The response and counter-response to a Syracuse Post Standard article by Tim Knauss explaining energy costs illustrates the common over-simplification of this complex topic. State senate candidate James Corl argued in his response to the article that state energy policies were the cause of the observed high prices. Energy transactional attorney Chris Reagen responded to Corl stating that “Rising electricity costs are a genuine concern that merits an honest policy discussion grounded in facts rather than convenient scapegoating of renewable energy mandates”. I agree we need honest policy discussions but will show that Reagen’s support of renewable energy is flawed.
I am convinced that implementation of the 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 600 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.
Overview
The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050. It includes an interim reduction target of a 40% GHG reduction by 2030. Two targets address the electric sector: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040. A recent recommendation by Governor Hochul to adjust the deadlines has spurred conversations about the schedule and ambition of the Climate Act. A primary concern is affordability.
Why is New York Electricity Expensive
New York currently has an energy affordability crisis because as of December 2024, over 1.3 million households are behind on their energy bills by sixty-days-or-more, collectively owing more than $1.8 billion. At the same time, when new electric utility rates are becoming effective this winter’s weather has been so cold that people are using more energy. The result is sky rocketing costs. I believe that this was the impetus for the Knauss article, He outlined the following reasons in his article:
We wanted to find out why Upstate New Yorkers pay so much for power. Syracuse.com’s analysis found:
- State officials tout electric power as an efficient heating alternative to natural gas. But in New York, power production relies heavily on gas. That fuel is burned in decades-old power plants that are inefficient, expensive to run, promote climate change and at times are unreliable.
- This winter’s price shocks signal trouble ahead. New York’s electric grid needs to be shored up to avoid worse bills – or even blackouts – in the years to come. Demand will only grow.
- There’s no cheap or quick fix. Politicians and some consumer groups are clamoring for relief this winter. But the underlying issue will require years of work and investments in the billions to beef up electricity production and expand the transmission grid.
- State leaders are getting the message. It’s an election year. But a clear and effective commitment from Albany has been elusive. The most likely immediate answers are one-shot financial help.
Other than a few quibbles I agree with these general reasons for the high costs.
His article is also consistent with a January 2026 New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) white paper. Impact of National & Global Conditions on Electricity Prices in New York attributed rising wholesale electricity prices to several factors:
- Natural gas price increases: Average 2025 gas prices at the Transco Zone 6 hub were roughly 120% higher than 2024, at $4.64/MMBtu compared to $2.10/MMBtu. Wholesale electricity prices averaged $74.40/MWh in 2025 versus $41.81/MWh in 2024.
Growing LNG exports: U.S. LNG exports increased roughly 26% in 2025, and the U.S. now exports more natural gas than residential customers consume. This has reconnected domestic gas prices to volatile global markets.
Rising electricity demand: Data centers, semiconductor manufacturing, building electrification, and EV adoption are projected to add more than 9,000 MW of new demand by winter 2034–35.
Shrinking supply margins: Since 2019, 4,315 MW of capacity have left the system while only 2,274 MW have been added. Of 106 projects that completed the interconnection process, just seven have begun construction.
Aging generation fleet: New York’s gas-fired generators rank among the oldest nationally, with NYC steam turbines averaging 65 years old, driving up maintenance and fuel costs.
NYISO states that New York energy policy affects rising electricity demand and shrinking supply margins. In addition, the NYISO white paper does explicitly acknowledge Climate Act-related costs on retail bills. In its section on retail bills, it states: “Utilities are investing heavily to upgrade aging infrastructure, expand transmission capacity, and modernize the grid to support New York’s clean energy goals under the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, signed into law in 2019. While such upgrades are essential for long-term reliability and sustainability, they result in near-term cost increases that are passed on to consumers through higher retail rates”
Albany’s Energy Policy is to Blame
State Senate candidate James Corl argued that Albany’s energy policies were to blame in a letter to the editor. He argued:
In 2019, Albany passed legislation creating unrealistic renewable energy mandates. To meet these, New York had to take power offline — and a lot of it. Seven years later, our state’s power capacity has decreased by 2,000 megawatts, primarily due to the closure of Indian Point Energy Center. Less energy and increasing demand means higher costs for ratepayers.
The worst part about this is that the state is nowhere near completing these goals. On several metrics, New York is falling behind. Unless we repeal or heavily amend these laws, utility bills will continue to climb.
Instead of reconsidering this trajectory, Senate Democrats have doubled down. Leaders of the Senate have indicated they will not revisit changing these laws. It is disappointing to see that even though these policy failures are on full display, lawmakers will not change course for our own good.
Many people talk about climbing bills; I want to do something about it. Let’s put more nuclear power online. We need to protect access to natural gas, which 60% of New Yorkers use to heat their homes. And Albany should pass legislation to return unspent climate investment account funds to ratepayers.
Corl managed to generally address things that concern me within the word limit of a letter to the editor. However he was required to leave out details to meet the word limit.
State power capacity has gone down. The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) has documented a systematic deterioration of grid reliability since the Climate Act was enacted. NYISO data show a net loss of 2,041 MW of dispatchable capacity (4,315 MW retired versus 2,274 MW added). Indian Point closure was the largest closure but just as important, State agencies refused to authorize re-powering several natural gas units because of the Climate Act.
There is no question that the state is falling behind its Climate Act goals. That is one of the reasons that Governor Hochul recently proposed delaying the interim targets. However, as Corl mentioned Democrats in the Legislature have not indicated whether they would support changes.
Finally, Corl listed three ways to address the high costs: consider nuclear, protect natural gas, and return unspent climate investment account funds to ratepayers. I agree with the first two, but think that unspent climate investment funds have simply not made their way through the bureaucracy to get to the climate projects so this will not be very impactful.
Next-Decade Solutions to Today’s Energy Prices
Chris Reagen responded to Corl in an extensive opinion piece. He is an energy transactional attorney who “works for an international law firm with expertise in all aspects of energy, power and natural resource development.” He stated that Corl “offers convenient but costly and ultimately ineffective solutions to curb rising utility bills. Cost, speed and efficiency, not politics, should guide discussions on addressing New York’s energy infrastructure.”
Reagen correctly notes that cost increases are driven by “rising natural gas prices, aging infrastructure (generation, transmission and distribution), extreme weather events and significant costs for grid modernization and reliability improvements”. However, his statement that “electricity cost increases are driven by factors far beyond state-level renewable energy policies” insinuates that renewable energy policies have not had any effect is wrong. Kris Martin published a post that found that the Department of Public Service projected 2023 Climate Act portion of electric bills ranged between 8.5% and 13.7%. Because agency staff are under pressure to minimize costs and the estimates for future costs don’t include all the Renewable Energy Credits (REC) and OREC (offshore wind REC) costs that would be required to reach Climate Act targets, those estimates are certainly biased low. New York energy policies may not be the only driver, but they certainly do influence prices. Importantly, those costs will certainly rise in the future.
Reagen discounted Corl’s proposals to put more nuclear power online and build new gas plants citing cost and timing issues. There is no question that nuclear power is expensive and will not be available for many years. I also do not dispute Reagen’s comments about gas plant supply chain constraints and surging costs. However, he does not acknowledge that New York State has never completed a feasibility analysis for the wind, solar, and battery storage mandates of the Climate Act. The biggest unacknowledged affordability risk is that the renewable solution requires new Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resource (DEFR) technologies to make a solar and wind-reliant electric energy system viable during extended periods of low wind and solar resource availability. I believe the only likely viable DEFR backup technology is nuclear generation despite its costs because it is the only candidate resource that is technologically ready, can be expanded as needed, and does not suffer from limitations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
If the only viable DEFR solution is nuclear, then the wind, solar, and energy storage approach cannot be implemented without nuclear power. Reagen’s argument that cost, speed and efficiency, not politics should drive the transition ignores the potential that renewables could be a false solution. Nuclear power works best as a baseload resource so using it solely as DEFR backup is inappropriate. Developing baseload nuclear eliminates the need for a huge DEFR backup resource and means that the “build as much as we can as fast as we can” wind and solar buildout currently in progress and supported by Reagen is unnecessary. When all the costs associated with the proposed Climate Act wind, solar, and energy storage approach are compared to an electric system based on nuclear and gas, I believe that it will be cheaper when equipment life expectancies are considered.
The primary impetus for this post is Reagen’s solution to energy affordability.
If we are serious about electricity affordability, we must focus on solutions that can actually deliver results: continued deployment of renewables; investments in energy efficiency that reduce demand; grid modernization that reduces waste; and battery storage that provides flexibility. Use and improve existing infrastructure that ratepayers already paid for.
The slogan that more renewables, efficiency, grid modernization, and batteries will “deliver” affordability in New York reverses cause and effect. My work shows these are primarily cost drivers under Climate Act mandates, not targeted affordability tools. New York’s mediocre wind/solar resource, severe siting and transmission constraints, and required storage make each additional “clean” megawatt disproportionately expensive, even before reliability backstops are added. Agencies now project about $120 billion per year in energy-system investments through 2040, equal to roughly $1,282 per month per household, while over a million households are already in arrears. Battery storage is being politically framed as a cheap peaker replacement, but detailed analysis shows that at the scale and duration needed in New York City it is not technically or economically a one-for-one substitute and would sharply raise costs. “Grid modernization” and aggressive efficiency are likewise being deployed to support a far more capital-intensive, weather-dependent system, with diminishing returns relative to the cost of the measures. The line about “use and improve existing infrastructure that ratepayers already paid for” is especially misleading because Climate Act implementation is deliberately sidelining or stranding much of that infrastructure while forcing customers to finance replacement equipment and vehicles that State Energy Plan modeling suggests could add nearly 600 dollars per month for a typical upstate household
Discussion
Reagen concludes:
There are no quick fixes to rising electricity costs but the solutions that Corl proposes — new gas and nuclear power plants — will increase your electricity bills without delivering a single electron to you until the next decade. Rising electricity costs are a genuine concern that merits an honest policy discussion grounded in facts rather than convenient scapegoating of renewable energy mandates. There are no red or blue electrons. Central New Yorkers deserve honest engagement with the tradeoffs and challenges ahead, not false promises about ineffective solutions that would result in substantially higher utility bills.
The claim that Corl is scapegoating renewable energy mandates is rich considering that Reagen scapegoats gas and nuclear plants. The reality is that we know that a clean and reliable energy system can be built around gas and nuclear power, but there is no proof that renewable energy can provide reliable energy when needed most. The lack of any solar and reduced wind resources during the coldest weather this winter is an enormous challenge that renewable energy advocates like Reagen ignore. Claims that energy efficiency will reduce demand during similar episodes sufficient to eliminate the need for DEFR or to eliminate the need for peaking power is demonstrably false, especially in the future net-zero system envisioned by the Climate Act where everything is electrified. The real false promise is that renewable energy can replace fossil fuels and nuclear as the backbone of New York’s energy system.
Conclusion
The public must understand that there are no easy solutions to increasing electric costs. Knauss summarized energy affordability issues well. While Corl may have over emphasized the effect of New York energy policies on observed rate increases, Reagen’s suggestion that the policies had no effect is incorrect. The Department of Public Service has determined that the Climate Act portion of electric bills in 2023 ranged between 8.5% and 13.7% of the total bill. Gas and electric bills are not the only source of Climate Act costs. It does not account for the carbon tax cap-and-dividend cost on fossil fuels, the household equipment costs to achieve Climate Act goals or the costs for the yet unidentified DEFR technologies.
It is time to hold the Legislature and Governor Hochul accountable for Climate Act costs. What is their definition of acceptable affordability impacts? What are the total costs to achieve the Climate Act mandates? Can we afford to try to solve global warming when we are such a small component of total global emissions and are facing an energy affordability crisis? If senate candidate James Corl addresses these questions and his opponent does not, then I think the choice for affordability is clear.
Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York 