In early August I submitted a filing that I prepared 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. The filing argued that there are sufficient circumstances to warrant the PSC commencing a hearing process to consider modification and extension of New York Renewable Energy Program timelines consistent with Public Service Law (PSL) Section 66-P bounds on implementation. This post provides details on exhibits submitted with the filing.
I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) 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 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).
There is a fundamental Climate Act implementation issue. Clearly there are bounds on what New York State ratepayers can afford and there are limits related to reliability risks for a system reliant on weather-dependent resources. The problem is that there are no criteria for acceptable bounds.
Submittal
Richard Ellenbogen, Constatine Kontogiannis, Francis Menton, and I (Independent Intervenors) filed testimony in the Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation dba National Grid and the Consolidated Edison Company of New York rate cases. Among other things, we argued that Section 66-P, Establishment of a renewable energy program includes bounds on implementation that have not been considered in the rate cases. The Department of Public Service (DPS) staff response to our arguments boiled 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 is the appropriate forum and should address this issue.
The filing included extensive documentation. An earlier post describes our main argument but only mentioned the attached supporting exhibits. This post provides more details about exhibits 3-5 that address affordability and reliability challenges.
Affordability Recommendations
Exhibit 3 – Affordability-Focused Recommendations documents references to affordability and reliability recommendations in the New York Department of Public Service (DPS) Document and Matter Management (DMM) System. Rather than personally wading through the system we acknowledge the use of Perplexity (https://www.perplexity.ai/) to generate summaries and references included in the document.
The Perplexity summary provided the following key takeaway:
Since 2022, at least six concrete safeguards have been proposed in the New York Department of Public Service (DPS) record to keep the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act affordable for households and businesses. They call for (1) rigorous public cost reporting, (2) objective “safety-valve” triggers under Public Service Law §66-p(4), (3) systematic pursuit of alternative funding, (4) expansion of low-income bill-protection programs, (5) transparent data dashboards, and (6) stricter benefit-cost and rate-design standards.
There has been no DPS staff response to any of the calls to develop affordability triggers.
Reliability Recommendations
The biggest unresolved reliability risk associated with Climate Act implementation is addressed in Case 15-E-0302 – Proceeding on Motion of the Commission to Implement a Large-Scale Renewable Program and Clean Energy Standard. Responsible New York agencies all agree that new Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resource (DEFR) technologies are needed to make a solar and wind-reliant electric energy system viable during extended periods of low wind and solar resource availability. Case 15-E-0302 is supposed to address this technology. Exhibit 4 – Resource Gap Characterization describes the challenges of defining the frequency, duration, and intensity of low wind and solar resource availability (known as dark doldrums) events. Two exhibits addressing reliability were included in the filing.
Exhibit 4 describes the issues associated with the resource planning objective for dark doldrum episodes. Comparison of results from different evaluation periods indicates that the longer the evaluation period the more likely that the worst-case event will be discovered. New York has not done an analysis using the longest possible data set. In the opinion of the Independent Intervenors, the worst-case planning episode will likely be based on a January 1961 dark doldrum episode. Until that period is evaluated then it is likely that we don’t know how much energy will be required during the worst-case New York dark doldrum. The Independent Intervenors believe the goal of an evaluation over the longer period would be to define a probabilistic range of return periods for dark doldrum events similar to 100-year floods that could be used for electric system planning.
Even if a robust probabilistic parameter is developed and used for future resource planning it would not allay all our reliability concerns. Today’s electric system resource planners for a conventional system base the amount of capacity that they think will be needed based on decades of observations of the fallibility of power plants. The result is that they know the probability there will be a shortage of available capacity to meet load when the installed reserve margin for system capacity is a fixed percentage of the expected load very well. In New York State the installed reserve margin to meet the accepted probability of a loss of load expectation of an outage no more than once in ten years reliability metric was under 20% for many years but has increased over 20% in the last several years.
A fundamental observation is that there is no expectation that the failure of conventional power plants will be correlated. We do not expect that many will fail at the same time. That in turn means that even if we decided to set the reliability metric based on, for example, a one in thirty-year probability instead of one in ten-year probability, there would not be much of an increase in the installed reserve margin.
Exhibit 4, Renewable Resource Gap Characterization, provides background information explaining why incorporating weather variability needs to consider probabilistic metrics based on as long a record as possible. The insurmountable reliability concern is that we know that if an even longer period of record was used there would very likely be an even worse event of correlated low wind and solar resource availability. Instead of the confidence in the current planning process that increasing the lookback period will not markedly change the resources needed for the worst case, relying on weather-dependent resources means that inevitably there will be a period of extreme weather that requires markedly more resources. The costs to provide backup support for these events will be extraordinary and building excess capacity for a very rare event will significantly add to those costs. The DEFR requirement means it is likely that we cannot afford to invest in enough safety margin resources using existing technology. This trade-off means that eventually there will be a catastrophic blackout when the load exceeds the storage capacity. The filing stated that the proposed proceeding should define the acceptable risk for this reliability concern.
The Public Service Commission believes that PSL 66-P, Establishment of a Renewable Energy Program, can be implemented reliably. This exhibit shows that there are major uncertainties associated with the current assessment of necessary DEFR resource requirements. New York has not projected the potential need for DEFR using the longest period of data available. It is also necessary to expand the area covered in such an analysis so that the potential for imports from outside New York can be determined. Even if an analysis were completed for the longest meteorological data set over the North American continent, it is not possible to address natural variability. This Proceeding should establish an acceptable reliability metric for weather variability.
Recently, Russ Schussler (a retired electric planning engineer) argued that the intermittency issue addressed here might be solvable: “The long-term problems associated with wind and solar due to their intermittency could and may likely be made manageable with improved technology and decreasing costs.” The Independent Intervenors note that may not be practical. It would be necessary to upgrade the electric transmission system, deploy short-term storage, and develop and deploy a dispatchable emissions-free resource all to address short and infrequent periods and to somehow finance those resources with those constraints. Importantly, even if intermittency can be addressed Schussler argues that there is a fatal flaw:
Overcoming intermittency though complex and expensive resource additions at best gets us around a molehill which will leave a huge mountain ahead. Where will grid support come from? Wind, solar and batteries provide energy through an electronic inverter. In practice, they lean on and are supported by conventional rotating machines. Essential Reliability Services include the ability to ramp up and down, frequency support, inertia and voltage support. For more details on the real problem see this posting. “Wind and Solar Can’t Support the Grid” that describes the situation and contains links to other past postings provide greater detail on the problems.
Exhibit 5 – Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources explains that the need for a resource that is not currently commercially available risks investments in false solutions and poses significant reliability risks.
One fundamental flaw in the Climate Act is the mistaken belief by the authors of the law that existing wind, solar, and energy storage resources would be sufficient and that no new technology would be required. This attachment explains why this position is incorrect. It describes the unresolved challenges associated with specifying how much DEFR capacity and energy will be needed to prevent a reliability crisis.
The Public Service Commission presumes that the PSL 66-P Establishment of a Renewable Energy Program can be implemented reliably. However, that presumption does not address the fact that DEFR must be identified, tested, and deployed to provide energy during extended periods of low wind and solar resource availability. There is a real chance that nothing will be feasible. Furthermore, because the DEFR technologies have not been identified it is impossible to determine if they are affordable.
The Independent Intervenors believe the requirement for DEFR is the major reliability risk of PSL 66-P zero-emissions electric grid by the 2040 zero-emission-grid mandate. DEFRs must be developed and deployed at scale well before 2040 to ensure reliability and meet climate mandates. They are not commercially viable today and the Department of Public Service (DPS) Proceeding 15-E-0302 has no schedule to address the mandates in the May 18, 2023 Order Initiating Process Regarding Zero Emissions Target. That Order initiated a process to “identify technologies that can close the gap between the capabilities of existing renewable energy technologies and future system reliability needs, and more broadly identify the actions needed to pursue attainment of the Zero Emission by 2040 Target.”
Deployment of existing technology takes time as shown by the delays in the wind and solar development programs. The uncertainty associated with deploying new technologies is much greater. One of the boundary conditions that must be established in the proposed proceeding is to determine the acceptable risk for long-term planning associated with DEFR development. Given that we don’t know what will work, how much it will cost, and how long it will take to deploy, the Independent Intervenors recommend that implementation should be paused until this issue is resolved.
Conclusion
The Overview for the Draft State Energy Plan states that it is “Advancing abundant, reliable, affordable, and clean energy for all New Yorkers.” Unfortunately, the Hochul Administration has yet to define those terms. This filing made a case that boundary conditions must be established for reliability, affordability, and clean energy. Without bounds we are flying blind towards a future energy system catastrophe.
Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York 