Dive Brief:
- The New York Power Authority’s draft strategic plan for expanding the state’s renewable energy resources proposes 40 projects representing 3.5 GW of capacity from solar, onshore wind and battery energy storage systems.
- The plan, released Tuesday, is a response to the last state budget, which significantly expanded NYPA’s authority in several areas — including its ability to develop, own and operate renewable energy generation projects.
- “The draft Renewables Strategic Plan outlines the innovative framework the Power Authority has taken to fulfilling its expanded role in the development of the state’s renewable power resources,” said Justin E. Driscoll, NYPA president and CEO.
Dive Insight:
In addition to pursuing these new projects, NYPA’s expanded authority enables the organization to “support workforce training for jobs in the renewable energy sector, and to establish the Renewable Energy Access and Community Help program to provide bill credits for low- and moderate-income ratepayers in disadvantaged communities served by New York’s investor-owned utilities,” the draft plan says.
The Public Power NY Coalition, a group that advocates for publicly-owned renewable energy, criticized the draft plan as inadequate and an “abrogation” of NYPA’s responsibility due in part to its estimate of a potential “80-85% attrition rate for early stage projects and a 30-60% rate for more developed projects.”
“By the state’s own estimation, without new NYPA projects New York will only reach 44% renewable generation by 2030, falling short of the state’s legal mandate for 70% renewable generation by 2030,” Public Power NY said. “NYPA has had over a year to plan for these contingencies, and should have planned to build enough capacity to account for attrition. By only proposing 3.5 gigawatts, NYPA is setting the stage to fail to meet their own inadequate targets.”
NYPA said that its 40 initial proposals are “only the first tranche” of projects the organization plans to embark upon, and that it looks forward to building on this strategic plan for 2025 with “further projects for consideration.”
The 40 proposed projects are distributed throughout the state and include seven battery energy storage systems, 32 solar projects and one wind project.
NYPA said that it is moving forward with efforts that will accelerate the authority’s ability to build renewables with two Board of Trustees votes this month. One vote concerns “establishing a wholly-owned subsidiary that will allow NYPA to bring in external capital more easily” and protecting the organization against project risks, and the other concerns an initial investment of $100 million into new renewables generation.
NYPA said that since its expanded authority was approved by Gov. Kathy Hochul, D, in May of last year, it has made “major progress” toward renewables development – “establishing the business structures, filling key personnel roles, making regulatory filings, obtaining tax rulings, approving formation of a renewables subsidiary, a $100 million bond issuance for new renewables, and garnering other necessary resources to advance the first tranche of projects.”
The release of the draft plan opened a 60-day public comment period, which will include six public hearings across the state to gather community feedback, NYPA said.
