My last post described a letter sent by two members of the Climate Action Council, Donna DeCarolis and Dennis Elsenbeck, to Rory Christian, Chair & Chief Executive Officer of the New Yok State Public Service Commission (PSC) that argued that there are more than sufficient circumstances to warrant the PSC commencing a hearing process to “consider modification and extension of New York Renewable Energy Program timelines.. This post describes a filing that I made with Richard Ellenbogen, Constatine Kontogiannis, and Francis Menton to New York Public Service Commission Case 22-M-0149 – Proceeding on Motion of the Commission Assessing implementation of and Compliance with the Requirements and Targets of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act that makes the same point.
I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act or CLCPA) net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks. I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 550 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.
Background
The Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and has two electric sector targets: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040. The Climate Action Council (CAC) was responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” The Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda” was based on an Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).
The Donna DeCarolis and Dennis Elsenbeck letter argued that Public Service Law (PSL) Section 66-P, Establishment of a renewable energy program, includes bounds on implementation. Their letter described two circumstances that they believe warrant a hearing Firstly, the Draft Clean Energy Standard Biennial Review prepared by Department of Public Service (DPS) Staff and NYSERDA “details the numerous factors, including inflation, transmission constraints, shifting federal energy and trade policies and interconnection and siting challenges that have adversely impacted renewable development and the state’s trajectory towards achieving the Program’s 2030 target.” The Biennial Review that “concludes that a delay in achieving the 70% goal may be unavoidable.”
The second circumstance noted is the recently released Draft New York State Energy Plan that “further affirms that current renewable deployment trajectories are insufficient to meet statutory targets, and that external constraints continue to impede progress.” They include this quote: “Consistent with the findings of the CES biennial review, the [Draft Energy Plan’s] modeling shows achievement of a 70% renewable grid in 2033.” However, the letter points out that the Draft Energy Plan goes on to “acknowledge that the anticipated buildout of renewables could be limited by external factors and the 70% target by 2030 may not be met until much later in the decade.”
There are two other relevant reports not mentioned in the letter. The New York State Comptroller Status report “Climate Act Goals – Planning, Procurements, and Progress Tracking” audited PSC and NYSERDA efforts to achieve the Climate Act mandates. It found that “While PSC and NYSERDA have taken considerable steps to plan for the transition to renewable energy in accordance with the Climate Act and CES, their plans did not comprise all essential components, including assessing risks to meeting goals and projecting costs.” The report recommended that the agencies begin the comprehensive review of the Climate Act, “continuously analyze” existing and emerging risks and known issues, conduct a detailed analysis of cost estimates, and “assess the extent to with ratepayers can reasonably assume the responsibility” of the implementation costs.
The second relevant report is the Annual Informational Report on Climate Act status. This report is required to explicitly describe ratepayer costs. The last report was released in July 2023 and covers data through 2022. There hasn’t been a report since then. I have not doubts that the release of this information was delayed because the costs would be politically detrimental to the Hochul Administration.
Our filing described other circumstances and a provision within PSL 66-P itself that warrant the PSC holding a hearing to consider modification and extension of the Climate Act timelines.
Submittal
Roger Caiazza, Richard Ellenbogen, Constatine Kontogiannis, and Francis Menton (“Independent Intervenors”) have filed testimony in the Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation (NMPC) dba National Grid and the Consolidated Edison Company of New York rate cases. We made the same argument as the letter. Section 66-P, Establishment of a renewable energy program, noting that this law includes bounds on implementation that have not been considered in the rate cases. The Department of Public Service (DPS) staff response to our arguments boils down to “rate cases are not the appropriate forum to consider limitations of the renewable energy program”. The filing submitted on August 12 argues that Case 22-M-0149 – Proceeding on Motion of the Commission Assessing implementation of and Compliance with the Requirements and Targets of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act is the appropriate forum and should address this issue.
I teamed up with three gentlemen who share the common opinion that the Climate Act net-zero transition simply cannot work as proposed and will do far more harm than good. Ellenbogen is an electrical engineer who is President of Allied Converters where he has pioneered how “green” manufacturing can work. Constantine Kontogiannis is an engineer who has decades of experience providing energy consulting services. Menton is a retired lawyer and now writes articles at his Manhattan Contrarian blog that analyze New York’s energy transition. We have all been arguing that the net-zero transition cannot work for years to no avail. We decided to combine forces and become involved with utility rate cases because we do not think that our messaging has been acknowledged, much less addressed and because all of us are directly affected by either of the cases. Yesterday’s filing is another attempt to force the Public Service Commission to consider safety valve provisions in the PSL Section 66-P component of Climate Act implementation.
Our Argument
The Public Service Commission (PSC or Commission) has not adequately addressed their broad mandate to ensure access to safe, reliable utility service at just and reasonable rates relative to all the Climate Act mandates incorporated in recent rate cases. PSL 66-P requires the Commission to establish a program to ensure the State meets the 2030 mandate that a minimum of 70% of the statewide electric generation in 2030 is generated by renewable energy systems and the 2040 requirement that the statewide electrical demand system will be zero emissions also includes safety valve provisions. The Commission is empowered by this statute to temporarily suspend or modify these obligations if, after conducting an appropriate hearing, it finds that PSL 66-P impedes the provision of safe and adequate electric service. This filing explains that the utility customers in arrears provision has been exceeded so it would be appropriate to conduct a hearing.
Our filing is extensive. It includes the primary filing, two exhibits documenting the customers in arrears safety valve trigger, and five supporting exhibits. The primary filing argues that Public Service Law Section 66-p(4) contains the aforementioned safety valve provisions. Exhibit 1 – Trend in Company Customers in Arrears documents increasing trends in utility customer payment delinquencies, providing baseline data for the customers in arrears safety valve trigger. I intend to do a separate post on that next. Exhibit 2 – Customers in Arrears is a spreadsheet that contains the detailed analytical data on utility arrears across New York’s major distribution companies.
The remainder of the exhibits support the need for the filing, additional circumstances that demonstrate that the broad mandate to ensure access to safe, reliable utility service at just and reasonable rates has not been addressed in the current implementation process, a demonstration that the current approach is actually increasing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, and a recommendation for an alternative approach. Exhibit 3 – Affordability-Focused Recommendations outlines specific policy recommendations to address energy affordability concerns, likely including proposals for cost transparency, alternative funding mechanisms, and enhanced low-income programs. Exhibit 4 – Resource Gap Characterization analyzes gaps between CLCPA mandates and available resources, potentially addressing both financial and infrastructure capacity constraints. Exhibit 5 – Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources explains that the need for a resource that is not currently commercially available risks investments in false solutions. Exhibit 6 – Electrification Increases Emissions presents analysis demonstrating that certain electrification strategies may paradoxically increase emissions. Finally, Exhibit 7 – Alternative Approach proposes alternative implementation pathways that could achieve climate goals while maintaining affordability and reliability.
Discussion
Our filing advances five key arguments that the Commission should conduct a hearing to temporarily suspend or modify the PSL 66-P obligations because the present approach impedes the provision of safe and adequate electric service. Current data on customer arrears and service disconnections demonstrates that New York may already meet thresholds for invoking PSL Section 66-p(4) safety valves. With utility arrears reaching $1.8 billion and affecting 1.2 million households, CLCPA implementation is creating significant affordability burdens. The Commission has failed to provide comprehensive cost reporting required under its own orders, making it impossible to assess true ratepayer impacts. The proposed transition to weather-dependent renewable resources poses unacceptable reliability risks that warrant safety valve consideration.
We believe that the Climate Act’s selective choice of metrics for affordability, reliability, and sustainability/environmental impacts fail to provide a complete picture of the impacts associated with the net-zero transition. Our intervention to date has focused on the technical aspects of implementation. We accept that challenging the CLCPA itself in a rate case is inappropriate. However, it is now clear that technical problems make implementation of the Climate Act mandates inappropriate because of the observed challenges. There are significant costs and reliability impacts associated with implementing the CLCPA in the rate cases but there are no criteria for acceptable affordability, reliability, or environmental impacts. This must change and this Proceeding appears to be the appropriate venue.
Conclusion
The Climate Act is and always will be political theater. New York has never done a feasibility analysis because the politicians and the activists who wrote the law naively believed that the net-zero transition was only a matter of political will. It has always been inevitable that New York’s net-zero transition would collapse because of physics and costs issues that would have been flagged in a proper feasibility analysis. Now that the consequences of ignoring the fundamentals are becoming so evident that they cannot be ignored, the search is on for an excuse to pause implementation. This filing argues that there are already provisions in place to reconsider the schedule. When a hearing is held, the ambition of the transition will be exposed to reality as well.
I will follow up this post with posts that describe the individual elements of the filing as time permits.
Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York 
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