New York Sets a Course for Electricity Sector Transformation
By Christian Roselund
On 19 December 2022, New York’s Climate Action Council approved its 2022 Scoping Plan to move the state towards carbon neutrality, including a 40% reduction in economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2030 and an 85% reduction by 2050. The plan is sweeping and the most far-reaching proposals are in the electricity sector. Here the state envisions a 3x increase in electric generation capacity, procurement of 15-45 gigawatts of non-emitting dispatchable resources, and other changes.
New York’s scoping plan release fulfills a requirement of its 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act). Under this law, the state is required to achieve 70% renewable electricity by 2030 and 100% zero-emissions electricity by 2040.
The plan identifies the electrification of buildings and transportation as the primary strategies to reach the mandated economy-wide emissions reductions of 40% by 2030 and 85% by 2050. This includes a proposed mandate for new low-rise residential buildings to be all-electric starting in 2025 and commercial buildings in 2028. It also calls on the state to adopt California’s regulations requiring all new light-duty vehicle sales to be EVs starting in 2035.
3x Increase in Electricity Generation Capacity Needed
The state estimates that the plan will increase annual electricity demand by 100-110% by 2050. New York’s plan is heavily reliant on the deployment of wind and solar to meet its renewable energy mandate, thus requiring substantial capacity additions to compensate for the intermittency of renewable generation versus conventional generation. Consequently, the plan estimates a need for 111 – 124 gigawatts of total generation in 2040, roughly 3x the 37 gigawatts that the state has
online today.
In the near term, New York already has specific capacity targets and programs underway to procure the wind, solar, and energy storage needed to replace fossil fuel generation and meet its emissions reductions mandates. This includes targets to reach ten gigawatts of distributed solar, six gigawatts of energy storage by 2030 and nine gigawatts of offshore wind by 2035.
However, New York has a long way to go to meet these targets. In July 2022 the state had only 3.5 gigawatts of solar online, 2.2 gigawatts of onshore wind capacity, and no commercial-scale operational offshore wind capacity. The offshore wind project closest to completion is the 0.132-gigawatt South Fork Wind Project, which is under construction in the Atlantic Ocean. Three other projects totaling 3-3.2 gigawatts have received draft environmental impact statements from the federal government and developers plan to commission these in the 2025-2027 timeframe.
Given the disparity between goals and deployment to date, the Scoping Plan identifies the criticality of procurement schedules, and that program designs and timelines must be modified if they are not meeting targets.
The plan also calls out the need to expand transmission resources, noting several large transmission projects that are currently under construction (A/C Transmission), being solicited (Long Island-to-New York City Intertie) or in permitting (Smart Path). The plan also highlights that transmission will be needed to connect new renewable energy resources, balance renewable energy output, and connect isolated load pockets. Along with this, the Plan identifies a need to introduce controllability and load flexibility into the electricity grid.
Dispatchable, zero-emissions technology needed
Looking further ahead the plan reveals that 15-45 gigawatts of dispatchable, zero-emissions technology will be needed by 2040 to maintain system reliability. The state highlights long-duration energy storage as a potential solution, but references other new technologies, mentioning at various times nuclear power, hydrogen-powered generation, and renewable natural gas (biomethane). To ensure the timely procurement of these dispatchable resources the plan calls for the creation of a Clean Dispatch Credit program, where electric utilities would be required to purchase increasing amounts of credits each year. The state proposes consideration of both capacity and per-megawatt-hour payment structures.
The plan also calls for the creation of a cap-and-invest program, which would create allowances for greenhouse gas emissions in other sectors not covered by the existing Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative such as transportation, industry, and gas utilities. Revenues generated by the program would help to fund other projects in the Scoping Plan.
The 2022 Scoping Plan has been delivered to Governor Hochul and the New York state legislature. While the plan only proposes but does not mandate specific actions, the composition of the Climate Action Council suggests that many of these proposals already have buy-in from the state. Of the 22 members of the Climate Action Council, 12 are state agency heads who are responsible to the governor. 19 members of the Council voted in favor of the plan, with three representatives from industry voting against the final version.
Source: Scoping Plan Full Report December 2022 (New York State Climate Action Council)
News analysis: N.Y. adopts cap and trade as a pillar of climate action (E&E News)
