Category: Climate Act Costs & Benefits

Champlain Hudson Power Express Payment in Lieu of Taxes Grift

One of the reasons that I decided to submit a statement in opposition to the Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation dba National Grid (NMPC) rate case proceeding was the lack of transparency on costs of the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net zero transition.   This article describes a Climate Act cost to New Yorkers that uncaring Albany policy makers pass down to localities.

I am convinced that implementation of the Climate Act net-zero mandates will do more harm than good 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 500 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 target of a 100% zero emission grid 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.”  After a year-long review, the Scoping Plan was finalized at the end of 2022.  Since then, the State has been trying to implement the Scoping Plan recommendations through regulations, proceedings, and legislation. 

Another Renewables Subsidy

One missing piece in the implementation of the Climate Act is an honest admission of costs.  Not only has the State failed to provide required cost information, but there is no accounting of all the costs like the property tax exemption for renewable projects.   Peter Carney explains the basis of the property tax subsidy:

New York State laws encourage projects that are aligned with specific public policies such as the development of renewable energy or infrastructure that supports the economy, in a variety of ways including Real Property Tax exemptions.

The laws provide the local county, town, and schools with the option of negotiating Payment In Lieu of Tax (PILOT) agreements to compensate the local jurisdictions for some of the lost tax revenue.

There are three outcomes for these potentially tax-exempt projects:

  1. The projects can be accepted as fully exempt (no tax revenues are collected) (TCSD has not done this).
  2. The local entities can negotiate Payment In Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) agreements that compensate the local jurisdictions for some of the lost tax revenue. (TCSD has done this with the recent energy projects.)
  3. The law also provides the affected governments with the several or joint ability to opt out of the tax exemptions provided by the state law, in which case the energy projects would be fully taxable. (The TCSD has not enacted such an opt-out provision and thus none of the energy projects will be taxed at their full value.)

New York State’s Real Property Tax Law (RPTL) Section 487 provides a 15-year tax exemption for properties with renewable energy systems, including solar, wind, and other clean energy technologies.  The costs of this tax forgiveness from PILOTs are not “hidden” rather the policy makers in Albany just don’t care about the costs imposed on local taxpayers.  It is setup as an “opt-out” rule that requires local jurisdictions to jump through hoops if they decide not to participate.  It automatically applies otherwise. 

PILOT agreements provide a structured payment system to developers that reduce their initial property tax burden to help support the new projects. Their benefits include “multifaceted effects on local economies, ranging from stimulating redevelopment to reshaping municipal revenue streams”. PILOT agreements in New York cover the following types of projects:

  • Manufacturing and industrial developments
  • Not-for-profit organizations
  • Renewable energy installations, particularly solar projects
  • Commercial and residential real estate developments
  • Economic revitalization initiatives

In my opinion, four of these five types of projects will provide value to the jurisdictions once the development is complete.  On the other hand, renewable energy installations do not.  New York GHG emissions are less than one half of one percent of global emissions and global emissions have been increasing on average by more than one half of one percent per year since 1990 so emission reduction projects in New York will be supplanted by increases elsewhere in a year..  Furthermore, New York’s statewide impact on global temperature is unmeasurable so no new project is going to impact global warming.

The response to my Perplexity AI query “How do New York Payment in lieu of tax agreements benefit jurisdictions for transmission or renewable energy projects?” claimed other benefits PILOT proponents thought these agreements would provide.  The query claimed seven benefits to the jurisdictions granting the PILOT:

  1. Predictable revenue streams – The basis of this is that traditional property tax arrangements can fluctuate with changes in assessment values, so the PILOT payments provide predictability.  I think that one thing that is predictable is that the tax revenues will be less than the traditional property tax proceeds.
  2. Growth-oriented payment structures – If the jurisdiction negotiates an escalation clause, then payments can increase.
  3. Revenue preservation mechanisms – “While PILOT agreements offer tax exemptions, they are designed to preserve a significant portion of the potential tax revenue that would have been generated without compromising project viability. Under New York law, PILOT amounts cannot exceed what the tax amount would have been without the exemption, creating a natural ceiling that balances developer needs with jurisdictional interests.”
  4. Economic development benefits – Proponents of PILOTs argue that the agreements support broad economic development but that only benefits New York if the installed infrastructure is manufactured in New York.
  5. Job creation and industry growth – The AI response claimed that there was remarkable growth in the renewable energy sector, but this is a weak argument in my opinion.  For an individual jurisdiction PILOT agreements for manufacturing or industrial projects will provide local jobs but the construction of a transmission line will only impact a local jurisdiction during construction and those jobs will not be local.  I do not think this is a benefit for a renewable project.
  6. Supporting the transition to clean energy – As noted previously, the Climate Act transition will have no tangible effect on global emissions or temperature, so it is only a virtue-signaling exercise.
  7. Jurisdictional control and flexibility – The Perplexity AI explanation states: “PILOT agreements provide local governments with significant control over how renewable energy projects are incentivized and taxed.”  It is not clear to me why local jurisdictions would care about incentives and taxation for renewable energy.

The Perplexity AI response claiming benefits for renewable energy projects from PILOT agreements gave an example of a successful agreement.  Note that the only reference cited for the following quotation was a Bethlehem Central School description of the PILOT:

The Champlain Hudson Power Express Project (CHPE) demonstrates how PILOT agreements work for large-scale transmission projects. This underground transmission line, delivering renewable energy from Canada to New York City, spans multiple jurisdictions including four towns, two villages, and four school districts

.

The Albany County Industrial Development Agency (IDA) structured a 30-year PILOT agreement for this project, significantly longer than typical 10-11 year terms. Payments are apportioned based on geographical coverage, with the Bethlehem Central School District receiving benefits proportional to the 2.14 miles of pipeline within its boundaries.

After reviewing the proposed PILOT terms, the school district found them reasonable, highlighting how these agreements can satisfy the needs of both developers and local jurisdictions.

After the acceptance of a PILOT agreement there is no way a school district is going to acknowledge any issues.  Before describing an example, here are more details on CHPE.

Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE)

This transmission project is intended to bring zero-carbon electricity from Quebec to New York City: “Two five-inch-diameter cables will be placed underwater or underground and run 339 miles from the U.S.-Canadian border, south through Lake Champlain, along and under the Hudson River, and eventually ending at a converter station that will be built in Astoria, Queens.”  This project has been underway for a long time.  The first regulatory filing was posted on March 30, 2010.  Construction finally started in September 2023 and the developers claim that as of April 2025 it is on schedule for an in-service date of May 2026. The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) 2023-2032 Comprehensive Reliability Plan notes that the reliability of the grid is “heavily reliant on the timely completion of planned transmission projects, chiefly the Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE) project.”    

Note that it was designed with no substations or interconnections to the local or regional transmission system between Quebec and New York City along the CHPE route. The transmission line was designed as a point-to-point HVDC link, running continuously from the Hydro-Québec system at Hertel to the Astoria converter station.  This is not to say that an interconnection could be added later but for now it means that there are no local benefits once the line is in place.

CHPE Ticonderoga Central School PILOT

Peter Carney authored “A review of the Ticonderoga Central School District’s energy project PILOT agreements and impacts on taxpayers” (White Paper) that breaks down the effect of the PILOT agreements on local taxpayers that the Bethlehem Central School district description did not. Carney prepared the white paper to “document missed opportunities for the TCSD Board of Education (BoE) to increase non-tax school revenues, estimated at more than $1 million annually, from seven new energy projects. Consequently, rather than the energy projects paying their fair share of taxes, the taxpayers of Hague and Ticonderoga will need to make up the difference.” 

The White Paper analyzed six solar projects and CHPE.  It explains the impacts related to CHPE as follows:

This project is for the installation of a 1,250 MW DC transmission system from Hydro Quebec to New York City. Without the successful completion of this project, load shedding and blackouts are projected for NYC as soon as 2026vii. Clearly, this project will go forward to completion with or without a PILOT tax exemption.

Despite this, TCSD agreed to several disadvantageous terms:

  • The PILOT is a small fraction of the full tax: The PILOT Agreement forecasts that in the first year, TCSD will receive $122,770 or approximately one quarter of the fair share of taxes due from CHPE if taxed at full value.
  • The PILOT is calculated based on estimated construction costs, almost certain to be lower than the actual costs incurred several years later. Any costs above the preconstruction estimate will be fully tax exempt.
  • There are no PILOT payments until CHPE decides that the PILOT agreement should begin.
  • The payment schedule is back-end loaded with most of the payments due to be delivered in the last several years of the 30-year PILOT agreement.

The route for this system passes through TCSD jurisdiction for 9.26 miles. The first year PILOT payment for Essex County is fixed at $1,532,592 which will be divided among Essex County, seven host towns and six school districts based on a formulation that considers route distance, and full value tax rates for each jurisdiction for the first year the PILOT is effective.

TCSD copied the Town of Ticonderoga’s agreement, which copied the Essex County agreement, without considering that TCSD includes Hague and what impact that would have.

To the extent that Hague’s total Full Market Value assessment (FMV) increases compared to Ticonderoga’s, the Ticonderoga school tax rate decreases and therefore the TCSD will receive a reduced portion of the Essex County PILOT payments.

Discussion

The White Paper included the following table that reports the level of PILOT tax exemptions reported in NY.  Unfortunately, TCSD clearly passed up opportunities to be more protective of its taxpayers in its negotiations with CHPE. The only jurisdiction that gets value for providing tax breaks is New York City and they are taxing CHPE at the full value.  The opt-out provisions of New York’s Real Property Tax Law contributed to the sad state of affairs where a rural upstate school district unwittingly subsidizes a renewable energy project that provides no direct benefits to its taxpayers while the only entity that benefits charges the project as much as it can.

There are other costs associated with CHPE that are not obvious.  Carney wrote me that “Not only will CHPE receive New York State Energy Research & Development Authority subsidies that are many multiples of the New York City Locational Based Marginal Pricing (LBMP) they are also going to significantly increase the Locational Capacity Requirements for New York State thus increasing the capacity cost to New York City.  Through the magic of Perplexity AI, I have an explanation of his comment if you are interested.  Finally, if Niagara Mohawk/National Grid, Transco, and Con Ed built the CHPE it would be fully taxable, so the developers are unquestionably getting millions of dollars of tax breaks each year for 30 yrs on top of being paid many multiples of the LBMP in New York City.

Conclusion

CHPE offers a perfect example of the many subsidies and programs set up to facilitate renewable energy development. The Department of Public Service is required to report annually on the status of the implementation of the Climate Act and include cost impacts.  Not only is the 2024 report overdue, but it will not account for hidden costs like those described here.  Anyone who thinks that special interests are not taking advantage of these complexities at the expense of New Yorkers is naïve.

Personal Statement on Niagara Mohawk Rate Case Joint Proposal

I have followed the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act or CLCPA) since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 500 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  I believe that Governor Hochul’s Administration has forced New York utilities to incorporate programs to try to meet the goals of the Climate Act despite never proving that it is feasible and mounting evidence that implementation is not working out as planned.  My frustration that no one is acting on those concerns led me to join Constantine Kontogiannis in a submittal in the Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation dba National Grid (NMPC) rate case proceeding.  This post describes our statement in opposition to the Joint Proposal (JP) settlement plan.

 I am convinced that implementation of the 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.  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 a requirement to make the electric grid zero-emissions 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.”  After a year-long review, the Scoping Plan was finalized at the end of 2022.  Since then, the State has been trying to implement the Scoping Plan recommendations through regulations, proceedings, and legislation.  The NMPC rate case is one example of these efforts.

NMPC Rate Case

This rate case has been moving slowly.  On May 28, 2024, NMPC filed revised tariffs, supporting testimony, and exhibits for new rates and charges for electric and gas service to be effective July 3, 2024.  The new tariffs were designed to increase electric and gas delivery revenues by approximately $525 million and $148 million, respectively.  On July 22, 2024 NMPC filed corrections and updated testimony and exhibits decreasing the electric revenue requirement to approximately $509.6 million and increasing the gas revenue requirement to approximately $156.5 million.

On October 21, 2024, NMPC notified the active parties that settlement negotiations were starting.  Settlement negotiations were held from October 30, 2024, to April 15, 2025.  On April 25, 2025, a Joint Proposal (“JP”) that would establish a three-year rate plan running from April 1, 2025 through March 31, 2028, was filed by the following parties: NMPC; trial staff of the New York State Department of Public Service; Multiple Intervenors; Walmart; the Alliance for a Green Economy; the New York Solar Energies Industry Association; Independent Power Producers of New York, Inc. (IPPNY); the United States Department of Defense and all other Federal Executive Agencies; the New York Geothermal Energy Organization; Turning Stone Enterprises, LLC; Fedrigoni Special Papers North America; Empire National Gas Corporation; New Yorkers for Clean Power; the New York Power Authority, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union No. 97.

Initial statements on the JP were due on May 14, 2025.  Reply statements are due on May 23, 2025, and on June 3 there will be an Evidentiary Hearing.  I cannot explain all this because I have ignored rate cases in the past. 

Caiazza and Kontogiannis Initial Statement

Kontogiannis shares my frustration with the Climate Act transition plan.  We are convinced that the current plan is dangerous and will lead to extraordinary price increases.  We decided that submitting a statement in opposition to the JP would force a response to our concerns that have been ignored to date.

The rate request filing states that NMPC is focused on three priorities: (1) continuing to deliver safe, reliable energy service to its more than two million customers, (2) enabling customers to affordably meet their energy needs while improving NMPC’s customer service, and (3) supporting the goals of the Climate Act.  Kontogiannis and I referred to the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction transition plan described in the Climate Act Scoping Plan as the “CLCPA Electrification Mandate”.  We defined “CLCPA Generation Plan” as the projected electric grid changes described in the Climate Act Scoping Plan that relies on wind, solar, energy storage, and Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources (DEFR) resources to achieve the 2040 Climate Act mandate for a zero-emissions electric system.

Our primary concern is ensuring reliable, affordable, and environmentally responsible service to ratepayers while at the same time supporting the goals of the Climate Act is impossible.  Simply stated, the goals of Climate Act are in direct contradiction to the statutory and regulatory obligations of NMPC and Public Service Commission.

Five arguments were included.  I will highlight some of the key points in our arguments.  I also need to apologize for the length of the post but providing all the background was necessary.   I encourage interested readers to follow up and read the entire submittal.

Argument 1

The first argument made in our Statement is that the “JP burdens the ratepayers with additional Climate Act-related costs that sacrifice reliability for unproven sustainability benefits.”  Kontogiannis described several examples of Climate Act electrification initiatives imposed on NMPC ratepayers that have created significant cost and reliability safety issues without a tangible environmental benefit.

NMPC and NYSERDA have jointly promoted building electrification using heat pumps, but without properly vetting the applicable technologies and host site suitability.  Many of the installations have replaced efficient natural gas-fired equipment, with those ratepayers now subject to substantially higher heating costs that are not nearly offset by program incentives and tax credits for air source heat pumps and ground source heat pumps.  Less than 15% of those ratepayers decommissioned their old heating equipment and many likely returned to using it after experiencing the higher operating costs of the heat pumps, negating most of the GHG savings claimed by the program administrators.  Moreover, nearly all of the heat pumps installed through this program to date utilize a high global warming potential (GWP) refrigerant that is currently being phased out, which will likely necessitate early replacement instead of routine mid-life servicing.

There is one provision that illustrates the futility of the heat pump transition plan.  The rate case includes an effort to minimize the need to repair leak prone pipelines by offering non-pipeline alternatives.  This program includes heat pump incentives for disadvantaged communities with the intention to eliminate the gas service rather than repair it.  After all, this will eventually be required anyway, so the reasoning goes.  However, the JP admits that the heat pump conversion will not save money because their proposed solution is to offer a monthly credit after installation.  The payoff is only for five years, does not cover all the conversion and operating costs of the conversion, will likely not be available for everyone who needs it, and will increase costs for everyone else. 

Argument 2

The second argument says that the JP does not acknowledge New York Public Service Law § 66-p (4).  In no small part this triggered my desire to submit a statement in opposition to the JP because I have been arguing for years that New York Public Service Law  § 66-p (4). “Establishment of a renewable energy program” includes safety valve conditions for affordability and reliability that must be addressed.  The provision states: “The commission may temporarily suspend or modify the obligations under such program provided that the commission, after conducting a hearing as provided in section twenty of this chapter”, makes a finding that the program impedes the provision of:

  • safe and adequate electric service;
  • the program is likely to impair existing obligations and agreements; and/or
  • that there is a significant increase in arrears or service disconnections that the commission determines is related to the program”. 

This argument was included to force the PSC to acknowledge that the safety valves must be addressed.  The submittal included an attachment that was summed up my analysis that showed that the number of people in arrears has significantly increased since the state of the Climate Act.  Our statement argued that it is inappropriate to invest in Climate Act programs until the PSC defines the criteria for the Section 66-p(4) safety valves, institutes a tracking system, and determines if the Climate Act implementation should be suspended or modified.

Argument 3

The third argument is that dispatchable emissions free resources (DEFR) must be resolved to ensure safe and adequate supply.  Until this issue is resolved it is imprudent to invest in any support of the Climate Act Generation Plan.  An attachment was included based on my many articles on DEFR.  The attachment documents the need for DEFR, explains the requirements for this new resource, describes potential options, and notes the challenges associated with specifying how much capacity and energy will be needed to prevent a reliability crisis.

The JP does not adequately address the fact that a new category of Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources (DEFR) must be identified, tested, and deployed to provide energy during extended periods of low wind and solar resource availability.  There is a very 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. 

In our opinion, the most promising DEFR backup technology is nuclear generation 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 renewables cannot be implemented without it.  But nuclear works best as a baseline resource rather than as backup so nuclear power can replace renewables, eliminating the need for a massive DEFR backup resource.  Therefore, all the JP investments included to support renewable energy development are imprudent because nuclear generation may be the only viable path to zero emissions making all those investments worthless.

Argument 4

The fourth argument pointed out that the JP does not properly consider alternatives to the Climate Act Generation Plan that provide similar environmental benefits without the reliability risks of dependency upon intermittent and diffuse renewable energy.  To maintain adequate system reliability, the CLCPA Generation Plan must include substantial overbuilding of renewable sources, energy storage, and equipment for ancillary grid support.  The JP does not address the fact that the Climate Act fails to consider other options that would largely satisfy its sustainability target without as many ratepayer reliability and affordability risks.

Kontogiannis and I agree with Richard Ellenbogen’s pragmatic approach described at the March 18, 2025 NYS Senate Energy and Telecommunications Committee meeting.  We all believe that substantial interim reductions can be achieved simply by deploying natural gas fired combined cycle gas turbines (CCGT).  For large sources of new load, a CCGT power plant requires no additional ancillary service support infrastructure, can provide process heat, and when coupled with an agricultural park, can further lower CO2 emissions by using the CO2 to boost plant productivity. CCGTs will last longer than any wind, solar, or energy storage infrastructure, can be used for peaking support when a better long term zero emissions technology is developed and deployed, and converted to burn hydrogen if necessary.  Moreover, if it becomes economical to produce and store hydrogen this approach eliminates the need to develop ways to transport it because it can be stored and used in one location.

Unfortunately, this rational approach is not lawful at this time.  However, the approach is emerging as a preferred low carbon solution in other areas of the U.S. and abroad.   The significant tradeoffs of the CLCPA Generation Plan must be reevaluated by NMPC and the Public Service Commission as part and parcel of the JP to ensure protection of the ratepayers.

Argument 5

The fifth argument addressed the electric system planning risks that are inherent in the transition to weather-dependent generating resources.  The DEFR argument mentioned the difficulties associated with figuring out how much DEFR will be required because the assessment must account for weather variability.  This argument and the associated attachment explained all the challenges of defining the frequency, duration and intensity of low wind and solar resource availability events.  Two reliability metrics were evaluated with respect to weather variability.  The argument concluded that the associated uncertainties may not be reconcilable. 

The presumption in the JP that the CLCPA Generation Plan will be safe does not stand up to scrutiny.  Grid planners recognize that unanticipated adverse events—such as line outages, generator trips, substation failures, and major faults—will continue to impact power grids. Their challenge is to ensure the grid is robust enough to withstand and recover from such disturbances without major consequences.  Kontogiannis and I believe that it is unrealistic to expect that the grid planners will be able to anticipate all the additional adverse events that will occur when the electric system depends on weather-reliant resources.  It would be prudent to pause the Climate Act projects within the JP until grid planning improves.

Conclusion

Kontogiannis and I submitted the Statement of Opposition because of our concern that, with its disproportionate efforts to support the goals of the Climate Act, the JP does not properly balance NMPC and Public Service Commission responsibilities to ensure reliable, affordable, and environmentally responsible energy generation and delivery to ratepayers. 

With so many legacy hydroelectric and nuclear assets, by all accounts New York State should have some of cleanest, most reliable, and affordable energy in the United States – but we are failing on all counts.  Special interests have effectively hijacked what should be a relatively straightforward exercise of prudent engineering – shuttering a critical nuclear asset, denying legacy fossil fuel powerplants permission to repower as CCGT generators, and forsaking cost-effective and fuel-neutral building and transportation energy efficiency initiatives – all for the well-intentioned but sorely misguided fantasies of climate scientists in academia and policy advocates who have no idea of the complexities involved in the safe and reliable production and delivery of arguably the most essential commodity for the modern world.  As if the failure isn’t complete, the stated sustainability targets are nothing more than smoke and mirrors – an honest accounting of the lifecycle carbon impacts shows no improvement compared to what solid engineering and standard industry practice afford.  

Even if the Climate Act was to fully achieve its sustainability objectives, the effect on global emissions is negligible and the resulting global temperature change is infinitesimally small.  If New York were able to eliminate all its GHG emissions, the effect of global emission increases elsewhere would supplant our efforts in one year.  New York GHG emissions are less than one half of one percent of global emissions and global emissions have been increasing on average by more than one half of one percent per year since 1990.  Furthermore, New York’s impact on global warming is unmeasurable.  A Perplexity AI query “What is the expected change in global warming per ton of CO2 reduced” found that “Current estimates suggest that reducing 1 gigaton (1 billion tons) of CO₂ emissions prevents approximately 0.00045°C of warming”.  That conversion was applied to the expected NMPC GHG emission reductions expected in Exhibit CLCPA-2 included in NMPC’s Climate Act Panel testimony on May 8, 2024 as well as historical emissions (Table 1).  Emissions attributable to the Climate Act and historical emissions predict no measurable changes in global warming.

Table 1: Potential Warming Savings for JP Emission Reductions and Historical Emissions

NMPC’s NY Climate Resiliency Plan website states that: ”National Grid is committed to urgent action to address climate change as we’ve outlined in our vision for a fossil free future, but we all must recognize that climate change is no longer a future threat, but a current threat based on the extreme climate hazards we are witnessing today.”  Kontogiannis and I  believe that the crisis facing NMPC customers is not from the changing climate, but rather the irrevocably flawed climate policy.  Kontogiannis and I concluded that a properly conceived statewide energy plan can achieve essentially the same sustainability target at a much lower cost to ratepayers and with no diminishment of system reliability.

Niagara Mohawk Rate Case Ignores Opportunity to Pause Climate Act

I recently used New York utility accounts in arrears and service disconnections information in New York Open Data  to develop a spreadsheet that lists the residential collection data submitted by New York’s ten largest distribution utility companies.  Since then, I have been evaluating the ongoing Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation (NMPC) dba National Grid rate case.  In this article I evaluated the NMPC New York Open Data and found that there are grounds to reduce costs in the rate case because the increase in overdue accounts has increased significantly since the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) was introduced.

 I am convinced that implementation of the New York 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 500 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 a requirement to make the electric grid zero-emissions 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.”  After a year-long review, the Scoping Plan was finalized at the end of 2022.  Since then, the State has been trying to implement the Scoping Plan recommendations through regulations, proceedings, and legislation.  However, the Hochul Administration has never acknowledged that there are safety valve provisions in the Act.

Safety Valve

New York Public Service Law  § 66-p (4). “Establishment of a renewable energy program” includes safety valve conditions for affordability and reliability that are being ignored.  Section 66-p (4) states: “The commission may temporarily suspend or modify the obligations under such program provided that the commission, after conducting a hearing as provided in section twenty of this chapter, makes a finding that the program impedes the provision of safe and adequate electric service; the program is likely to impair existing obligations and agreements; and/or that there is a significant increase in arrears or service disconnections that the commission determines is related to the program”.  The problem is that the Hochul Administration’s Climate Action Council failed to establish specific criteria for these safety valves, set up a system to track the status, or consider the need for a hearing.

Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation dba National Grid Rate Case

The current NMPC rate case will raise typical household rates 20% more for electricity and 27% more for natural gas two years after the new rates start phasing in.  There are many Climate Act related initiatives buried in the request. My previous article showed that Climate Act costs made up as much as 38% of the total residential utility customer costs in 2022. 

The rate request filing states that the NMPC is focused on three priorities: delivery of “safe, reliable energy service to its more than two million customers”; enabling customers to “affordably meet their energy needs while improving the NMPC’s customer service”; and supporting the goals of the Climate Act.  I think those priorities are inconsistent because of all my concerns related to the Climate Act impacts on reliability and affordability.  I maintain that there is a safety valve in New York Public Service Law § 66-p (4) that if considered could be used to pause additional Climate Act costs.  This post evaluates the number of customers in arrears to determine if there has been a significant increase. 

Residential Collection Data

Utilities file a monthly report in the PSC Case 91-M-0744 docket that documents their arrears and service terminations.  There is a data set in New York Open Data that provides data that can be used to determine the number of residential customers in arrears.  The “Quarterly snapshot of residential collection dataset” contains this information.

This dataset provides a quarterly snapshot of residential bill collection activity for New York State’s ten largest electric and gas distribution utility companies regulated by the Public Service Commission. Included in this dataset are each utility’s total number of residential customers, residential customers with arrears (overdue bills) greater than 60 days, residential final service termination notices issued, residential accounts terminated (service shut off for nonpayment), active residential deferred payment agreements and the number of uncollectible residential accounts. Also included are the corresponding utility sales figures for each metric above, showing the dollar figure represented.

NMPC Residential Customer Summary

Table 1 lists the annual fourth quarter data for the sum of the Quarterly Snapshot NMPC category for the total number of residential customers, residential customers with arrears (overdue bills) greater than 60 days, and the percentage of residential customers with overdue bills relative to the total number of customers.  Between 2019 the last year before the Climate Act was implemented and the most recent year there were 202,538 customers with arrears greater than 60 days, and at the end of 2024 there were 234,694 customers in arrears which is an increase of 32,156 or 16% increase.  The final termination notices and number of service disconnections (not shown) are not good estimates of the effect of the Climate Act because other mandates have affected the data, e.g., service disconnections were suspended during COVID.

Table 1: Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation dba National Grid Summary Snapshot Fourth Quarter of Residential Collection Data

The Public Safety Law section 66-p (4) criteria for consideration of suspension or modification is a “significant increase in arrears or service disconnections that the commission determines is related to the program”.  The standard deviation of the number of customers in arrears from 2010 to 2019 is 12,350. Because the observed difference, 32,156, is greater than two times the standard deviation the increase is statistically “significant”. 

Climate Act Costs

The number of people in arrears has been increasing since 2010 and the change since the start of the Climate Act is “significant”.  However, it is not clear how much of the change can be ascribed to the Climate Act.  On May 12, 2022, the Commission issued an “Order on Implementation of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act” for Case 22-M-0149 that directs DPS Staff to present information on Climate Act costs annually.  On July 20, 2023, DPS Staff published the first report (Information Report) in compliance with the Commission’s Order.  The costs recovered in 2022 by the utilities associated with Climate Act costs were described in the following Information Report tables:

2022 Climate Act Costs as a Function of Sales

   There is insufficient information to ascribe the NMPC Climate Act costs associated with the significant increase in arrears observed.  However, it is instructive to calculate the percentage of Information Report NMPC Climate Act costs relative to the annual NMPC residential customer sales.  Table 2 lists the sum of the annual “Quarterly snapshot of residential collection dataset” residential sales NMPC.

Table 2: NMPC Annual Utility Residential Customer Sales 

The Climate Act cost recoveries for NMPC are listed in Information Report Tables 3 and 4 included above.  The sum of the 2022 Climate Act costs is $352,237,995.  The Climate Act costs are 38% of the 2022 residential customer sales.  This indicates that a significant share of increased costs that drove the number of customers in arrears to increase was related to the Climate Act implementation.

Discussion

There are so many issues coming up with the schedule and ambition of the Climate Act that it is obvious that we need to pause implementation and figure out how best to proceed.  In addition is now clear that there will be significant cost increases.

My focus has been on the electrical system but don’t forget that there have been and there will be more costs associated with other reducing emissions in other sectors.  After the PSC released its first annual informational report on the implementation of the Climate Act, I noted that 2022 the costs already associated with the Climate Act increased the NMPC residential customer monthly electric bills 9.8% or $9.38 per month.  I recently described an Empire Center poll that asked questions about the Climate Act.  The poll found that only 50% of the respondents willing to pay more than $10 a month for Climate Costs.  I do not think there is any question that half of the poll respondents were paying more for Climate Act implementation than they are willing to pay in 2022. 

The DPS should formally determine the amount of residential customer sales that are related to the Climate Act and affect the number of customers in arrears as part of future annual informational reports mandated by the “Order on Implementation of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act” for Case 22-M-0149.

This initial assessment of the Public Safety Law section 66-p (4) criteria for consideration of suspension or modification of the Climate Act related to overdue customers or customers in arrears meets the criterion for a significant change.  The standard deviation of the number of customers in arrears for ten years before the Climate Act was implemented is 12,350. Because the observed difference between the 2019 and the most recent year, 32,156, is greater than two times the standard deviation the increase is statistically “significant”.  Admittedly this is not a robust statistic because of the limited data available.  The onus to develop a better metric and transparently track it is on the PSC.

Conclusion

An initial assessment of the change in the number of customers in arrears since the start of the Climate Act indicates that there has been a statistically significant change.  This should trigger the PSC to conduct a hearing required by New York Public Service Law Section 66-p(4).  There has been no acknowledgement of the requirement, much less any recognition that such a hearing is warranted. 

Inevitably reality is going to catch up with the political aspirations of the Climate Act.  It is very frustrating that there is a mechanism in place to protect New Yorkers, but it has been ignored so far.  The time has come for that to change.

The double-digit rate increases in the NMPC rate case could be pared down substantially if funding for the CLCPA goals was paused until there is a hearing to see if the CLCPA needs to be temporarily suspended or modified per Public Service Law Section 66-p(4).  When other reasons to pause are considered, there are reasons to believe that continued Climate Act funding for renewable energy development projects may be better spent on alternative resources.

Niagara Mohawk Residential Utility Sales and Climate Act Recoveries

My previous post combined 2022 residential annual residential customer sales and the cost recoveries for Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) related initiatives in 2022 to estimate the fraction of sales dedicated to Climate Act initiatives.  The fraction of Climate Act costs was as much as 22% of the total residential utility customer costs in 2022.  I live in the Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation (NMPC) service territory, so I applied the same methodology for NMPC.

I am convinced that implementation of the New York 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 500 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. 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.”  After a year-long review, the Scoping Plan was finalized at the end of 2022.  Since then, the State has been trying to implement the Scoping Plan recommendations through regulations, proceedings, and legislation.  However, the Hochul Administration has never fully accounted for the ratepayer impact of the transition apparently because the impacts are so high.

Residential Collection Data

In a recent article I described a source of data that includes the total dollar amount of residential customer sales.   The New York Open Data website contains the Quarterly snapshot of residential collection data file.  According to the general description: “This dataset provides a quarterly snapshot of residential bill collection activity for New York State’s ten largest electric and gas distribution utility companies regulated by the Public Service Commission. “

Table 1 lists the annual sum of the quarterly residential customer sales for Niagara Mohawk.

Table 1:  Annual Residential Customer Sales

Climate Act Cost Recoveries

In July 2023 the Public Service Commission (PSC) released its first annual informational report on the implementation of the Climate Act.  In August 2023 I noted that the informational Report explained that Climate Act costs that have been authorized and were in the 2022 residential bills total $1.2 billion.  The Report notes that in 2022 the costs already associated with the Climate Act increased the Upstate residential monthly electric bills 9.8% or $9.38 per month for Niagara Mohawk customers.  

The Informational Report included a summary of cost recoveries for 2022:

For purposes of estimating the cost recoveries of CLCPA related initiatives in 2022, Staff issued information requests to each of the utilities. Specifically, Staff requested the utilities provide 2022 cost recoveries for: CES (electric only), CEF (electric only), certain VDER (electric only), Electric Vehicle Make Ready Program (electric only), Clean Heat programs (electric only), Integrated Energy Data Resource (electric only), and Utility Energy Efficiency programs (electric and gas).

The cost recovered in 2022 by the utilities associated with these gas and electric programs described above are detailed in the following tables.

Climate Act Costs and Residential Customer Sales

I combined the information from the two sources for NMPC.  The total residential sales in 2022 were $917 million.  The combined Climate Act costs for NMPC  $351 million.  The Climate Act cost share of the total sales is 38% using these two data sets. 

I have limited experience with these data sets, so I have reservations about the precision of the estimate.  The number is probably an upper bound because the total costs should be spread over all the residential customers of the state as well as the commercial and industrial customers. In 2021 residential natural gas and electricity sales were 80% of the total residential, commercial and industrial sales.  If the Climate Act costs are apportioned evenly that would reduce the Climate Act percentage of residential bills down to 31%. 

Discussion

It is notable that I had to rely on data from 2022 despite the mandate annual status updates that include costs.   On April 14, 2025, I published an article describing a letter I sent to Public Service Commission Chairman Rory Christian regarding the requirement for annual informational reports.  In March, Michael B. Mager Counsel to Multiple Intervenors  sent a letter to Chairman Christian noting that the annual report was late.  Soon thereafter Jessica Waldorf, Chief of Staff and Director of Policy Implementation for the Department of Public Service (DPS) posted a response letter.  My letter explained that I agreed with the comments submitted by Multiple Intevenors and was disappointed that the DPS response did not commit to a schedule for the next update of the annual informational report.  The point is that the data in the Informational Reports are political dynamite. The estimate that the Climate Act costs are responsible for up to 22% of the cost recoveries in 2022 is just the beginning.  The Hochul Administration has every reason to delay the release of update informatoin as long as possible because the Climate Act costs are going to be higher.    

The estimated fraction of costs attributable to the Climate Act is only for one component of the costs of the Climate Act net-zero transition.  These costs don’t include costs to electrify homes, personal transportation, and the hidden costs for things like upgrading electrical service to be able to electrify everything.  Also, it does not include societal costs like the need to electrify school buses and pay for less impactful refrigerants used by grocery stores.  The list of hidden costs goes on and on.

I recently described an Empire Center poll that asked questions about the Climate Act.  The poll found that only 50% of the respondents willing to pay more than $10 a month for Climate Costs.  Recall that the Informational Report found that in 2022 the costs already associated with the Climate Act increased the Upstate residential monthly electric bills 9.8% or $9.38 per month for Niagara Mohawk customers.  I do not think there is any question that half of the poll respondents are paying more than they are willing to pay. 

These data also raise the question of what the point is.   New York GHG emissions are less than one half of one percent of global emissions and global emissions have been increasing on average by more than one half of one percent per year since 1990.  Furthermore, New York’s impact on global warming is unmeasurable.  Table 2 projects the amount of global warming “savings” for the 1990 and 2022 historical emissions.  The calculations are based on a Perplexity AI query “What is the expected change in global warming per ton of CO2 reduced”.  If total New York GHG emissions from the baseline in 1990 or the most recent year (2022) available were to go to zero, the projected change in global warming is too small to measure.

Table 2: Potential Warming Savings for Historical Emissions

Conclusion

The costs to implement the Climate Act for NMPC residents were a little less than two fifths of monthly residential sales in 2022.  I have no doubt that the costs that will be in the 2023 Informational report will increase that fraction.  Sooner or later the public is going to catch wind of these unsustainable costs and I intend to write some letters to the editor using this information.  Given that the investments will not meaningfully affect global emissions or global warming I cannot imagine that NMPC ratepayers will be willing to continue this madness.  I hope that politicians are starting to question whether they want to be associated with this.

Residential Utility Sales and Climate Act Cost Recovery Implications

This post combines 2022 residential annual residential customer sales and the cost recoveries for Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) related initiatives in 2022 to estimate the fraction of sales dedicated to Climate Act initiatives.  The fraction of Climate Act costs was as much as 22% of the total residential utility customer costs in 2022.

I am convinced that implementation of the New York 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 500 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. 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.”  After a year-long review, the Scoping Plan was finalized at the end of 2022.  Since then, the State has been trying to implement the Scoping Plan recommendations through regulations, proceedings, and legislation.  However, the Hochul Administration has never fully accounted for the ratepayer impact of the transition apparently because the impacts are so high.

Residential Collection Data

In a recent article I described a source of data that includes the total dollar amount of residential customer sales.   The New York Open Data website contains the Quarterly snapshot of residential collection data file.  According to the general description: “This dataset provides a quarterly snapshot of residential bill collection activity for New York State’s ten largest electric and gas distribution utility companies regulated by the Public Service Commission. “

Table 1 lists the annual sum of the quarterly residential customer sales for the ten utilities in the Quarterly snapshot of residential collection data file.  The ten utilities are: Consolidated Edison, Orange & Rockland, Public Service Electric & Gas, Central Hudson, National Grid – LI, National Grid – Upstate, National Grid New York, New York State Electric & Gas, Rochester Electric & Gas, and National Fuel Gas.

Table 1:  Annual Residential Customer Sales

Climate Act Cost Recoveries

In July 2023 the Public Service Commission (PSC) released its first annual informational report on the implementation of the Climate Act.  In August 2023 I noted that the informational Report explained that Climate Act costs that have been authorized and were in the 2022 residential bills total $1.2 billion.  The Report notes that in 2022 the costs already associated with the Climate Act increased the Upstate residential monthly electric bills 7.6% or $7.15 per month for NYSE&G customers; 7.7% or $7.54 for RG&E customers; and 9.8% or $9.38 for Niagara Mohawk customers.  

I followed up with another article that documented post hearing comments related to the NYSEG electric rate case 22-E-0317, RGE electric rate case 22-E-0319, the NYSEG gas rate case 22-G-0318, and the RGE gas rate case 22-G-0320 that address Climate Act costs.  I concluded that Climate Act costs are a major factor in this extraordinarily large rate case request. This is an issue in this instance and every future rate case for every New York utility is going to have similarly large costs.

The Informational Report included a summary of cost recoveries for 2022:

For purposes of estimating the cost recoveries of CLCPA related initiatives in 2022, Staff issued information requests to each of the utilities. Specifically, Staff requested the utilities provide 2022 cost recoveries for: CES (electric only), CEF (electric only), certain VDER (electric only), Electric Vehicle Make Ready Program (electric only), Clean Heat programs (electric only), Integrated Energy Data Resource (electric only), and Utility Energy Efficiency programs (electric and gas).

The cost recovered in 2022 by the utilities associated with these gas and electric programs described above are detailed in the following tables.

Climate Act Costs and Residential Customer Sales

I combined the information from the two sources. The total residential sales in 2022 were $5,867 billion.  The Climate Act costs for the gas (excluding Corning) and electric utilities were $1,289 billion.  The Climate Act cost share of the total sales is 22% using these two data sets. 

I have limited experience with these data sets, so I have reservations about the precision of the estimate.  The 22% number is probably an upper bound because the total costs should be spread over all the residential customers of the state as well as the commercial and industrial customers. In 2021 residential natural gas and electricity sales were 80% of the total residential, commercial and industrial sales.  If the Climate Act costs are apportioned evenly that would reduce the Climate Act percentage of residential bills down to 18%.  I understand that municipal utilities are not treated the same so that affects the percentage estimate too.

Discussion

It is notable that I had to rely on data from 2022 despite the mandate annual status updates that include costs.   On April 14, 2025, I published an article describing a letter I sent to Public Service Commission Chairman Rory Christian regarding the requirement for annual informational reports.  In March, Michael B. Mager Counsel to Multiple Intervenors  sent a letter to Chairman Christian noting that the annual report was late.  Soon thereafter Jessica Waldorf, Chief of Staff and Director of Policy Implementation for the Department of Public Service (DPS) posted a response letter.  My letter explained that I agreed with the comments submitted by Multiple Intevenors and was disappointed that the DPS response did not commit to a schedule for the next update of the annual informational report.  The point is that the data in the Informational Reports are political dynamite. The estimate that the Climate Act costs are responsible for up to 22% of the cost recoveries in 2022 is just the beginning.  The Hochul Administration has every reason to delay the release of update informatoin as long as possible because the Climate Act costs are going to be higher.    

The estimated fraction of costs attributable to the Climate Act in only for one component of the costs of the Climate Act net-zero transition.  These costs don’t include costs to electrify homes, personal transportation, and the hidden costs for things like upgrading electrical service to be able to electrify everything.  Also it does not include societal costs like the need to electrify school buses and pay for less impactful refrigerants used by grocery stores.  The list of hidden costs goes on and on.

I recently described an Empire Center poll that asked questions about the Climate Act.  I noted that one third of the respondents are not willing to pay anything on their monthly energy bill for cleaner energy.  Another 28% are only willing to pay up to $20 a month for cleaner energy while another 20% would pay up to $40 a month.  Nineteen percent are willing to pay up to $200 a month but only 3% are willing to pay more than $200 per month.  Given all the necessary costs I believe that $200 per month is not nearly enough for the transition.

These data also raise the question of what the point is.   New York GHG emissions are less than one half of one percent of global emissions and global emissions have been increasing on average by more than one half of one percent per year since 1990.  Furthermore, New York’s impact on global warming is unmeasurable.  Table 2 projects the amount of global warming “savings” for the 1990 and 2022 historical emissions.  The calculations are based on a Perplexity AI query “What is the expected change in global warming per ton of CO2 reduced”.  If total New York GHG emissions from the baseline in 1990 or the most recent year (2022) available were to go to zero, the projected change in global warming is too small to measure.

Table 2: Potential Warming Savings for Historical Emissions

Conclusion

The costs to implement the Climate Act were about one fifth of the monthly bills in 2022.  I have no doubt that the costs that will be in the 2023 Informational report will increase that fraction.  Sooner or later the public is going to catch wind of these unsustainable costs.  Given that the investments will not meaningfully affect global emissions or global warming I cannot imagine that the voters will be willing to continue this madness.  The reckoning cannot come soon enough.

New York Residential Utility Accounts in Arrears

Thanks to Tim Knauss I found information on New York utility accounts in arrears and service disconnections on New York Open Data.  These data enabled me to develop a spreadsheet that lists the residential collection data submitted by New York’s ten largest distribution utility companies and enabled me to prepare the data summary shown here. 

This information is particularly relevant to the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) because there is a safety valve provision that enables the Public Service Commission to “temporarily suspend or modify the obligations” of the Climate Act if, among other things, implementation causes a “significant increase in arrears or service disconnections” related to the program.  Before looking at the results please think about what you think is a reasonable percentage of customers in arrears, that is to say those who have not paid their bills for 60 days or more.

I am convinced that implementation of the New York 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 500 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. 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.”  After a year-long review, the Scoping Plan was finalized at the end of 2022.  Since then, the State has been trying to implement the Scoping Plan recommendations through regulations, proceedings, and legislation.  However, in the rush to meet Climate Act mandates fundamental consumer protections are being ignored.

Safety Valve

New York Public Service Law § 66-p (4) “Establishment of a renewable energy program” includes feasibility safety valve conditions for affordability and reliability that have not been addressed in the Hochul Administration implementation of the Climate Act.   Section 66-p (4) states: “The commission may temporarily suspend or modify the obligations under such program provided that the commission, after conducting a hearing as provided in section twenty of this chapter, makes a finding that the program impedes the provision of safe and adequate electric service; the program is likely to impair existing obligations and agreements; and/or that there is a significant increase in arrears or service disconnections that the commission determines is related to the program”.

For the most part this provision of the Public Safey Law has been ignored.  In my opinion it is incumbent upon the Hochul Administration to define specific criteria for each provision and establish a tracking system established to determine if suspension or modification of CLCPA obligations is appropriate.  Until I found the Quarterly snapshot of residential collection data submitted I was unaware that the arrears and service disconnection data were available.

Residential Collection Data

New York State agencies love web-based dashboards because I think that they can be used to control the message.  Consider the Climate Act Data Dashboard.  There are options to look at the data for categories showing progress to date, but the data downloads are no more than the numbers shown in the splashy home pages.  Not surprisingly there is nothing related to the safety valve conditions in Section 66-p (4).

There is an alternative source of data.  New York Open Data was established to “promote transparency, improve government performance, and enhance citizen engagement”.  It is a massive database that provides useful information if you can penetrate the clumsy interface to find what you want.  Even then the data are just files of numbers with marginal documentation and typically require processing to get anything useful. 

In a recent article on the National Grid rate case Tim Knauss mentioned that “More than 210,000 Upstate households are at least 60 days late paying National Grid, owing more than $323 million combined.”   When I contacted him about the source of that information he graciously explained that the utilities file a monthly report in the PSC Case 91-M-0744 docket that details their arrears and service terminations.  Unfortunately, for an overview of the status those submittals are not that useful.

I decided to check New York Open Data for these data.  Nothing was obvious but when I figured out how to do a search and used some of the descriptive terms in the 91-M-0744 documents if found the Quarterly snapshot of residential collection data file.  According to their general description:

This dataset provides a quarterly snapshot of residential bill collection activity for New York State’s ten largest electric and gas distribution utility companies regulated by the Public Service Commission. Included in this dataset are each utility’s total number of residential customers, residential customers with arrears (overdue bills) greater than 60 days, residential final service termination notices issued, residential accounts terminated (service shut off for nonpayment), active residential deferred payment agreements and the number of uncollectible residential accounts. Also included are the corresponding utility sales figures for each metric above, showing the dollar figure represented.

The following Data Dictionary table lists the specific parameters available by utility for each quarter starting with the first quarter of 2010.  Processing this kind of data set is something I have been doing for years so I was quickly able to get a data summary together.  I doubt that many members of the public have that skill set so it is transparently available in name only.

New York Residential Customer Summary

Table 1 lists the annual fourth quarter sum of all ten utilities data for the total number of residential customers, residential customers with arrears (overdue bills) greater than 60 days, residential final service termination notices issued, residential accounts terminated (service shut off for nonpayment), and active residential deferred payment agreements.  Of note is that the percentage of residential customers with overdue bills has been between 13.6% and 14.2% the last three years.

Table 1:  Annual Summary of Number of Customers and Bill Paying Status

New York Residential Customer Sales Summary

Table 2 lists the annual fourth quarter sum of all ten utilities data for the total sales by residential customers, residential customers with arrears (overdue bills) greater than 60 days, residential final service termination notices issued, residential accounts terminated (service shut off for nonpayment), and active residential deferred payment agreements.  The highlight of this table is that the total amount of money that has accumulated since the utilities started this program is $1.86 billion which is more than the utilities collect annually.

Table 2: Annual Summary of Number of Customers and Bill Paying Status

Observations Discussion

Now that you have seen the results, how did your idea of a reasonable percentage of customers in arrears compare to the observed 13.7% at the end of 2024.  I think anything over 10% is problematic.  In my opinion the observed data indicate a utility system that is currently too expensive. 

The number of people in arrears has been increasing since 2010.  The number of termination notices issued varies quite a bit, undoubtedly in response to programs to prevent shutoffs. Fortunately, the actual number of shutoffs is relatively small because that should be a last resort.  Unfortunately, the cost of these benefits must fall to an increasingly smaller fraction of the rest of the customers.

The sales figures are extraordinary.  New York residential customers are paying $1.81 billion a year for utility service.  The total amount of money that has accumulated by accounts in arrears since the utilities started reporting these data is $1.86 billion.  I don’t think that the accumulated value accurately reflects the magnitude of the problem.  Last year the sales associated with accounts that were sent final termination notices was $378 million or 20.9% of the total revenues.  Surely that reflects the fact that many residential customers are having trouble paying their bills.

Significance

My primary incentive to analyze these data was to compare them to the Public Safety Law section 66-p (4) criteria for a “significant increase in arrears or service disconnections that the commission determines is related to the program”.  There is no breakout of Climate Act costs that contribute to those attributes.  We can only estimate whether the NY Open “Quarterly snapshot of residential collection” total data shows a significant increase.

In this case defining significance will entail many value judgements.  For example, what is a “significant” increase in arrears?  Before the Climate Act was passed in 2019 there were 1,046,219 customers with arrears greater than 60 days, and at the end of 2024 there were 1,383,480 customers in arrears which is a 32.4% increase.  The percentage increase for the percentage of customers in arrears was 31.3%.  In my opinion that is a significant increase.

There is a limited amount of data to use for a statistical evaluation of significance.  Nonetheless, we can use the data we have.   In simplistic terms, if a change exceeds two times the standard deviation of the observed data, we can hypothesize that it is significantly different.

Table 3 is a subset of Table 1 that lists the annual fourth quarter sum of all ten utilities data for the total number of residential customers, residential customers with arrears (overdue bills) greater than 60 days, and the percentage of residential customers with overdue bills relative to the total number of customers.  Between 2019 the last year before the CLCPA was implemented and 2024, there were 1.046,219 customers with arrears greater than 60 days, and at the end of 2024 there were 1,383,480 customers in arrears which is an increase of 337,261 or 32.4% increase.  The percentage increase for the percentage of customers in arrears was 31.3%.

The standard deviation of the number of customers in arrears from 2010 to 2019 is 39,175 and the percent in arrears standard deviation is 0.6%. The observed increases are greater than two times the observed standard deviations.  Keep in mind that a standard deviation based on ten observations is anything but robust so this indicative but not conclusive that there is a “significant” increase in arrears.

Table 3: Annual Customers in Arrears

There are other aspects of the calculation of significance for Public Service Law Section 66-p(4).  Other value judgements for significance include the following.  What costs are related to the Climate Act?  Should the costs include programs implemented before the Climate Act but that are necessary to achieve the Climate Act goals.  Should the evaluation consider the effect of programs designed to lower costs, programs that give residents an active payment plan and prevent service disconnections that all affect the totals?  Should “significance” be defined relative to the value of the emission reductions for the programs in absolute terms or relative to global emissions?

All these have been valid questions since the Climate Act was passed in 2019.  The Climate Action Council should have addressed this but dropped the ball.  Given that there are so many issues coming up with the schedule and ambition of the Climate Act that it is obvious that we need to pause implementation and figure out how best to proceed.  Defining the safety valve criteria and developing a tracking system for a transparent status report should be part of the implementation reassessment.

Conclusion

This analysis found a useful source of residential customer data.  The New York Open Data was established to “promote transparency, improve government performance, and enhance citizen engagement”.  Unfortunately, accessing the data file is not straightforward unless you have experience with this kind of data.

The observed differences between the number of residential customers in arrears before the Climate Act was enacted and the end of 2024 are greater than two times the standard deviations.  It can be argued that this means  the increase is “significant”.  Therefore, it would be appropriate for the Public Service Commission to conduct a hearing to determine if it would be appropriate to temporarily suspend or modify the obligations of the Climate Act per Public Safety Law Section 66-p(4).

I think this should be resolved quickly.  Given that there are so many issues coming up with the schedule and ambition of the Climate Act it is obvious that we need to pause implementation and figure out how best to proceed.  Clearly defining the safety valve criteria and developing a tracking system for a transparent status report should be part of the implementation reassessment.

New York Creatively Hides the Costs of the Climate Act

On April 23, 2025 Governor Hochul announced that  State University of  New York (SUNY) Oneonta will be the first school in the SUNY system to purchase Tier 1 Renewable Energy Certificates (REC) from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s (NYSERDA) voluntary sales program.  This post interprets the meaning of this announcement.

I am convinced that implementation of the Climate Act net-zero mandates will do more harm than good because the proposed green energy programs are crimes against physics.  The energy density of wind and solar energy is too low and the resource intermittency too variable to ever support a reliable electric system relying on those resources. I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 500 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. 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.”  After a year-long review, the Scoping Plan was finalized at the end of 2022.  Since then, the State has been trying to implement the Scoping Plan recommendations through regulations, proceedings, and legislation.  At the same time, the Hochul Administration has delayed reporting mandates in the Climate Act that must document costs and progress. New Yorkers do not know where we stand,

Renewable Energy Credits

According to the Governor’s April 23, 2025 press release, SUNY Oneonta will be the first school in the SUNY system to purchase Tier 1 REC.  The press release notes that the REC purchase will enable SUNY Oneonta to “claim 1,000 MWhs of new, local renewable energy in 2025” which will provide “enough locally-sourced clean energy to fully power four, 200-bed residence halls on the SUNY Oneonta campus.” 

Renewable Energy Credits (REC) are defined:

A REC is a certificate, created by a tracking system, such as the New York Generation Attribute Tracking System (NYGATS), that represents the attributes of one megawatt hour of electricity generated from a renewable source like solar or wind.  These RECs, or certificates, are needed to substantiate environmental claims related to energy use, such as for compliance with a State-mandated renewable compliance program, or for “voluntary” claims such as a climate action pledge.  

REC are purchased by a range of entities “to comply with state mandates and to voluntarily support renewable energy development.”  The buyers include utilities who are obligated to purchase them, government entities like New York City with commitments to use 100% renewable energy, and private organizations who “voluntarily purchase RECs to meet internal sustainability targets, claim environmental benefits, and demonstrate climate leadership.”

SUNY Oneonta

I imagine that the rationale for the purchase is the sustainability core value in the SUNY Oneonta mission statement.  This core value declares that sustainability means “stewarding resources to foster a just community in ecological balance.”   This phrase is nothing more than trendy moral posturing that checks the box so that SUNY Oneonta can claim the high ground for environmental protection.

The mission statement is accompanied by this:

Together with the mission, these values now guide SUNY Oneonta’s pursuit of a clear vision:

to become the exemplar residential community, providing relevant educational experiences in and outside of the classroom.

SUNY Oneonta will challenge the status quo, test assumptions, and ask difficult questions about relevancy and impact. The university must understand the needs of today’s learners and tomorrow’s. Our campus and all of the opportunities it can offer should revolve around students and evolve with them. As they trust us to guide them to their goals, we entrust them with the future and the hope of a more just, humane and happier world.

I received my B.S. in meteorology in 1974 at SUNY Oneonta, went on to get a M.S. in meteorology, and started my air pollution meteorologist career in 1976.  Half a century of experience has taught me that stewarding resources must include pragmatic tradeoffs between ambition, risks, benefits, and costs.  The REC program is part of New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act). 

That law epitomizes dogmatic policy driven by emotion and not reason.  There is no consideration of any tradeoffs.  The status quo in New York is that there is an existential climate crisis that can be solved by eliminating the use of fossil fuels.  Somehow, I doubt that SUNY Oneonta has any interest in challenging that paradigm, testing the assumptions that a net-zero transition is possible, or considering the difficult tradeoffs that are inherent in the proposed transition away from fossil fuels.

Furthermore, New York GHG emissions are less than one half of one percent of global emissions and global emissions have been increasing on average by more than one half of one percent per year since 1990.  New York cannot solve global warming by itself and the third-world economies that are developing abundant, economical energy using fossil generation to improve their lives.  The tradeoff between equitable distribution of energy resources relative to speculative climate change benefits is something that SUNY Oneonta students should consider for the goal of a “more just, humane and happier world.”

Another Shell Game

A shell game is defined as “A fraud or deception perpetrated by shifting conspicuous things to hide something else.”  In my opinion the Scoping plan employed  shell game tactics to claim that the Climate Act “costs of inaction are more than the costs of action”.  The Administration knows how much the Climate Act will cost and is surely aware that public support for green energy initiatives to combat climate change dissipates quickly if the costs are substantial.  I believe that affordability is the fundamental reason that the release of required reports on the implementation of the Climate Act have been delayed.

From that perspective the State University voluntary purchase of REC from NYSERDA looks suspicious. If all the SUNY institutions follow suit and purchase REC there will be a dependable funding steam for more NYSERDA renewable development.  On the other hand, the primary goal of SUNY is education and not the societal goal of emission reduction, so I do not favor colleges squandering money on support of renewable energy development.  I conclude that this is simply an inter-agency transfer of funds prompted by a decision to obscure costs and postpone the inevitable political reckoning when the extraordinary transition costs can no longer be hidden. 

Fully Powering Nonsense

The press release continues the charade that renewable energy can “fully power” anything.  The fact is that Hochul’s Administration has not shown that the technology necessary to resolve renewable intermittency is available, much less affordable.  Without that backup technology, four, 200-bed residence halls on campus will only have electricity when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining.  This is an example of selective use of metrics and descriptions that falsely gives the impression that the changeover to green energy is simple.

Conclusion

Renewable Energy Credits exist to subsidize green energy development.  As a compliance tool they have value.  However, one of the stated values of REC voluntary purchases is that they can be used to “demonstrate climate leadership”.  That epitomizes virtue-signaling which I believe has little value as part of the education of SUNY Oneonta students. 

Ultimately the SUNY Oneonta purchase of REC has another goal. It hides the cost to consumers by transferring money from one state account to another.  A college education is expensive enough today without foisting students and parents with hidden costs that do not provide tangible benefit to their education.

Are New Yorkers Willing to Pay for the Climate Act?

Last December the Empire Center did a poll that asked questions about the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act).  I missed it at the time, but the results are striking. This post describes the results and takes a deeper look at the willingness to pay question. 

I am convinced that implementation of the Climate Act net-zero mandates will do more harm than good because the proposed green energy programs are crimes against physics.  The energy density of wind and solar energy is too low and the resource intermittency too variable to ever support a reliable electric system relying on those resources. If this reality is not acknowledged soon and these policies paused, then the enormous costs of this futile gesture to control the climate will bankrupt the state. 

I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 500 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. 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.”  After a year-long review, the Scoping Plan was finalized at the end of 2022.  Since then, the State has been trying to implement the Scoping Plan recommendations through regulations, proceedings, and legislation. 

Poll Overview

The Empire Center, based in Albany, is an independent, not-for-profit, non-partisan think tank dedicated to promoting policies that can make New York a better place to live, work and raise a family.  In the interests of full disclosure, I am an adjunct fellow of the Empire Center. 

They sponsored a survey late last year. The Empire Center announcement of the survey says it canvassed 1,021 New York registered voters (margin of error: 3 percent) and was conducted by Morning Consult in mid-December 2024. The toplines and crosstabs can be viewed here.  For survey neophytes like me the topline lists the questions and the overall results.  Crosstabs breakdown the responses by the characteristics of the people polled.  There were 38 questions in the survey and 16 questions about the demographics of the respondents.  The crosstabs provides the breakdown of questions by the demographic categories.

Questions about the Climate Act were in the minority.  Most of the questions were related to the value of taxes paid – “New Yorkers by a margin of more than two-to-one said they aren’t getting their money’s worth from taxes they pay in the state”.  Other questions addressed the education system

There were six questions about the Climate Act.  I will address the first two questions in this article but will only list the others below.

Climate Act Awareness

Knowing what I understand about this law it is frustrating that there is so little pushback associated with it.  The only reason I could think of is that the majority of New Yorkers are unaware of it.  The question “How familiar are you, if at all, with the provisions of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (also known as CLCPA or the Climate Act) that was signed into law in New York in 2019?” confirms my suspicion.

The survey found that 45% of the people polled had never heard of it and another 24% had heard of it, but didn’t know what it is.  In my opinion, if they only have a general sense what it is (another 19%) then they are probably unaware of how much it will cost.  That means 88% of the people polled do not know what is coming in enough detail to understand its impacts on affordability, personal choice, reliability, and environmental impacts.

I believe that the biggest trigger for demands to pause this will be the costs so let’s talk about those results.

Willingness to Pay

I have never seen any poll regarding a willingness to pay that did not find most people are unwilling to pay very much.  This is proof of Roger Pielke’s Iron Law of Climate “While people are often willing to pay some price for achieving climate objectives, that willingness has its limits.”

This poll is no different.  One third of the respondents are not willing to anything on their monthly energy bill for cleaner energy.  Another 28% are only willing to pay up to $20 a month for cleaner energy while another 20% would pay up to $40 a month.  Nineteen percent are willing to pay up to $200 a month but only 3% are willing to pay more than $200 per month. Another 7% did not know or had no opinion.

I recently submitted comments about affordability in Proceeding 22-M-0149 “Assessing Implementation of and Compliance with the Requirements and Targets of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act”.  On March 26, 2025, Jessica Waldorf, Chief of Staff and Director of Policy Implementation for the Department of Public Service (DPS) posted a letter responding to a letter from Michael B. Mager Counsel to Multiple Intervenors that had been submitted earlier in March to Chair of the Public Service Commission Rory Christian regarding the affordability standard.  The Mager letter from the Multiple Intervenors pointed out that the DPS and New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSEDA) were supposed to provide an annual report describing Climate Act implementation costs.  No report was produced in 2024 and the letter asked when the next report would be provided.  Waldorf’s response made no commitment.  Given the politicization of all New York agencies and the willingness to pay results I don’t think that it is surprising that the Hochul Administration is stonewalling those estimates because I am sure that they will probably exceed $200 a month.

National Grid Long-Term Gas Plan

In a recent post I described the comments I submitted on Case 24-G-0248 Review of the Long-Term Gas System Plan for National Grid.  That plan describes how the three National Grid operating companies intend to transition away from natural gas out to 2050. 

I was frankly surprised with the costs for just this component of Climate At transition plan.  The scenarios include a reference case, CEV or “clean energy vision”, and AE or “accelerated electrification”.  The difference between the reference case and the CEV scenario represents the minimum cost of the Climate Act.  The following tables are from the Long-Term Gas System Plan document.

The 2030 average monthly increase for National Grid customers in the former Niagara Mohawk service territory ranges from a 50% increase to a 96% increase.  The Climate Act cost by 2030 is $57 additional per month.

Table 12-11: Niagara Mohawk Bill Impacts by Scenario

The 2030 average monthly increase for National Grid customers in the former Brooklyn Union Gas service territory ranges from a 65% increase to a 148% increase.  The Climate Act cost by 2030 is $43 additional per month.

Table 12-12: Brooklyn Union Gas Company Bill Impacts by Scenario

The 2030 average monthly increase for National Grid customers in the former Key Span service territory on Long Island ranges from a 41% increase to a 90% increase.  The Climate Act cost by 2030 is $44 additional per month.

Table 12-13: KeySpan Gas (LILCO) Bill Impacts by Scenario

Willingness to Pay for National Grid Long-Term Gas Plan

In the National Grid Long-Term Gas Plan, the expected increase in price to implement the “clean energy vision” exceeds $40 per month for all three service companies.  Table 1 lists the willingness to pay $40 per month for selected demographics of the survey participants.  Note that 71% of respondents when polled said that they were unwilling to pay more than $40 per month.  I am not going to discuss the demographic breakdowns but present them for your edification.

Table 1: Empire Center Willingness to Pay for Increased Energy Costs Relative to National Grid Expected Gas System Transition Costs of at least $40 per Month Additional by 2030

Discussion

The electric and gas utilities must invest in programs that will implement the Climate Act mandates and those costs are starting to show up in their rate case proceedings.  The National Grid long-term plan to transition the gas system out of existence which is necessary to comply with the Climate Act is but one example.  The expected cost increase by 2030 to fulfill the clean energy vision is more than $40 per month.  Only 22% of the people polled were willing to pay that much.

That is only one cost component for New Yorkers.  Electric bills will need to increase by at least the same amount to pay for the infrastructure necessary to electrifying everything.  The New York Cap-and-Invest program is nothing more than a tax on carbon that will necessarily increase the cost of gasoline and heating fuels.  To electrify homes and transportation individual investments will be necessary.  I believe that when people finally figure out that there is law in place that will markedly increase their energy costs that there will be a reckoning.  I also believe that the Hochul Administration is fully aware of the ramifications of Climate Act costs on the next election.  Consequently, they are slow walking the mandates to provide cost information.

In the meantime, the politicians will be more than willing to let the utilities take the heat for the inevitable major cost increases.  No doubt they will simultaneously forbid the utilities to explicitly break out the Climate Act costs in their bills and demand that they lower their rate case proposals.

Conclusion

Any way you look at the willingness to pay question response, the Empire Center survey confirms Roger Pielke Jr’s Iron Law of Climate.  People polled are not willing to pay much for the net-zero aspirations of the Climate Act if 50% are unwilling to pay more than $10 per month for cleaner energy.  It is troubling that 88% of the New Yorkers polled had no more than a general sense of the Climate Act and many had never heard of it.  This is setting up a reckoning for all the politicians that foisted the Climate Act on New Yorkers.  It is inevitable that the politicians will reconsider and give up on it or be voted out for utter stupidity.  The only question is whether political reality will occur before the electric and gas system is destroyed and costs bankrupts the state.

Personal Comments on National Grid Long-Term Gas System Plan Report

The New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net zero transition has unleashed an avalanche of Public Service Commission (PSC) proceedings.  I submitted comments on Case 24-G-0248 Review of the Long-Term Gas System Plan for National Grid because they provide the natural gas I use for heating, cooking hot water, and my backup generator.  There are so many issues coming up with the schedule and ambition of the Climate Act that it is obvious that we need to pause implementation and figure out how best to proceed.  The National Grid Long-Term Plan (“LT Plan”) is a perfect example of a component that should be paused.

I am convinced that implementation of the Climate Act net-zero mandates will do more harm than good because the proposed green energy programs are crimes against physics.  The energy density of wind and solar energy is too low and the resource intermittency too variable to ever support a reliable electric system relying on those resources. If this reality is not acknowledged soon and these policies paused, then the enormous costs of this futile gesture to control the climate will bankrupt the state. 

I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 500 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. 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.”  After a year-long review, the Scoping Plan was finalized at the end of 2022.  Since then, the State has been trying to implement the Scoping Plan recommendations through regulations, proceedings, and legislation. 

I submitted comments on the LT Plan as a National Grid customer who relies on natural gas to provide affordable, reliable and resilient energy to my home.  My comments showed that there is insufficient consideration of the enormous challenge of the Climate Act transition to a zero-emissions energy system in the LT Plan.  I also included a technical comment on the incorrect calculation of the societal cost calculation of avoided GHG emissions.

Safety Valve Criteria

I believe it is premature to implement the transition plan outlined in the LT Plan until metrics for affordability and reliability are established.  The LT Plan does not acknowledge the safety valve requirements in New York Public Service Law  § 66-p (4). “Establishment of a renewable energy program”.   Section 66-p (4) states: “The commission may temporarily suspend or modify the obligations under such program provided that the commission, after conducting a hearing as provided in section twenty of this chapter, makes a finding that the program impedes the provision of safe and adequate electric service; the program is likely to impair existing obligations and agreements; and/or that there is a significant increase in arrears or service disconnections that the commission determines is related to the program”. 

I believe that as part of the Scoping Plan process the Climate Action Council should have developed criteria for the Public Service Law affordability and reliability mandates in Public Service Law Section 66-p (4).  That did not happen, so it is incumbent upon the Commission to define “safe and adequate electric service” and “significant increase in arrears or service disconnections” before the LT Plan is implemented.  It is irresponsible to begin replacing the existing resilient, reliable and affordable natural gas system without assurances that New York has a viable zero emissions electric system transition plan.

Reliability

I am particularly concerned about reliability.  I moved to Liverpool, NY in June 1981 and lived through two extended electricity outages: the Labor Day storm of 1998 and an ice storm in April 2003.  I have never had a natural gas outage since 1981.  As I write this there are still electric over 3,000 customers in Michigan in the dark after an ice storm 17 days ago.  Keeping the heat on in cold weather is a life and death requirement and natural gas is a resilient resource.  During our ice storm I relied on the natural gas-fired furnace, stove, and hot water using a portable generator to provide power.  Because of this concern, I have installed a whole-house generator so that I can survive when another ice storm inevitably occurs.

The LT Plan does not mention that the replacement of natural gas with electric systems will be viable only if the electric system is reliable.  As noted above, there are electricity deliverability issues associated with extreme weather events that are not present with natural gas delivery.  The biggest unacknowledged reliability risk associated with glacial pace of agency progress is addressed in Case 15-E-0302 – Proceeding on Motion of the Commission to Implement a Large-Scale Renewable Program and Clean Energy Standard.  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 because no such technology is currently available.  I believe the only likely viable DEFR backup technology is nuclear generation despite its shortcomings 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.

My comments  described inherent weather variability planning risks associated with non-nuclear DEFR technology that is problematic as long as New York continues to champion an electric system dependent upon wind and solar resources.  It is necessary to determine how much DEFR capacity is needed for wind and solar resource lulls using as long record of weather data as possible.  That has not been done and there is nothing in place for it yet, but analyses done to date suggest that resource capacity equivalent to existing fossil resources will be needed.  I used information from my recent post on the assessment of extreme renewable resource lulls to comment on other issues that need to be resolved before the LT Plan is implemented.

Affordability

One advantage of developing comments is that I can use my articles as source material.  In this instance my comments raised affordability issues that were included in a recently submitted a letter in relation to Public Service Commission (PSC) Proceeding 22-M-0149 “Assessing Implementation of and Compliance with the Requirements and Targets of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act” regarding an affordability standard.  I described those comments in this post. 

I did some original work for my comments about costs.  It was a holy crap moment when I found the projected costs in the LT Plan for three scenarios.  The scenarios include a reference case, CEV or “clean energy vision”, and AE or “accelerated electrification”.  The 2030 average monthly increase for National Grid customers in the former Niagara Mohawk service territory ranges from a 50% increase to a 96% increase.  The 2030 average monthly increase for National Grid customers in the former Brooklyn Union Gas service territory ranges from a 65% increase to a 148% increase.  The 2030 average monthly increase for National Grid customers in the former Key Span service territory on Long Island ranges from a 41% increase to a 90% increase.

Table 12-11: Niagara Mohawk Bill Impacts by Scenario

Table 12-12: Brooklyn Union Gas Company Bill Impacts by Scenario

Table 12-13: KeySpan Gas (LILCO) Bill Impacts by Scenario

It is inconceivable that those costs when combined with similar increases in electric costs will not result in a significant increase in arrears or service disconnections that exceeds the Public Service Law Section 66-p (4) safety valve.  It is long overdue for National Grid and the PSC to acknowledge these costs to ratepayers and for the PSC recognize that its mission to ensure “affordable, safe, secure, and reliable access” to electric and gas services is incompatible with the Climate Act mandates.

The DEFR requirement and weather variability risk described in the previous section also have affordability implications.   Until a DEFR strategy is proposed we have no idea how much this will all cost so any claims that the Climate Act will be “affordable” are incomplete.  Because any DEFR backup resource will be used so little and will be so expensive there will be inevitable tradeoff considerations for the rarely used backup resource.  The result will be pressure to minimize the costs associated with DEFR backup capacity which will increase the probability of a catastrophic blackout.  If natural gas has been shut off the blackout effects will be exacerbated.

Societal Cost Test (“SCT”)

I also included a technical comment on the incorrect calculation of the societal cost calculation of avoided GHG emissions.

I believe the SCT methodology over-estimates the benefits of the societal impacts of greenhouse gas emissions.  As far as I can tell, the National Grid Long-Term Gas System Plan report calculates the societal benefits based on avoided emissions. I believe the reference to “avoided” emissions means that the emission reductions for the different scenarios are accumulated out to a specific date.  I also evaluated the latest NYS GJG emissions inventory and found that the New York State total GHG emissions from the buildings and industry sectors were 84.5 million metric tons in 2021.  In that year the NYSERDA Patterns and Trends report showed that National Grid sold roughly half the natural gas in New York.  Based on that I assume that National Grid emitted 42.2 million metric tons in 2021.  Table 8-8: GHG Emissions Reductions by Scenario and Operating Company in the LT Report lists emissions ranging from 223.8 to 1,239 million metric tons which far exceeds the observed 2021 emissions.

Calculations of avoided emissions benefits consider reductions over some time frame.  It is inappropriate to claim the benefits of an annual reduction of a ton of greenhouse gas over any lifetime or to compare it with lifetime avoided emissions.  The value of a GHG emission reduction is based on all the damage predicted to occur from the year that the ton of carbon is reduced out to 2300.  The correct societal benefit can be no more than the current GHG emissions times the social cost of carbon.  Clearly, using cumulative values for this parameter is incorrect because it counts those values over and over. That is equivalent to me saying I lost 25 pounds because I lost 5 pounds five years ago and kept it off.  I contacted social cost of carbon expert Dr. Richard Tol about my interpretation of the use of lifetime savings and he confirmed that “The SCC should not be compared to life-time savings or life-time costs (unless the project life is one year)”. 

Conclusion

National Grid has developed a long-term plan to replace natural gas with electricity. The projected costs are enormous and the benefits overstated.    The plan does not acknowledge that this is a safe and viable approach only if the future electric system is reliable.  In my opinion, the feasibility of a reliable electric system that relies on wind and solar has not been proven.  The Scoping Plan zero emissions electric system needs a new resource, we don’t know how much of that resource is needed, what it will be, or how much it will cost.

I concluded that it is imprudent for the Commission and National Grid to continue this long-term plan to eliminate natural gas until the affordability and reliability mandates in Public Service Law Section 66-p (4) are defined and evaluated.  I have no doubts that the mandated evaluation will find that the Climate Act impedes the provision of safe and adequate electric service and will cause a significant increase in arrears or service disconnections that result in suspension or modification of the Climate Act mandates including the long-term shutdown of the natural gas system.  It is therefore irresponsible to begin the replacement of the existing resilient, reliable and affordable natural gas system until New York has a viable zero-emissions electric system available.  The LT Plan should acknowledge this prerequisite to implementation.

Conclusion

National Grid has developed a long-term plan to replace natural gas with electricity.  Their plan does not acknowledge that this is a safe and viable approach only if the future electric system is reliable.  In my opinion, the feasibility of a wind and solar dependent electric system has not been proven.  The Scoping Plan zero emissions electric system needs a new resource, we don’t know how much of that resource is needed, what it will be, or how much it will cost, and that whatever we do eventually it won’t be enough so people will die in a catastrophic blackout. 

It is imprudent for the Commission and National Grid to continue this long-term plan to eliminate natural gas until the affordability and reliability mandates in Public Service Law Section 66-p (4) are defined and evaluated.  I have no doubts that the mandated evaluation will find that the Climate Act impedes the provision of safe and adequate electric service and will cause a significant increase in arrears or service disconnections that result in suspension or modification of the Climate Act mandates including the long-term shutdown of the natural gas system.  It is therefore irresponsible to begin the replacement of the existing resilient, reliable and affordable natural gas system until New York has a viable zero-emissions electric system available.  The LT Plan should acknowledge this prerequisite to implementation.

My Comments on the New York Affordability Standard

On March 26, 2025, Jessica Waldorf, Chief of Staff and Director of Policy Implementation for the Department of Public Service (DPS) posted a letter responding to a letter from Michael B. Mager Counsel to Multiple Intervenors that had been submitted earlier in March to Chair of the Public Service Commission Rory Christian regarding the affordability standard.       I agreed with the comments submitted by Multiple Intevenors and was disappointed with the DPS response so I submitted a letter to Christian today.  This article summarizes my letter and why I was disappointed by the DPS letter and the overall DPS response to the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (CLCPA) implementation to date. 

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 500 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. 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.”  After a year-long review, the Scoping Plan was finalized at the end of 2022.  Since then, the State has been trying to implement the Scoping Plan recommendations through regulations, proceedings, and legislation. 

PSC Proceeding 22-M-0149

This proceeding is an example of the implementation programs currently underway.  Public Service Commission (PSC) Proceeding 22-M-0149 “Assessing Implementation of and Compliance with the Requirements and Targets of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act” order for the Proceeding describes all the actions underway as of May 2022. To their credit, the PSC commissioners realized that a proceeding that formally required tracking of progress was needed:

The Commission has quickly taken action related to items within its jurisdiction to help put the State on a path to meet the aggressive CLCPA targets. However, in consideration of the scope of the CLCPA and the extensive work necessary to achieve its mandates, continuous monitoring of the progress made will be crucial to ensure the State remains on track to achieve these objectives. In addition, there are existing policies that will need to be reviewed, and new policies that will need to be developed, to further the enablement of the CLCPA. This proceeding will be the forum for such policy development. By this Order, the Commission institutes this new proceeding to both track and assess the advancements made towards meeting the CLCPA mandates and provide policy guidance, as necessary, for the additional actions needed to help achieve the objectives of the CLCPA.

The primary focus of the Multiple Intervenor letter (“MI Letter”) was on affordability and they noted that the Commission order establishing the Proceeding said: “Since investments required to implement the CLCPA are becoming a significant driver of utility rate increases, it is critical for DPS Staff to provide the Commission and the public with specific cost-based information to understand the impact of these capital investments on ratepayers as part of our core obligation to ensure just and reasonable rates.”

MI Letter

It comes as no surprise to anyone who understands the monumental challenge of an electric system net-zero transition that New York is falling behind on the progress needed to achieve the Climate Act mandates.  Given the complexities of the net-zero transition it is inevitable that Agency staff would be unable to fulfill the reporting annual report mandates. 

After describing the mandate of the Proceeding order, the MI letter goes on to quote the requirement that directs DPS staff to present information on CLCPA costs annually.  The MI Letter shows that DPS is behind schedule:

On July 20, 2023, DPS Staff presented its “First Annual Informational Report on Overall Implementation of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act” (“First Annual Report”) in compliance with the Commission’s Order in Case 22-M-0149. While Multiple Intervenors could take issue with numerous costs that were excluded from quantification in the First Annual Report, DPS Staff estimated (at page 29) that by the end of 2022, the Commission already had authorized an eye-popping $43.756 billion in CLCPA-related costs.

Unfortunately, however, there has been no second report from DPS Staff providing public information as to CLCPA implementation costs, in clear violation of the Order. Inasmuch as the First Annual Report was filed on July 20, 2023, the second such report was expected sometime in July 2024. On December 17, 2024 – approximately five months past the report’s expected due date – DPS Staff filed a letter in this proceeding informing of a delay. In the letter, Staff states that it “anticipates presenting this report in 2025.” To date, the Commission has taken no action in response to the letter, and the public is left wondering whether a report that was directed to be filed annually – and, therefore, was due in July 2024 – will be filed at any point in 2025.

I welcomed the Multiple Intervenor letter because I hoped that it would prompt a reply addressing affordability issues and the schedule for the required reports.  Unfortunately, the reply letter was unresponsive to these concerns.

DPS Reply Letter

The March 26, 2025 response from Jessica Waldorf of DPS was disappointing because it is condescending, was treated as an obligation, and does not address the cost issues.  It is condescending because Mr. Mager and Multiple Intervenors are aware of the history and where to find the Integration Analysis.  The description of the first draft Clean Energy Standard (CES) Biennial Review opens with the clause “Earlier this year” for a document released last summer which suggests that the text was copied from another document to fulfill the obligation to provide a response.  The typographical error suggests that the response was not considered an opportunity to address the affordability problems raised. 

Even though the DPS response letter did not adequately respond to affordability issues, some of the statements were revealing.  The letter stated that the report does not “disaggregate funding that would have incurred under programs that existed prior to the CLCPA.”  I have been complaining about the implications of this important caveat since my scenarios comment on the draft Scoping Plan because it is part of a shell game in the Integration Analysis designed to hide the costs.  I have shown that most of the results presented in the Integration Analysis spreadsheet were relative to a reference case.  In this type of analysis, the purpose is to consider the impacts of proposed policies relative to a business-as-usual case without those policies.  The Integration Analysis did not include a modeling scenario that excludes all the costs of CLCPA implementation.  Instead, costs presented are relative to a Reference Case that is described as “Business as usual plus implemented policies. 

This is important because the Hochul Administration mantra developed by the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) that the “costs of inaction are more than the costs of action” is deliberately misleading.  It relies in part on excluding the costs of the programs that existed before the CLCPA, which is important in this context.  I believe that I represent most New Yorkers when I say I want to know the costs to meet the CLCPA goals like the 100% zero emissions electricity by 2040 and 40% lower GHG emissions by 2030 mandates.  The particular program that gets New York there does not matter.  I want to know the total costs to meet the mandates not just the costs of the unique CLCPA components.  This letter afforded me the opportunity to make this argument in a formal proceeding where it will be more difficult to ignore.

The last substantive paragraph of the DPS response letter stated:

In addition to the First Informational Report, the integration analysis performed for the CLCPA Scoping Plan contains detailed cost information related to the implementation of the CLCPA. The integration analysis can be found on the Climate Act website. Additionally, the next State Energy Plan that is currently under development, will include an update to this prior analysis from the Scoping Plan, and incorporate new information on the potential effects of the policies included in the State Energy Plan on energy costs for consumers.

Integration Analysis Annex 2 provides the “detailed cost information”.  Jim Shultz referred to the Scoping Plan as “a true masterpiece in how to hide what is important under an avalanche of words designed to make people never want to read it.”  The Integration Analysis cost information is in a massive spreadsheet that is the quantitative equivalent to the Scoping Plan avalanche of words.  It may be detailed but it most certainly does not provide an easily accessible compilation for all the energy use and emission reduction strategies proposed that includes assumptions, expected costs, and projected emission reductions.  In particular, the documentation does not provide explicit information to determine what costs are specifically included in the Reference Case or provide sufficient information to “disaggregate funding that would have incurred under programs that existed prior to the CLCPA.”  As a result, it is impossible to parse out the total expected cost to meet Climate Act goals.

Recommendations

I included three recommendations in my letter that addressed my long-standing issues.

My comments explained why I believe the DPS response letter illustrates the broken stakeholder process exemplified by the lack of responsiveness by all the agencies regarding any comments that questioned the narrative espoused by CLCPA proponents.  NYSERDA and other state agencies treat the stakeholder process as an obligation and not an opportunity.  NYSERDA claims that there was “robust public input” during the draft Scoping Plan process that “included 11 public hearings across the State and more than 35,000 written comments” that supposedly were read, summarized, and presented to the Climate Action Council.  The problem is that Agency staff screened the comments for the Climate Action Council and there is no publicly available documentation of their work.  They only presented generalities at meetings and did not address any specific comments. 

My first recommendation argued that NYSERDA and DPS should prepare documentation that lists all the issues raised in submitted comments so that the Climate Action Council, the Energy Planning Board, the Commission, and stakeholders can be assured that all issues raised have been considered.  The documentation should list issues, describe their relevance, explain disposition of comments, and provide the rationale if there is a difference of opinion between the agency and a commenter.  If there is inadequate documentation, then there is no assurance that stakeholder concerns have been considered.

My second recommendation is a personal example of an ignored comments.  I recommended that the PSC define acceptable affordability criteria, publicly track the parameters for the criteria, and be prepared to pause implementation if the criteria are exceeded for the safety valve conditions in Public Service Law in my Draft Scoping Plan comments and in other Proceedings. There has never been a response to my comments describing safety valve conditions for affordability and reliability in New York Public Service Law  § 66-p (4). “Establishment of a renewable energy program” Section 66-p (4) states: “The commission may temporarily suspend or modify the obligations under such program provided that the commission, after conducting a hearing as provided in section twenty of this chapter, makes a finding that the program impedes the provision of safe and adequate electric service; the program is likely to impair existing obligations and agreements; and/or that there is a significant increase in arrears or service disconnections that the commission determines is related to the program”. 

I believe that as part of the Scoping Plan the Climate Action Council should have developed criteria for the PSC to consider affordability and reliability.  That did not happen.  Based on issues observed with the transition it is incumbent upon the Commission to define “safe and adequate electric service” and “significant increase in arrears or service disconnections” as part of this Proceeding.  This is necessary so that there is a clearly defined standard for the temporarily suspending or modifying the provisions of Section 66-p (4).

Finally, I recommended that affordability metrics and reports on costs should include all costs necessary to meet CLCPA mandates including programs implemented before the CLCPA.  This would address the shell game shenanigans used by NYSERDA in the Scoping Plan. Clear documentation that lists all the emission strategies, the expected reductions, implementation schedule and expected costs is necessary.

I also expressed my disappointment that DPS staff appear to be more interested in the political narrative than fulfilling their mission to ensure “affordable, safe, secure, and reliable access” to electric services for New York State’s residential and business consumers.  For example, at the December 18, 2024 New York Assembly Committee on Energy public hearing the author of the letter, Jessica Waldorf, claimed that there are other reasons “to build renewable energy resources in New York that are not just related to emissions.”  Her response claimed reduced price volatility would reduce costs.  I evaluated that claim and found that it does not stand up to scrutiny.  My letter made that point.

Conclusion

I submitted my letter to reiterate several of the issues that I have raised previously regarding the Climate Act implementation process.  I also pointed out that the stakeholder process is broken because impactful issues like those that I described have never been acknowledged much less addressed.  I make no claims that my concerns must be reconciled for the process to be acceptable.  However, I did point out that the differences between the New York Independent System Operator future projections and the Scoping Plan projections have never been reconciled publicly.  It is unacceptable to dismiss differences in the analyses from the organization responsible for electric system reliability.