Dive Brief:

• New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Reforming Energy Vision (REV) initiative will ask the state Public Service Commission (PSC) to prepare utilities and the grid operator for smart technologies, a streamlined electricity market, and practices that will expand demand management, energy efficiency, renewable energy, distributed generation, and energy storage.
• The initiative creates new policies and programs to support adoption of practices by consumers, businesses, and industries that would ease the burden on power generators of peak demand and open savings opportunities for ratepayers.
• The initiative leaves to the PSC the burden of deciding which existing grid operating and electricity market practices should be modified and how utilities can manage distributed energy resources and move ratepayers to energy consumption priorities that benefit themselves and the system.

Dive Insight:

The example of the Empire State Building efficiency retrofit stands tall in New Yorkers awareness of the savings available from such programs.

While the Cuomo initiative will play well politically, it imposes on the PSC the task of bringing along utility leaders charged with the responsibility of keeping the lights on.

The initiative asks commissioners to find ways to help utility leaders see how promoting energy efficiency, renewable energy, least cost energy supply, fuel diversity, system adequacy and reliability, demand elasticity, and customer empowerment will benefit them and their shareholders.

The initiative stresses the inefficiency and cost burden on ratepayers and the entire power delivery system of being prepared for a few periods of excessive peak demand on hot summer afternoons and emphasizes ways a smart modern grid can alleviate those stresses.

It points out that smart refrigerators, air conditioners, hot water heaters, and other smart appliances can create a two-way communication between ratepayers, generators and the power system to interrupt skyrocketing electricity consumption during peak demand periods and reduce the need for new transmission lines and power plants.