions expected in the coming years.

According to the plan approved on Tuesday, the state itself will not meet the criteria of the climate law in time. The state’s climate law calls for 70 percent of electricity to come from renewable energy sources by 2030 – now on track for 2033 – and for emissions to be cut by 40 percent by 2030, a target now due by 2037 at the earliest.

Repowering or extending the life of the gas-fired peaks goes against regulations and local efforts that aim to close them down in the long term. Many of the city’s peaking power plants are quite old and will be retired under a state rule limiting nitrogen oxide emissions. The New York Power Authority must retire its peaking power plants — which are cleaner than most other privately owned plants — by 2030, as required by law. Peakers have the option to expand their activities with approval if this is necessary for reliability.

“The solution is not to think about repowering at this point,” said Daniel Chu, senior energy planner at the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance and a member of a coalition that wants to close the peaks. “But look at the kind of energy demand we have in New York City and manage demand appropriately.”

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