New York announces $1.4B renewables funding as largest single state commitment

Dive Brief:

New York. Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) on Friday announced $1.4 billion in funding for 26 renewable energy projects, calling it the single-largest commitment to renewable energy by a state.
The projects include 22 utility-scale solar farms, three wind farms and a single hydroelectric project. The largest project will be Invenergy's 340 MW wind farm in Western New York. All told the projects will add almost 1,400 MW.
The projects were selected following a solicitation to support the Clean Climate Careers initiative Cuomo launched last summer with a target of 40,000 new clean energy jobs by 2020.

Dive Insight:

Projects receiving support are spread across the state, and include a range of resource sizes. In a first for New York, one of the wind farms will include energy storage.

Several projects will break ground next month, and all are expected to be online by 2022 adding more than 1,380 MW of capacity and generating more than 3,200,000 MWh annually.

The projects also support the state's goal of reaching 50% renewable energy by 2030. There were 88 applications submitted in total, from 30 developers.The governor's office expects the state's investment to spur more than $3 billion of additional direct investment over the life of the projects.

In the Southern Tier of the state, Calpine Corp. will build the 122 MW Bluestone Wind project, with 6.2 MW of storage. In the Mohawk Valley, NextEra Energy will construct the 50 MW East Point Energy Center.

In Lewis County, Northbrook Lyons Falls will redevelop an existing hydroelectric facility, leading to a 3.23 MW increase in new renewable capacity.

Richard Kauffman, chairman of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, said the "number of responses and the quality of projects proves that REV is working to animate the clean energy market." The Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) initiative is the state's broad rethinking of its utility sector and the business models of utilities.

The solicitation resulted in a weighted average award price of $21.71/MWh over the 20-year term of the awarded contracts, which officials say is 11% less than the price awarded through the last two prior year's awards.

New York is focused on expanding renewable energy and clean energy technology on many fronts. In January, NYSERDA unveiled a "master plan" for developing the state's offshore wind energy industry. The state wants to establish 2,400 MW of offshore wind energy by 2030.