Climate Act Implementation Components – Page 4 – Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York

Does New York Need a Climate Act Feasibility Analysis

On September 9, 2024 the Hochul Administration initiated the development of the State Energy Plan announcing the release of a draft scope of the plan. On November 15 New Yorkers for Clean Power (NYCP) sponsored a webinar titled “Get Charged Up for the New York Energy Plan” that was intended to brief their supporters about the Energy Plan. This article will be the first of two posts addressing this webinar. I have a tendency to write comprehensive posts that are too long for my readers so I am going to break this story up.

I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the electric system transition relies on wind, solar, and energy storage. I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 470 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 2030 reduction target of a 40% GHG reduction by 2030. Two targets address the electric sector: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040. The Climate Action Council (CAC) was responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” The Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants quantified the impact of the electrification strategies. That material was used to develop the Draft Scoping Plan outline of strategies. 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.

Although related, the Energy Plan should not be confused with the Scoping Plan. Every several years the New York Energy Planning Board is required to update its overall energy plan for the state. The process begins with an initial document that identifies a “scope” of work–meaning the set of things to be evaluated in the plan with a defined planning horizon of 2040. This makes the Climate Act’s 2040 goal of carbon-free electricity particularly relevant. Unlike the 70% renewable goal which only applies in 2030, the 2040 goal does not mandate an arbitrary quota of “renewables”. Instead, it simply mandates carbon-free electricity, which can include nuclear power.

Key Action Items from the Webinar

The description of the New Yorkers for Clean Power webinar titled “Get Charged Up for the New York Energy Plan” stated:

Thank you for joining us for the “Get Charged Up for the New York State Energy Plan” Teach-In on November 15th. We are electrified by the demonstrated interest and information shared to support New York’s climate goals through the development of an ambitious and equitable State Energy Plan. To recap, our featured speakers were:

Janet Joseph, Principal, JLJ Sustainability Solutions (Former VP of Strategy and Market Development, NYSERDA

Dr. Robert Howarth, Member, New York’s Climate Action Council, and David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology and Environmental Biology at Cornell University

Christopher Casey, Utility Regulatory Director for New York Climate and Energy, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)

We’re excited to share the recording and slideshow from the event: Here is the recording of the event and check out the Presenters’ slides here.

Key Takeaways from the Event

Energy Plan is foundational to achieving New York’s climate and energy goals, aligning policies with the CLCPA.

Engagement from advocates, community members and developers is critical for ensuring equitable and actionable outcomes

Challenges like building decarbonization and system reliability require innovative solutions and statutory changes.

I am going to address the presentations of Janet Joseph and Robert Howarth in a later post. I disagree with their comments that downplay my concern that transitioning the New York electric grid to one that relies primarily on wind, solar, and energy storage will adversely affect reliability and affordability. This post is going to describe Dr. Howarth’s response to my specific question about the need for a feasibility analysis.

Feasibility Analysis Background

Dr. Howarth is venerated by New York environmental advocates but I think their faith is misplaced. His Introduction at the webinar extolled his role in vilifying methane’s alleged importance as a greenhouse gas. I think that obsession is irrational. The hostess also lauded his work supporting a Biden Administration pause on applications for LNG export terminals. However his analysis was “riddled with errors” and he eventually retracted some of the more extreme claims that received media attention.

Howarth claims that he played a key role in the drafting of the Climate Act and his statement at the meeting where the Scopng Plan was approved claims that no new technology is needed:

I further wish to acknowledge the incredible role that Prof. Mark Jacobson of Stanford has played in moving the entire world towards a carbon-free future, including New York State. A decade ago, Jacobson, I and others laid out a specific plan for New York (Jacobson et al. 2013). In that peer-reviewed analysis, we demonstrated that our State could rapidly move away from fossil fuels and instead be fueled completely by the power of the wind, the sun, and hydro. We further demonstrated that it could be done completely with technologies available at that time (a decade ago), that it could be cost effective, that it would be hugely beneficial for public health and energy security, and that it would stimulate a large increase in well-paying jobs. I have seen nothing in the past decade that would dissuade me from pushing for the same path forward. The economic arguments have only grown stronger, the climate crisis more severe. The fundamental arguments remain the same.

As I will show in this article, I think his claim that the transition can be implemented using wind, sun, and hydro using existing technologies is wrong.

Do We Need a Feasibility Analysis?

I thought it would be appropriate to give Howarth the opportunity to recant his feasibility claim so I submitted the following question:

On November 4, 2024, the New York Department of Public Service (DPS) staff proposal concerning definitions for key terms notes that “Pursuing the 2040 target will require the deployment of novel technologies and their integration into a changing grid”. Should there be a feasibility analysis in the energy plan to address their concern about the new technologies?

In his response, Howarth admitted that he was not familiar with the particular reference to the DPS proceeding that is implanting the Climate Act mandates. Then he answered (my lightly edited transcription of his responses):

I can give you the perspective of three years of discussion on the CAC. That it is we firmly stated that the goals can be met with existing technologies. We don’t need novel technologies.

One of my unresolved questions relative to Howarth’s position and the Scoping Plan is that he voted to support the Scoping Plan. However, the Scoping Plan explicitly contradicts his statement that technologies available in 2013 were sufficient for the transition away from fossil fuels. In particular, the Final Scoping Plan Appendix G, Section I page 49 states (my highlight included):

During a week with persistently low solar and wind generation, additional firm zero-carbon resources, beyond the contributions of existing nuclear, imports, and hydro, are needed to avoid a significant shortfall; Figure 34 demonstrates the system needs during this type of week. During the first day of this week, most of the short-duration battery storage is quickly depleted, and there are still several days in which wind and solar are not sufficient to meet demand. A zero-carbon firm resource becomes essential to maintaining system reliability during such instances. In the modeled pathways, the need for a firm zero-carbon resource is met with hydrogen-based resources; ultimately, this system need could be met by a number of different emerging technologies.

In addition to the Scoping Plan statement that a zero-carbon firm resource is needed, the organizations responsible for New York State electric system reliability agree. The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) 2023-2042 System & Resource Outlook, and Power Trends 2024 analyses and the New York Department of Public Service (DPS) Proceeding 15-E-0302 Technical Conference determined that DEFR was needed. Independent analyses by the Cornell Biology and Environmental Engineering, Richard Ellenbogen, and Nuclear New York also found that it was needed. For example, a very readable description of the DEFR problem by Tim Knauss describing the work done by Cornell’s Biology and Environmental Engineering Anderson Lab found that “Just 15 years from now, the electric grid will need about 40 gigawatts of new generating capacity that can be activated regardless of wind speeds, cloud cover or other weather conditions”.

While this is not directly applicable to the DEFR requirement I want to highlight the following Howarth quote:

Now having said that. There are a lot of details to work out, energy storage is going to be critical. Lisa made the point that ground source heat pumps and thermal networks are better than air source heat pumps. They are hugely more effective in the peak time in January. If we go that route we don’t need as much electrical capacity overall. I would add that thermal storage is cheaper than electrical storage for energy. Particularly if you have a thermal network because you can store heat that can provide a community with heat for weeks to months to even on an annual basis. There is a community in Saskatchewan I believe where they store heat six months at a time which is very cheap compared to other things

I believe Howarth’s thermal network reference is to Calgary’s Drake Landing solar heating community. There is only one problem. The system established in 2006 is failing and will be decommissioned less than 20 years after it was built. In my opinion, the New York Energy Plan must include a critique of the Drake Landing experiment and the implications for New York thermal networks. This is another feasibility analysis that I think is necessary.

Howarth went on to double down on his position that no new technologies are needed:

We don’t need new technologies to meet the goals of our climate law. Mark Jacobson from Stanford, who I think is the most brilliant engineer I know. He and I and others wrote a plan back in 2013, more than ten years ago, laying out specifically how to make the state of New York fossil fuel free on a realistic time frame. We made the case then, more than ten years ago, that we did not need new technologies, and it was cost-effective then. It is even more so now. The whole idea of waiting for the next new technology is an excuse for inaction. We don’t need to wait.

I have assembled a page that describes the analyses that contradict the Jacobson and Howarth work and includes a critique of their results. To adequately characterize the New York electric system, it is necessary to simulate the details of the New York electric transmission system. Not surprisingly, of the 11 New York Control Areas the New York City area requires the most energy. That fact coupled with geographical constraints because New York City is basically a load pocket means that transmission details are important. To characterize wind and solar it is necessary to evaluate meteorological conditions to generate estimates of wind and solar resource production. When that is coupled with projections of future load, the sophisticated analyses all conclude that the new dispatchable emissions-free resource is needed because simply adding much more short-term storage will not work. In my opinion, academic studies like Jacobson and Howarth short-change transmission constraints and/or weather variability leading to false solutions and conclusions.

Advocates for the Scoping Plan energy approach demand action now because the law mandates renewables. Invariably they overlook New York Public Service Law § 66-p (4). “Establishment of a renewable energy program” that includes safety valve conditions for affordability and reliability that are directly related to the zero emissions resource. § 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”.

Conclusion

The Climate Action Council should have established criteria for the three § 66-p (4) requirements so that there is a clear test to suspend or modify obligations. New York State law has restrictions that protect citizens from irrational adherence to a dangerous energy future and I believe that a feasibility analysis for the new DEFR technology should be part of the evaluation for this mandate.

In my 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 can replace renewables, eliminating the need for a massive DEFR backup resource. Therefore, it would be prudent to pause renewable development until DEFR feasibility is proven because nuclear generation may be the only viable path to zero emissions.

Jonah Messinger summarizes my worry that New York has placed undeserved reliance on the work of Robert Howarth:

That an activist scholar with a history of contested and critiqued claims could influence the Biden administration with such an obviously erroneous study is more than concerning. It demonstrates how faulty science in the name of climate can derail important policy debates, and make the global energy transition far harder.

I am sure that none of the advocates who venerate his work will ever be convinced that his work is fatally flawed. However, it is time that the energy experts in the state step up and confront public officials with the reality that the Climate Act schedule and mandates are only possible with a new technology. Evaluating the potential technologies and determining if they can be feasibly implemented affordably and without risking reliability standards is an obvious approach.

DEFR Concerns Update

I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the electric system transition relies on wind, solar, and energy storage. My primary reliability concern is the challenge of providing electric energy during periods of extended low wind and solar resource availability. Experts, including those that are responsible for electric system reliability, agree that a new category of generating resources called Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources (DEFR) is necessary during those periods. This article summarizes a very readable description of the DEFR problem by Tim Knauss who describes the work done by Cornell’s Anderson Lab headed by Dr. Lindsay Anderson.

I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 470 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.

Takeaway Message – If you don’t have time to read the whole thing

This post summarizes a readable description of DEFR in an article by Tim Knauss. He described the work of Dr. Lindsay Anderson regarding the necessary DEFR component of the proposed transition of the electric system to zero emissions. The article explains how Anderson’s team calculates the gap between future wind, solar, and energy storage generating resources needed and projected electric load during periods of low renewable resource availability. I believe that the work of the Anderson Lab provides support to my contention that renewable development should be paused. A renewable-based electric system needs DEFR, the most likely DEFR solution is nuclear, but if you have zero emissions nuclear then you don’t need renewables. That makes renewables a dead-end approach.

Overview

Because of its importance to the feasibility of the Climate Act, the subject of DEFR rates its own Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York page. I described the page contents last July in an article that summarized six analyses describing the need for DEFR: the Integration Analysis, New York Department of Public Service (DPS) Proceeding 15-E-0302 Technical Conference, NYISO Resource Outlook, Richard Ellenbogen, Cornell Biology and Environmental Engineering Lindsay Lab, and Nuclear New York. I have updated the page with references to the Tim Knauss article on Cornell Professor Anderson’s work.

Syracuse Post Standard “Mind-Boggling Gap”

On November 19 the article There’s a mind-boggling gap in NY’s plan for a clean electric grid. ‘We are so far behind’ by Tim Knauss was published on the Syracuse dot com website. It is not clear to me whether the official link is accessible by non-subscribers so I have posted a version here and reproduce some of it with some annotations below.

Knauss poses the critical question: “What technology will grid operators turn to when solar and wind fall short?”. He notes:

Maybe it will be advanced nuclear reactors. Or hydrogen-burning power plants. Nobody knows for sure. Operators will need some emission-free power source they can turn on and off at will.

At Cornell University, Professor Lindsay Anderson and fellow researchers have been studying this problem. Given the specific layout of New York’s electric grid, they asked, how much of this new power source would be needed in addition to all the solar and wind?

A staggering amount, it turns out.

Just 15 years from now, the electric grid will need about 40 gigawatts of new generating capacity that can be activated regardless of wind speeds, cloud cover or other weather conditions, according to Anderson’s research.

How much is that? It’s roughly equal to the total capacity of all of New York’s current power plants – nuclear, natural gas, hydro, wind, all of it.

You read that right. To back up the massive quantities of solar and wind power that will provide most of our future electricity, the state power grid will need some new, mystery resource equal in size to the entire generating fleet of today.

The need for new, mystery DEFR, the potential quantity required, and the technological challenges for the resource are issues well known by those who understand the electric system. However, there is a loud and passionate segment of society who disagree that anything new is needed and reject the scale of the projected resource need. Anderson and Knauss understand that this is a touchy subject. Knauss writes:

Anderson knows that’s not easy to hear.

“That’s the thing, right?’’ she said. “Where people are going to start to worry is (to) say, ‘Okay, wait, so you’re telling us that we’re going to spend all this money building out all this wind and solar and batteries — AND we have to put in 40 gigawatts of this?”

But there will have to be a backup.

Knauss describes the analysis work done to generate the “mind-boggling” projections.

Anderson chairs Cornell’s department of biological and environmental engineering. She has a PhD in applied math and a master’s degree in engineering. For the past decade, she has worked with a shifting assortment of doctoral candidates and other graduate students in her eponymous Anderson Lab, housed in a large room full of cubicles and computers. They examine issues related to the growing importance of renewable energy.

The Anderson Lab is looking at the physics of how all that will work. To do so, they built an elaborately detailed computer model – a “digital twin’’ — of New York’s electric grid.

That level of detail sets their work apart. Many of the studies that look at phasing in renewable energy pretend that the electric grid is a single pool of electrons that flow from point to point without constraint. It‘s known as the “copper plate’’ assumption.

In reality, the New York electric grid is a complex, lopsided network that has been stitched together piece by piece over a century. There are limits on how much electric current can move from one area to another.

The six analyses that are described on my DEFR page all handle the electric system in similar fashions and all unequivocally conclude DEFR is needed. The reference to studies that use the “copper plate” assumption refers to the analysis that was used by the politicians who authored the Climate Act. It is the basis of the Climate Act presumption that implementation was simply a matter of political will because no new technology would be required. New York’s electric grid experts disagree. This contradiction needs to be resolved.

The Knauss article goes on to describe DEFR:

carbon-free generating plant that can be turned on and off as needed. It’s pronounced DEE-fur.

Today, dispatchable power is provided mostly by natural gas power plants. Energy planners hope to replace them with something that does not produce greenhouse gases. Nobody knows what that will be.

“They’ve come up with a name for something that they don’t know what it is, but their modeling shows that they need something. It kind of seems like dark matter in the universe,’’ said environmentalist Tim Judson, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Referral Service.

When the state’s Climate Action Council issued their December 2022 report on how the state will eliminate greenhouse gases from the grid by 2040, they estimated a need for 18 to 23 gigawatts of DEFRs. Anderson’s study concluded that the estimate should be roughly doubled, to 37 to 40 GW. In its most recent forecast, the NYSIO estimated a need for at least 20 GW of DEFRs, and as much as 40 GW, by the year 2040.

Knauss explains that Anderson is concerned about the need for DEFR and the quantity required as well as the ramifications of this new resource:

The need stems from two main vulnerabilities, Anderson said.

First, there will be lulls when the wind dies down for days on end and the skies cloud over, resulting in power shortages that exceed the current ability of batteries to compensate. Second, there will be periods when the state has plenty of renewable energy but not enough transmission capacity to get it where it’s needed.

There would even be times when Upstate produced too much renewable energy, which must be disconnected to keep from overloading the grid, even as blackouts rolled across Downstate due to bottled up transmission lines.

Most of those problems are likely to occur in the coldest part of winter and the hottest part of summer, when demand for electricity will surge to peak levels. And the region most vulnerable to blackouts would be Downstate, where communities with massive electricity needs sit at the end of transmission lines from Upstate that are often overloaded.

These issues raise a concern of mine. I maintain that there are unacknowledged challenges associated with weather variability risks associated with planning for the DEFR resources needed. The first challenge is calculating the resources needed which requires analysis of meteorological data to estimate resource availability and expected loads. I believe no one has done a comprehensive enough analysis because they haven’t used the longest period of data available, and they have not included adjacent regional transmission operator areas. The second challenge is more concerning to me. The evaluation of the meteorological data develops a probabilistic estimate of the resources needed that are analogous to the one in a hundred-year flooding parameter. The problem is that we often see a flood exceeding the one in hundred probabilities. It is inevitable that the weather conditions that caused the worst-case resource drought planning scenario will also be exceeded. When that happens there will not be enough electric energy available, blackouts are likely, and the consequences of blackouts on a society that decarbonized by using electricity will be catastrophic.

There is another issue relative to the aspirational Climate Act mandate to go to “zero emissions” by 2040. We need DEFR but the technology is not available. Knauss describes potential DEFR technologies:

Some experts propose converting power plants to burn hydrogen rather than natural gas. Or hydrogen could be used in fuel cells, which rely on chemical reactions rather than combustion to make electricity.

Others promote the idea of sequestering the carbon emissions from gas plants underground. Or burning “renewable” methane recovered from landfills and other sources.

Recently, New York officials have expressed interest in small advanced nuclear plants, which are under development by various companies. State energy planners are developing a “roadmap’’ that should be released early next year detailing how new nuclear technology might be encouraged.

None of the possible technologies is ready for commercial application. Which will emerge?

“That’s the million-dollar question,’’ said Lanahan Kevin Lanahan, a spokesman for NYISO, the grid operator.

The article goes on to note a difference of opinion regarding DEFR deployment. On one side is the electric industry who are obligated to provide reliable electricity.

New York is long overdue to identify DEFR technologies and to support their development, said Gavin Donohue, executive director of the Independent Power Producers of New York, a trade group representing power plant owners. IPPNY formally asked the Public Service Commission three years ago to decide what it will accept as “zero-emission’’ generating plants. The PSC is still mulling that over in a regulatory proceeding. “The timely development of fully dispatchable zero emitting resources is crucial to maintain reliability as the economy electrifies and reliance on intermittent renewable and duration limited resources increases,’’ the group wrote.

On the other side are the special interests who have no accountability.

But some environmentalists argue against a rush to develop DEFRs, saying it could distract from building wind and solar resources and could lead state officials to hastily subsidize unproven technology such as hydrogen combustion.

Following a technical presentation to the state Public Service Commission last year by Anderson and a NYISO planning director, representatives from Sierra Club and Earthjustice submitted rebuttal comments claiming that NYISO’s forecast of the need for DEFRs was “alarmist.” (The forecast presented by NYISO that day was about 25% lower than the Anderson Lab’s estimate.)

The critics said the state should focus on proven techniques such as importing power from out of state, improving transmission, and encouraging demand response programs under which customers cut their power consumption during peak periods. “Rushing to deploy expensive and untested DEFRs risks committing New York to flawed technologies, as it is unclear at the present time which technologies will emerge as commercially scalable and cost effective,’’ they wrote.

I responded to some of the referenced rebuttal comments because I think their analyses are naïve. In the first place, their analytical methodologies are not as sophisticated as the Anderson Lab. Secondly, they don’t acknowledge the correlation of wind energy across New York so their estimates of the magnitude of the problem are flawed. Knauss mentions the critics “solutions”.

It’s a complicated issue, in part because there are strategies other than adding power plants to help reduce demand for electricity during peak periods. Improvements in meter technology, for example, will enable residential customers to respond during power shortages by reducing their demand, as some commercial and industrial customers do already. Likewise, grid operators could one day draw power from electric vehicle batteries during peak periods.

This line of reasoning is naïve because it ignores the fact that DEFR is needed when the electric system energy requirements are highest. The conditions that cause light winds and low wind power output also cause extreme temperatures which lead to peak electrical loads. Those are the conditions when residential customers are not going to want to reduce power consumption. They will want to keep their homes warm!

The article goes on to discuss practical alternatives to the “mind-boggling” gap and the aspirational Climate Act schedule. Dr. Anderson suggested looking at slightly less stringent emission limits at least as a bridge until a DEFR solution is found.

Knauss also points out that the Anderson Lab work makes the optimistic assumption that all the wind and solar projected by the Hochul Administration actually gets built on schedule.

In reality, siting battles and other issues have stalled many large wind and solar projects for years. And as inflation drives up the capital costs of renewable energy, Gov. Kathy Hochul is under mounting pressure from business and consumer groups to keep the cost of the energy transition under control.

Because of those barriers, there is a vast gap between New York’s renewable energy capacity today and what would be needed to retire all the fossil fuel plants. Developers would have to build about 10 times the wind and solar power that exists now.

“It’s a huge problem, and we are so far behind,’’ Anderson said.

Conclusion

I think that the Knauss article does a great job explaining the intricacies of the DEFR issue and the work of the Anderson Lab. I believe they appropriately describe the challenges of DEFR. However, the article does not address the policy implications of DEFR.

The Hochul Administration has finally started its update of the NY Energy Plan. The draft scope of the plan considers an electric system that relies on wind and solar generation consistent with the Climate Act Scoping Plan. No jurisdiction anywhere has successfully developed such a system. The State agencies responsible for a reliable electric system agree with Professor Anderson that a wind, solar, and energy storage system requires DEFR. I believe that it is prudent to fund a demonstration project to prove that such an electric system will work. At the very least, the energy plan must provide a comprehensive renewable feasibility analysis to determine whether such a system will maintain affordability and reliability standards.

The most likely DEFR backup technology is nuclear generation because it is the only candidate resource that is technologically ready. Nuclear power has a proven record for resilient electric production, development would not require changes to support the transmission system and buildout the system, it is not limited by weather extremes, it has lower environmental impacts, and when life cycle and backup costs are considered is likely cheaper. Its use as backbone energy would eliminate the need for wind, solar, energy storage, and new DEFR deployment to meet Climate Act zero-emissions mandates.

Sierra Club and Earthjustice argue that DEFR is a distraction to their preference for wind and solar development. I believe that the work of the Anderson Lab provides support to my contention that renewable development should be paused because that development cannot work until DEFR is proven feasible. If the DEFR solution is nuclear then renewables are a dead-end approach.

The Math Behind New York City’s Local Law 97 Does Not Add Up

This article was originally posted at Watts Up With That

New York City Local Law 97 (LL97) mandates that “most buildings over 25,000 square feet are required to meet new energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions limits as of 2024, with stricter limits coming into effect in 2030.” Rich Ellenbogen explains that the numbers underpinning Local Law 97 underestimate electric grid emissions by between 39% and 47% and uses incorrect emissions numbers to calculate the penalties and as a basis for electric grid efficiency.

Ellenbogen is the President [BIO] Allied Converters and frequently copies me on emails that address various issues associated with the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act). I have published other articles by Ellenbogen including a description of his keynote address to the Business Council of New York 2023 Renewable Energy Conference Energy titled: “Energy on Demand as the Life Blood of Business and Entrepreneurship in the State -video here: Why NY State Must Rethink Its Energy Plan and Ten Suggestions to Help Fix the Problems” and another video presentation he developed describing problems with Climate Act implementation. He comes to the table as an engineer who truly cares about the environment and as an early adopter of renewable technologies going back to the 1990’s at both his home and business two decades ago.

Local Law 97

The goal of LL97 is to reduce the emissions produced by the city’s largest buildings 40 percent by 2030 and net zero by 2050. Like New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act) this is political theater without regard to practicality. Last July I published an article here that described an evaluation by Ellenbogen, Francis Menton, and myself that the supporting documentation for LL97 falls far short of what is needed to provide New York City (NYC) residents in affected buildings with any assurance that the LL97 mandates can be met at the same time the Climate Act is transforming the electric energy system with massive deployments of wind, solar, and energy storage and unproven generating resources. This means extraordinary risks for keeping the heat on in the winter in NYC. Ellenbogen documents specific instances where their numbers are wrong in this post.

Problems

In this section I am going to document Ellenbogen’s criticisms re-formatted from an email to a blog post.

LL97 uses false metrics to calculate carbon emissions. Contrary to what they claim, it increases the amount of energy required to run a building. The city’s electricity is 91% fossil fuel generated. For the foreseeable future, all electric heat will operate from the least efficient fossil fuel plants operating with about a 33% efficiency. After about a 7% line loss, that is 30% efficient delivered to the building. Some of the remote generation will be oil fired with a 50% higher GHG footprint than natural gas and higher NOx, SOx, and PM2.5 emissions. Even if the heat pumps are 280% efficient, that leaves a holistic efficiency of 84%, which is at least 5% – 10% lower than just installing a new high efficiency onsite gas combustion that will operate with a net efficiency of between 90% – 95%. Do they think that remote carbon emissions away from NYC buildings won’t affect climate change?

The numbers underpinning Local Law 97 are underestimating electric grid emissions by between 39% and 47%. By making the electric utility system look “greener” they are providing a false basis for the entire law.

If you look at the image below, taken from page 36 (link), you will see in clause 1 that they are using 0.000288962 tCO2e per KWh (metric tons/Kwh). Note that the document at the link cannot be downloaded which makes it very difficult for people to challenge the contents. That value equals 0.288962 tCO2e per Megawatt Hour (MWh) which can be converted (0.288962 x 2203 pounds per metric ton) to 636.5 pounds per MWh that is used as the basis for utility system emissions in LL97.

Source: §28-320.3.1.1 Greenhouse gas coefficient of energy consumption

However, if you look at the table below from the US EPA, highlighted in yellow are the actual emissions that are between 886.6 pounds per MWH and 973 pounds per MWh in NY City and Westchester. So the actual utility emissions are between 39% and 47% higher than what the city is using to calculate their policy values and the associated penalties.

Source: EPA Summary Data: eGRID 2022 Summary Tables, abbreviated Table 1

The numbers used for future emissions are also a problem. The 636.5 pounds per MWh used in the LL97 document drops to 319 pounds/MWh in 2030 – 2034 (converted from 0.000145 value listed in the excerpt below) which is half of the 2024 value. There is no explanation of how they expect to achieve that when it is common knowledge that all of the renewable installation numbers are being pushed back. They are starting from numbers that err in their favor by over 40% and it just gets worse from there.

Source: 1 RCNY §103-14, CHAPTER 100 Subchapter C Maintenance of Building, page 12.

The numbers used to calculate the district steam emissions relative to the gas emissions in the document are just as big of a fantasy. New York City has an extensive steam system with over 100 miles of pipe that bring steam from central plants to buildings in Manhattan. The unacknowledged problem in LL97 is that there are extensive energy losses in the steam system. Because of the age and size of the system they are dumping the hot water at the end of the loop, the pipes leak (as exemplified by the iconic steam puffs coming out of manholes), and they have miles of high temperature steam lines dissipating energy before it ever gets delivered so there are significant losses. Nevertheless, LL97 calculations claim district steam with a 15% lower GHG footprint than 90% – 95% efficient on-site gas combustion. LL97 uses the following assumptions for building emissions taken from §28-320.3.1.1 Greenhouse gas coefficient of energy consumption page 36:

2) Gas 0.00005311 tCO2e per KWh or 399 lb. CO2e per MWh

5) Steam 0.00004493 tCO2e per KWh or 338 lb. CO2e per MWh

They are doing everything in their power to make gas look bad.

Source: §28-320.3.1.1 Greenhouse gas coefficient of energy consumption

Even more comical is the clause in section 28-320.6.3 which is also copied below regarding false statements which is meant to pertain to buildings misreporting their emissions. What they are saying is that it is okay for the city to outright lie on their policies but they will fine you up to $500,000 and put you in jail for 30 days if you do it.

Source: §28-320.3.1.1 Greenhouse gas coefficient of energy consumption

Conclusion

On occasion Rich and I talk to each other when we discover something so absurd that it beggars the imagination. When Rich dug into the numbers and discovered these results we talked. Basically, whoever wrote this document is just pulling numbers out of thin air. It is a total fabrication. When you can easily find such flagrant errors in major parts of the document, nothing that is contained in it can be trusted. Everything has been skewed to justify someone’s worldview and policy desires.

Because of these false numbers, buildings in NY City are going be saddled with technologies that don’t produce emission savings and will simultaneously result in far higher operating costs, besides having huge upfront capital installation costs. It provides further rationale why I believe that facilities affected by LL97 should not even try to meet the law.

For those of us who have been analyzing this and understand the numbers, it has been apparent for years that the entire policies, both in LL97 and the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act were fabrications. These numbers just prove it.

My Comments on Draft Blueprint for Consideration of Advanced Nuclear Technologies

On September 4-5, 2024, the Hochul Administration hosted a Future Energy Summit. After the Summit the State released the draft Advanced Nuclear Technologies Blueprint (Draft Blueprint). This post describes my submittal that explained why I supported the comments presented on behalf of Nuclear New York, New York Energy and Climate Advocates, and Mothers for Nuclear (“NNY comments”).

Overview

Future Energy Summit

This Summit kicked off the release of the Draft Blueprint. My thinking about the rationale for the Summit has evolved. The announcement for the summit said it will “gather feedback on strategies to accelerate renewable energy deployment and explore the potential role of next generation clean energy technologies”. Initially I thought it was in response to recent reports that reassessment was necessary because of the challenges of a net-zero grid that relies on wind and solar. I continued to believe that until the Summit even though nuclear technology was emphasized. My initial impression of the Summit was that the Hochul Administration still has few doubts that a zero-carbon electric grid that relies on wind and solar will work. I also described the pushback by anti-nuclear activists against the Summit focus on the potential for nuclear power. I am now convinced that the Hochul Administration is attempting to gauge public opinion on the nuclear option. The response to the draft Advanced Nuclear Technologies Blueprint will ultimately decide how the Administration proceeds.

My Comments

The announcement requesting comments for the Draft Blueprint said that they wanted to “solicit industry feedback”. I do not have a background in nuclear technology, so my submittal referenced the comments submitted on behalf of Nuclear New York (NNY), New York Energy and Climate Advocates, and Mothers for Nuclear (NNY comments) that addressed technical issues. New York Energy and Climate Advocates also submitted a letter with shorter comments.

My comments explained why I supported the NNY comments. Their comments make a persuasive case for the use of advanced nuclear energy in New York’s future. They clearly document why nuclear has advantages over the proposed wind, solar, and energy storage approach espoused in the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act Scoping Plan. The NNY technical comments strengthen the quality of the Draft Blueprint. Finally, I think the NNY comments addressed the questions posed in the Draft Blueprint very well.

The remainder of my comments support the main point of the NNY comments that nuclear power should be the backbone of the zero-emissions electric grid. I am an air pollution meteorologist with decades of experience in the electric sector. I support nuclear power because it addresses an intractable problem with an electric system that relies on wind and solar – weather variability.

There are several proceedings related to the Climate Act implementation that do not acknowledge that the fundamental premise of the authors of the law is fatally flawed. The authors believed that New York could “rapidly move away from fossil fuels and instead be fueled completely by the power of the wind, the sun, and hydro.” They also believed that “it could be done completely with technologies available at that time (a decade ago) and that it could be cost effective”. This formed the basis for their belief that implementation of the Climate Act was only a matter of political will.

My comments argue that reality is different, and the time has come to acknowledge that fact. The Scoping Plan, NYSERDA’s Integration Analysis, New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), and the New York Department of Public Service all have noted that a new category of generating resources called Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources (DEFR) is necessary to keep the lights on during periods of extended low wind and solar resource availability.

It is inarguable that DEFR is needed for the future wind, solar, and energy storage dependent electric system. I believe nuclear power is the only viable DEFR that must be employed if New York is going to proceed without compromising resource adequacy, reliability standards, and affordability for two reasons: technological availability and weather variability risks. My comments emphasized the value of resolving the problem of weather variability risks.

Technological Availability

The first reason is that DEFR is necessary and using nuclear power for DEFR is the only proven technology option that can be expanded. The NNY comments point out that “the availability of fission-based advanced nuclear reactors is a matter of “commercial” readiness, not “technological” readiness.” All the other candidate technologies that can be expanded as needed are not technologically ready. Hydrogen was proposed as the placeholder DEFR technology but there are so many physical limitations that I think any feasibility analysis is going to show that relying on hydrogen will never work. The same problems exist with long-duration storage.

There is one caveat on the use of advanced nuclear for DEFR support. Resource projections estimate that the DEFR technologies will not run much which makes for a difficult business viability situation for any technology The NNY comments explain why this calls for a shift in plans:

A more effective system-level architecture will make use of high-capacity-factor “firm” generation like nuclear power not simply as backup, but as part of the backbone of a reliable system serving a sizable portion of total energy demand in a baseload or load-following configuration. Such an arrangement reduces the total amount of generation capacity and support infrastructure needed, thereby reducing land impacts and system-level costs that are ultimately borne by ratepayers and taxpayers. Indeed, this is how upstate New York, which relies largely on baseload hydropower and nuclear, has already achieved a 90% decarbonized grid while maintaining reliable and affordable electricity.

This is an obvious solution, and it addresses my concerns about weather variability.

Weather Variability Risks

The second reason I support the use of advanced nuclear is that there is a huge unacknowledged risk related to an electric system that relies on weather-dependent resources. All the analyses that showed the need for DEFR determined that there are extended periods with persistently low solar and wind generation that required additional firm zero-carbon resources beyond the contributions of expected zero-emissions resources. I believe that characterizing these extended periods introduces an unacceptable risk for future electric resource planning.

I am planning to raise this issue as a problem in my responses to several draft documents and the New York Department of Public Service (DPS) staff proposal concerning definitions for key terms (Staff Proposal) in Public Service Law §66-p. I provided an exhaustive explanation of my concerns in a recent article describing my impression of the Staff Proposal so I will only summarize the concerns here.

I think that the characterization of the gap between renewable resource generation projections and expected load should be based on analysis of historical meteorological data. Observed meteorological data can be sed to generate the necessary information to estimate wind and solar resource production across New York and elsewhere. In New York this type of analysis has generated estimates of onshore, offshore, wind, and solar production for a 22-year period for the New York control area. There is a technique that has been applied elsewhere that enables a similar type of analysis back to 1950. I believe that the State must invest in a comprehensive analysis of this data for as long a period as possible and for a region that encompasses adjoining electric control areas.

An unresolved problem is what reliability criteria should be used to determine resources necessary for these lulls. If the resource planning process does not provide sufficient backup resources to provide capacity for a peak load period, then reliability issues are inevitable. Two factors exacerbate the severity of this problem and the importance of the reliability criteria to prevent reliability issues:

The periods of highest load are associated with the hottest and coldest times of the year and frequently correspond to the periods of lowest wind resource availability.
The decarbonization strategy is to electrify everything possible so the impacts of a peak load blackout during the coldest and hottest periods will be greater.

Today’s resource planning concentrates on one-in-ten-year loss of load reliability criteria. This period is acceptable because observations of existing generating resources over many years show that unplanned outages do not happen at the same time. As a result, there is not much variability between ten-year periods. However, wind and solar resources are strongly correlated. When the wind is light at one location it is likely that many more locations have light winds. The most recent New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) analysis found a continuous 36-hour period when 90% of the offshore wind, land-based wind and utility solar resources were unavailable for a 22-year period of record. My concern is that if the reliability analysis had only evaluated ten years of data, they would have missed the 22-year period described. If the reliability analysis uses the period of record back to 1950, I am confident that a more severe resource lull would be discovered.

There are three issues. Firstly, resource planning for the gap is necessary to ensure adequate resources are available to cover the gap. Secondly, weather variability means that whatever period of analysis is used there always is a chance that a more severe resource drought will occur. Finally, the DEFR projected need is large and expensive. The unaddressed issue is the tradeoff between the planning horizon and the resources needed. I cannot imagine a business case for the deployment of resources to address for a resource that is needed for a reliability event greater than the expected lifetime of the resource. Consequently, there will be pressure to choose a less restrictive reliability standard even though that means that when the conditions that cause the worst-case lull inevitably occur there will be major problems.

This risk goes away if nuclear resources are used as the backbone of the future electric system. Given the magnitude of the potential problems when renewable resources are unable to provide reliable power for the extreme weather case, this is a major reason to rely on nuclear power for a zero-emissions electric grid. The Staff Proposal presumes that an electric system reliant on wind, solar, and energy storage will somehow work and ignore the reliability risk described here. My comments argued that DPS staff should address this feasibility issue as soon as possible.

Conclusion

I support the NNY comments because there are fundamental reliability risks of a wind, solar, and energy storage dependent electrical system that can be eliminated by making nuclear the primary source of electrical power. If New York wants to decarbonize without compromising resource adequacy, reliability standards, and affordability then the only feasible solution is to rely on advanced nuclear power as the primary provider of firm generation capacity and this should be reflected in the Draft Blueprint. At some point the electric energy experts responsible for the system must tell the politicians that the arbitrary schedule and unproven technologies of a wind, solar, and energy storage zero-emissions approach are too big a risk to reliability to continue down that path. The Blueprint document should make that case.

DPS Reviewing Progress Towards Achieving the 2040 Target

This is a lengthy post. If you want a condensed version I recommend the article published at Energy Security and Freedom blog by Tom Shepstone.

On November 4, 2024, the New York Department of Public Service (DPS) staff proposal concerning definitions for key terms (Staff Proposal) in Public Service Law §66-p was released. I described my impression of the draft definitions earlier. The DPS Staff Proposal also included a section titled “Reviewing Progress Towards Achieving the 2040 Target” that is the subject of this post.

I have followed the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 470 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

Background

On November 4, 2024, the DPS staff proposal concerning definitions for key terms (Staff Proposal) in Public Service Law §66-p was released. I described the definitions earlier. This post coves the provision to review progress. The Introduction of the Staff Proposal explains:

The primary purpose of this proposal is to clarify what is encompassed within the term “statewide electrical demand system” and articulate broad criteria for compliance with a “zero emissions” standard. In addition to proposing definitions – and in light of the proposed definitions’ implications – Staff also recommends that the Commission direct Staff to develop a review process consistent with the provisions of PSL §66-p that tracks progress toward the power sector energy transition targets.

Reviewing Progress Towards Achieving the 2040 Target

The Staff Proposal acknowledges my fundamental concern that there is no real plan for implementation. The Scoping Plan is an outline of strategies that NYSERDA’s Integration Analysis claims will reduce emissions consistent with the Climate Act mandates but there never has been a feasibility analysis of the strategies. DPS Staff “believes that it is timely to interpret provisions of PSL §66-p that authorize the Commission to consider impacts of the zero emissions by 2040 target on safe, reliable, and affordable electric service in the state.” Unfortunately, the Staff Proposal focused on timeliness and short-changed discussion of safe, reliable, and affordable electric service.

The Hochul Administration and all the state agencies involved with the Climate Act transition have ignored the fact that no jurisdiction has demonstrated that an electric system relying on wind, solar, and energy storage is viable. Francis Menton, Rich Ellenbogen and I have argued that a demonstration project that proves that the proposed transition will work is necessary before implementation proceeds. This is a fundamental safety, reliability, and affordability constraint that is not addressed in the Staff Proposal. At the very least, I believe a feasibility analysis should be the next step.

The Staff Proposal addresses the timeliness of the wind, solar, and energy storage deployment but just assumes that an electric system reliant on wind, solar, and energy storage will somehow work:

Pursuing the 2040 target will require the deployment of novel technologies and their integration into a changing grid. Further, as recent experiences with pandemic, supply chain disruptions, inflation, changes to interest rates, the effects of federal policy on domestic manufacturing, and revised expectations about load growth have made plain, progress toward the target will be heavily contingent on pressures beyond New York State’s control. Staff believes the 2040 target must be interpreted and implemented without compromising resource adequacy, reliability standards, and affordability.

I am concerned with the novel technologies mentioned in this paragraph. The Staff Proposal mentions the December 2023 technical conference hosted by DPS Staff and NYSERDA discussion of potential technologies. The New York Independent System Operator 2023-2042 System & Resource Outlook (“Outlook”) Overview in Appendix F – Dispatchable Emission-Free Resources evaluates three Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resource (DEFR) options that they believe represent the most likely viable approach but concede that there still are concerns even with these:

While DEFRs represent a broad range of potential options for future supply resources, two technology pathways being discussed as potential options for commercialization are: 1) utilization of low- or zero-carbon intensity hydrogen (typically generated by electrolysis derived from renewable generation) in new or retrofit combustion turbine or fuel cell applications or 2) advanced small modular nuclear reactors, which are currently seeking approval from the relevant regulatory bodies to design and operate these resources. Currently, both technologies have shown limited commercial viability on the proof of concept. Even assuming that they are commercially viable, there remains significant work in the implementation and logistics that must be overcome to economically justify transitioning the dispatchable fleet to some combination of new technologies in the next 15 years. Long-duration energy storage could potentially serve in the role of the modeled DEFRs in the Outlook. In many respects, long-duration energy storage closely mimics various hydrogen production and conversion pathways. Long-duration energy storage adds to load in many hours, similar to electrolysis production of hydrogen. However, a notable difference is that electrolysis production of hydrogen has a lower round-trip efficiency when injecting energy into the system compared to other long duration energy storage technologies under development.

Given that none of these technologies are likely to be available consistent with the needs for the Climate Act schedule, it is understandable that the schedule is a concern. Nonetheless, I am very frustrated that DPS Staff are only paying lip service to resource adequacy, reliability standards, and affordability because there are unaddressed reasons that the wind, solar, and energy storage approach may never work with those constraints. First and foremost, the only one of the three DEFR technologies described that has no technology issues is nuclear. There are commercial readiness issues, but the technology has a proven track record. On the other hand, there are physical limitations that may prevent hydrogen technology or long-duration storage from ever working. Because a DEFR technology is needed, it is likely that the DEFR solution will be nuclear. An assessment of resource adequacy, reliability standards, and affordability impacts of a system using nuclear power would likely find that relying on nuclear instead of weather dependent renewables is a better approach. Compared to wind and solar, nuclear generation produces synchronous power that requires no additional ancillary service support, has a much lower areal footprint, and fewer life-cycle environmental impacts.

Weather Variability Risk

There is another huge advantage of an electric system relying on nuclear power. The unacknowledged resource variability risks of the wind, solar, and energy storage electric system proposed would be eliminated. I believe that there is an enormous risk associated with the specification of just how much DEFR is necessary so bear with me as I describe my concern. The Staff Proposal states that:

Comments filed since the December 2023 technical conference have highlighted the importance and analytical challenges of estimating the size of a potential reliability gap. Staff does not endorse a specific estimate of the potential 2040 gap, but it does take the view that the trends on the supply and demand sides of New York State power sector’s make likely a gap that would require at least 10 to 20 GW of clean firm generating capacity to fill. This view is informed in part by the draft analysis, recently published by Staff and NYSERDA, of recent global disruptions and other factors’ delaying effects on large-scale renewables deployment in New York. As for new technologies that could be deployed in the coming years to help New York hit the 2040 target, panelists at the December 2023 technical conference described how several show promise, but panelists and commenters also noted diverse factors that make deployment at the locations and scale required uncertain.

In my opinion, DPS Staff and NYSERDA have not yet to come to grips with the analytical challenges of estimating the size of the potential reliability gap. I described analyses of the gap in comments submitted on July 3, 2024 in response to comments submitted by Sierra Club and Earthjustice dated June 14, 2024 in the Case No. 15-E-0302 docket. I explained that all renewable resource projection analyses should use historical meteorological data to provide the basis for projections of future load and estimates of electric resource availability based on projected deployment of wind, solar, energy storage, and other technologies needed to supply the expected load. Hourly meteorological data across the state produced using current weather forecast modeling techniques yield hourly demand forecasts and wind and solar energy output profiles for the periods being studied. I believe that the State must invest in a comprehensive analysis of these data for as long a period as possible.

There has been some analysis that shows the extent of the problem. The NYISO is working with its consultant DNV to assess New York onshore wind, offshore wind, and solar resource availability. Their analysis uses a 23-year historical meteorological database for the New York State renewable resource areas. Similar analyses are underway in other regional transmission operator regions. It has also been recognized that larger areas need to be treated similarly. The Electric Power Research Institute has a Low-Carbon Resources Initiative that has been evaluating resources across the North America.

All these analyses find there are frequent and extensive periods of low renewable resource availability. For example, the New York State Reliability Council Extreme Weather Working Group (EWWG) analyzed the high resolution NY offshore wind data provided by NYISO and its consultant DNV for offshore wind resources. The summary of the report stated:

The magnitude, duration, and widespread geographic impacts identified by this preliminary analysis are quite significant and will be compounded by load growth from electrification. This highlights the importance of reliability considerations associated with offshore wind and wind lulls be accounted for in upcoming reliability assessments, retirement studies, and system adequacy reviews to ensure sufficiency of system design to handle the large offshore wind volume expected to become operational in the next five to ten years.

That analysis used a 21-year database. I think the DPS staff proposal used a shorter weather analysis database that results in the CGPP estimate being “substantially below the 20-40+ GW range estimate published by NYISO in its 2023-2042 System and Resource Outlook”. The period of record makes a big difference. I found that in a similar type of analysis, the Independent System Operator of New England (ISO-NE) Operational Impact of Extreme Weather Events, used a database covering 1950 to 2021 to analyze gap impacts. The analysis found that if the resource adequacy planning for New England had only looked at the last ten years instead of the period of record that they would have underestimated the resources necessary by 5.1% because there was a longer renewable resource drought outside of the last ten years.

Even if the State uses a longer data period there is a major reliability risk that has not been acknowledged. Current resource assessments are based on observations of existing generating resources over many years that show that unplanned outages do not happen at the same time. There is no reason to expect, for example, that all the nuclear plants will be forced offline at the same time. This characteristic enables the resource planners to conservatively determine how much generating capacity is necessary to meet the probability of losing load not more than once in ten years loss of load expectation (LOLE) reliability criterion. Importantly, I believe that the lack of correlation also means that the capacity needed above firm system load would not change substantially if the LOLE planning horizon was shifted to a longer period.

Variations in weather affecting wind and solar resource availability will require changes to electric resource planning. Everyone has heard of a hundred-year flood which is the parameter used for watershed planning. This is the one in a hundred probability that the water level in a river or lake will exceed a certain level in a given year. Similar probability estimates of low wind and solar resource availability must be developed and incorporated into electric resource planning.

Electric resource planning is complicated by the observation that the meteorological conditions that cause low wind and solar resource availability are so large that they can affect all of New York and adjacent areas at the same time. This means that wind and solar outages will be widespread, affecting many facilities at the same time. The unacknowledged issue is that the design of an affordable and practical system to meet the worst-case weather induced lull will always involve a tradeoff between practicality and affordability versus the probabilistic estimate of the worst-case lull.

An unresolved problem is what approach is acceptable for addressing these lulls. If the resource planning process does not provide sufficient backup resources to provide capacity for a peak load period, then reliability issues are inevitable. Two factors exacerbate the severity of this problem and the importance of the reliability criteria:

Periods of highest load are associated with the hottest and coldest times of the year and frequently correspond to the periods of lowest wind resource availability.
The decarbonization strategy is to electrify everything possible so the impacts of a peak load blackout during the coldest and hottest periods will be greater.

I think that the reliability planning process should use as much historical data as possible to define the worst case. Consider the ISO-NE analysis where it was found that the most recent 10-year planning lookback period consistent with current LOLE evaluations would plan for a system risk of 8,714 MW. If the planning horizon covered the period back to 1950, a worst-case situation in 1961 would be considered and an additional 446 MW would be required to meet system risk.

The unaddressed issue is the tradeoff between the planning horizon and the resources needed. I cannot imagine a business case for the deployment of 446 MW electric system resources that will only be needed once in 63 years. For one thing, the life expectancy of these technologies is much less than 63 years. Even over a shorter horizon such as the last ten years, how will a required facility be able to stay solvent when it runs so rarely? Any reliability mandate that requires consideration of the worst-case lull over an extended period of record like this example is going to be expensive. Consequently, there will be pressure to choose a less restrictive reliability standard even though that means that when the conditions that cause the worst-case lull inevitably occur there will be major problems.

This risk goes away if nuclear resources are used as the backbone of the future electric system. Given the magnitude of the potential problems when renewable resources are unable to provide reliable power for the extreme weather case, this is a major reason to rely on nuclear power for a zero-emissions electric grid. The Staff Proposal presumes that an electric system reliant on wind, solar, and energy storage will somehow work and ignores the reliability risk described here. DPS staff should address this feasibility issue as soon as possible.

Ambiguities in PSL §66-p(2)

I have long argued that implementation of the Climate Act has ignored the safety valve provisions in §66-p (4). That section of the law 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 the zero emissions resource could be a primary driver of concerns related to the reliability and affordability provisions of § 66-p (4) so it is incumbent upon DPS to address these considerations quickly. The criteria used to define “safe and adequate electric service” and “significant increase in arrears or service disconnections” must be established to meet this provision.

It is encouraging that DPS Staff recognize that the definition of some of these terms is appropriate. The Staff Proposal states:

Staff finds that the Commission’s authority under PSL §66-p(2) to design a program to achieve the 2040 target is ambiguous in several respects. In particular, Staff believes that clarification is needed to determine how and when the Commission should “consider and where applicable formulate the program to address impacts of the program on safe and adequate electric service in the state under reasonably foreseeable conditions,” as called for by the legislature. While this proposal does not examine this issue, Staff finds that continued proactive evaluation and comparative analysis of potential technologies will play a beneficial role in informing the implementation of PSL §66-p(2).

I agree that the Commission should address impacts of the program on safe and adequate electric service. It is recognition of the need to address the safety valve provisions. However, acknowledging that there is an issue and claiming that “continued proactive evaluation and comparative analysis of potential technologies will play a beneficial role” fails to adequately address this issue. The bottom line is that making progress is a moot point when there are no criteria for checking progress relative to safe and adequate service. New York could be headed down a policy path that does not provide safe and adequate service, but we cannot make that judgement without established criteria. The Commission should have addressed the concerns raised by the legislature long ago and further delays are unconscionable.

Conclusion

The implementation planning for the zero-emission electric grid of 2040 is inadequate to protect the mandated provisions for “safe and adequate” electric service. The Commission acknowledges that a new dispatchable and emissions free resource is needed for the projected gap between wind, solar, and energy storage resource production and expected load during periods of extended low renewable resource availability. However, the Commission has not done a comprehensive analysis to determine the magnitude and duration of the expected gap or the feasibility of potential gap backup resources.

Staff also recommends that “the Commission direct Staff to develop a review process consistent with the provisions of PSL §66-p that tracks progress toward the power sector energy transition targets. While the Staff Proposal acknowledges that the acceptability criteria for safe and adequate electric service resources must be defined, it does not fully address this issue. These are fundamental planning requirements that remain unresolved 22 months after the completion of the Scoping Plan. This should be a priority.

I am convinced that the proposed wind, solar, and energy storage approach will not be able to meet any reasonable acceptability criteria. The longer the delay in developing the criteria and comparing them to the wind, solar, and energy storage strategy, the more investments will be made in an approach that has never worked in any jurisdiction. There is no reason to expect it to work in New York. The Hochul Administration must prove it is possible with a feasibility study or better a demonstration project before continuing with this approach.

The Commission acknowledges that a new DEFR technology is needed to provide backup to wind and solar resources during extended periods of low availability. I believe that nuclear power is the only viable DEFR technology. However, using nuclear only as backup to wind and solar is inefficient and not cost effective. Given the inherent advantages of nuclear over wind and solar the obvious conclusion is that we should stop supporting wind and solar and embrace nuclear as the future backbone of the grid.

Draft NY Documents Requiring Public Comment

Keith Schue sent me an email with the following information that I believe would be of interest to readers here. New York State agencies have recently announced several draft documents that are out for public comment. It is confusing. When Keith sent this clarifying information, I asked for permission to send it out as a post and he graciously gave me permission.

Keith Schue is an electrical engineer and technical adviser on energy policy. Keith advocates for nuclear power. He recently co-authored a commentary in the Albany Times Union with climate scientist James Hansen, making a persuasive case for using nuclear in the future.

Overview

The Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050. It includes an interim 2030 GHG reduction target of 40%. Two targets address the electric sector: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and a requirement that all electricity generated be “zero-emissions” resources by 2040. The Climate Action Council (CAC) was responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” The Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants quantifies the impact of the electrification strategies. That material was used to develop the Draft Scoping Plan outline of strategies. 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.

Keith describes three related documents and opportunities for public comments in the following sections. I have made some minor edits and added a few links. He describes each document and includes a suggestion for a possible comment.

Draft Blueprint for Consideration of Advanced Nuclear Technology

A number of states throughout the country are encouraging the development of advanced next generation nuclear reactors to meet our growing energy needs, remain economically competitive, significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, conserve farmland, and protect nature. During last month’s Future Energy Summit in Syracuse, Governor Hochul announced that New York ought to consider advanced nuclear power, too. However, several misguided “environmental” groups who either don’t understand energy or don’t care about those things have launched a misinformation campaign involving form-letters to the governor and NYSERDA intended to create the appearance that New Yorkers oppose nuclear power. They would rather see the state pursue an unproven, inefficient, ecologically-destructive energy strategy dominated by massive amounts of solar, wind, and batteries.

The due date for comments is Nov 8^th. A useful comment would be to say that if New York is serious about addressing climate change, providing ample reliable electricity essential for a growing economy, and protecting the integrity of rural land and nature, then it needs to join the 21st century by investing in dependable, compact carbon-free nuclear power.

Click here to read the draft Blueprint: Read Draft Blueprint

Click here to comment on the draft Blueprint: Comment on Draft Blueprint

Draft Scope of NYS Energy Plan

Although related, this should not be confused with the Climate Action Council’s Scoping Plan for implementation of the CLCPA that was adopted in Dec 2022. Every several years the New York Energy Planning Board is required to update its overall energy plan for the state. The process begins with an initial document that identifies a “scope” of work–meaning the set of things to be evaluated in the plan. That draft “scope” was released last month for public comment with a defined planning horizon of 2040. This makes the CLCPA’s 2040 goal of carbon-free electricity particularly relevant. Unlike the CLCPA’s 70% renewable goal which only applies in 2030, the 2040 goal does not mandate an arbitrary quota of “renewables”. Instead, it simply mandates carbon-free electricity, which can include nuclear power.

The due date for comments is Nov 25^th. An important comment would be to say that if New York is serious about achieving carbon-free electricity as electricity demand doubles, it needs to invest in reliable and resilient nuclear power that is made in America, instead of focusing predominantly on wasteful, fragile, intermittent, and ecologically-harmful sources of energy made mostly in China.

Click here to read the draft Scope: Read Draft Scope

Click here to comment on the draft Scope: Comment on Draft Scope

Draft NYPA Renewables Strategic Plan

Historically, the New York Power Authority (NYPA) has been a well-run public entity that has provided NY residents and business with reliable, affordable electricity by building and operating large hydropower plants and various electric infrastructure projects. In the past, NYPA even helped to develop nuclear power. However, the Build Public Renewables Act adopted last year now forces NYPA to try installing solar, wind, and batteries even faster than the private sector is already doing with subsidies. NYPA’s draft plan appears to leverage its good credit to help rescue or expedite about 31 private-sector large-scale solar/wind/battery projects. It would also build about 9 such projects itself.

The due date for comments is around Dec 8^th. A useful comment would be to say that achieving carbon-free electricity requires firm reliable power. Therefore, throwing more public money and resources at intermittent generation not only jeopardizes reliability and affordability, but also ensures that NY will remain dependent on fossil fuels. Instead of focusing on solar panels and wind turbines that the private sector can install on its own, NYPA should do what it has historically done best by working on reliable public projects for the common good, like nuclear energy, hydropower, and utility infrastructure.

Click here to read the draft NYPA Renewables Plan: Read Draft NYPA Renewables Plan
Click here to comment on the draft NYPA Renewables Plan and see the schedule of Public Hearings: https://www.nypa.gov/renewables

Conclusion

Keith’s overview is apropos and I agree with him. I am on vacation so publishing someone else’s work is an easy way to keep the hits to the blog coming. All of these documents and issues are of interest to me, and I intend to comment. The bottom line is that if New York really wants to decarbonize, then nuclear must be part of the future energy mix or it will be impossible to achieve the aspirational targets.

Future Energy Summit Wrap Up

On September 4-5, 2024, the Hochul Administration hosted a Future Energy Summit. I described my initial thoughts on the Summit, followed up with a second pre-meeting post, and did a first impressions post-meeting article. I also described the pushback by anti-nuclear activists against the Summit focus on the potential for nuclear power. This post wraps up my thoughts on this meeting.

I have followed the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 450 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 2030 reduction target of a 40% reduction by 2030. Two targets address the electric sector: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040. The Climate Action Council (CAC) was responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” The Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants quantifies the impact of the electrification strategies. That material was used to develop the Draft Scoping Plan outline of strategies. 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.

State Summit Summary

On September 11, 2024, NYSERDA Events sent an email to attendees of the Summit. I think it gives a good summary of the Hochul Administration’s expectations. I quote the letter below with my annotated comments.

The first two paragraphs provide overview information:

Thank you for attending the Future Energy Economy Summit. We hope you found the convening to be informative in exploring how advanced emissions-free technologies can play a key role in supporting renewable energy and economic development while accelerating progress toward a zero-emission electricity system.

A recording of the Summit has been posted to the Summit website. While the Summit discussions were robust and the opportunities are exciting, there is considerable work ahead.

In my opinion, the suggestion that there was a discussion is misleading. No speakers who have openly questioned the narrative were invited to participate, no utility or the NYISO participated, and the only way to submit questions was via a networked chat feature that ensured that no controversial questions were raised.

The important part of the email listed the following key next steps:

Complete the ongoing Public Service Commission review of the Clean Energy Standard (CES) by early 2025 and advance key actions to accelerate and expand New York’s large-scale renewable energy industry, focusing on deployment goals, interconnection reforms and the timely implementation of the RAPID Act for expedited environmental reviews and permitting of major renewable energy and electric transmission facilities.

This description of the PSC review of the Clean Energy Standard could be problematic. The CES is just one component of the programs needed to achieve the Climate Act mandates. The Hochul Administration Scoping Plan excluded costs of the CES in its cost-benefit analysis. As a result, they have never admitted what the total costs of Climate Act implementation could be. This statement could be a similar gambit to hide costs and other problems. I think I speak for just about everyone outside the Administration when I say we want to know the total costs to meet the Climate Act mandates and not a subset of costs from different regulations and laws. If the PSC review only addresses the CES costs, then the citizens of New York will be shortchanged again.

Advancing key actions to “accelerate and expand New York’s large-scale renewable energy industry” ignores the fact that there hasn’t been a feasibility study to show it is possible. The Climate Act is a political construct based on the premise that implementation is only a matter of political will. Avowed Climate Act author Robert Howarth continues to misinform the public by saying that “We can meet all of the energy needs of New York with solar, with hydro and wind and appropriate (energy) storage.’’ The Scoping Plan flatly contradicts that statement, the New York Independent System Operator is calling for a not yet commercially available dispatchable emissions-free resource (DEFR) in its future resource projections, and the Public Service Commission ‘Zero Emissions by 2040’ proceeding acknowledges this need.

Maximize leverage of federal programs by applying for relevant funding opportunities for economic development and next generation emissions-free energy technology planning and deployment.

Given the availability of federal funding for advanced nuclear projects the Summit discussed the possibility those funds could be used In New York.

Advance Public Service Commission action on the pending ‘Zero Emissions by 2040’ proceeding that is investigating technologies that support the 2040 zero-emissions electricity system target established through New York’s Climate Act.

As noted previously, this proceeding directly contradicts the suggestion that solar, hydro, and wind with energy storage are sufficient for the future electrical energy system. The Summit is another acknowledgement that DEFR is needed. Advanced nuclear designs are a leading contender for future DEFR which explains why it was featured at the Summit and why there is activist pushback on the need for DEFR itself.

Solicit industry feedback on the draft Advanced Nuclear Technologies Blueprint, and finalize the draft Blueprint by the end of this year. To review the draft Blueprint click here, and to submit comments, please click here;

I have a couple of thoughts about this Blueprint. They are asking for “industry” feedback which suggests that they want technical commentary on their ideas. I have always thought that the Summit was mostly a referendum on the deployment of nuclear. I predict that there will be massive letter writing campaigns organized in response to the blueprint comment period to try to influence this decision despite the request for industry feedback. Already the anti-nuclear letters to the editor have started showing up. My other observation is that the comments are due in November so any decisions made will be after the current election cycle.

Ensure that the forthcoming State Energy Plan appropriately considers the role advanced emissions-free technologies can play in the State’s move to a deeply renewable electric grid and capitalization of programs that will expand the State’s economy.

The State Energy Plan is very important for the future economy of New York. If done properly it will include a feasibility study. If a feasibility study correctly addresses costs, technological considerations, and the risks of relying on weather-dependent resources, then it will show that a major reassessment of the Climate Act mandates, and schedule are necessary.

We look forward to continuing this discussion and appreciate your participation at the Future Energy Economy Summit.

My Impressions

Before the summit I thought that the overarching rationale was to address concerns that have been raised about the lagging schedule and lack of cost information. Two of the five panels addressed nuclear power, so it appeared that the Hochul Administration was attempting to gauge public opinion on that option. The organizers went to great lengths to control who attended and did not announce who was on the panels until just before the meeting. I also thought that a primary reason to hold the meeting in Syracuse was because of the presence of three nearby nuclear generating plants that would provide a visible demonstration in favor of nuclear power.

I did a quick summary after the summit. Governor Hochul showed up to kick off the summit and the point was frequently made that it was her idea. There was no substantive response to the schedule and cost issues. Nuclear was an emphasis point and I remain convinced that the Hochul Administration is attempting to gauge public opinion on that option. A draft Advanced Nuclear Technologies Blueprint was announced that they plan to finalize by the end of this year. I have never seen so much security around an energy meeting but there were no incidents even though there was a demonstration in favor of nuclear power and another against nuclear power outside the hotel. Surprisingly there was not any kind of demonstration from the local nuclear unions. I believe the reason for having the meeting in Syracuse was to emphasize the importance of reliable electric power for the Micron chip fabrication plant and other industries.

Conclusion

Only time will tell whether the Summit was an honest attempt to address the unmistakable implementation issues being observed or it was timed and motivated for political gain. At some point reality must be addressed. Energy policy dictated by politicians and ideologues is not in the best interests of society. The Climate Act is a vivid example of a well intentioned course of action that will do more harm than good. It is time for an honest and open assessment of the plans and schedule proposed.

NYISO Resource Outlook Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resource

A recent article of mine summarized analyses describing a new category of generating resources called Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources (DEFR) necessary for a future grid that depends upon wind, solar, and energy storage resources. Most analysts of the future New York electric system agree that new technologies are necessary to keep the lights on during periods of extended low wind and solar resource availability. This article describes Appendix F – Dispatchable Emission-Free Resources in the New York Independent System Operator 2023-2042 System & Resource Outlook (“Outlook”).

I have followed the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act)since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 450 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 2030 reduction target of a 40% reduction. Two targets address the electric sector: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and a requirement that all electricity generated be “zero-emissions” resources by 2040. The Climate Action Council (CAC) was responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” The Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants quantifies the impact of the electrification strategies. That material was used to develop the Draft Scoping Plan outline of strategies. 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.

Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources

In my Compendium of DEFR Analyses I summarized published posts describing DEFR that is highlighted as a concern in the NYISO Outlook. I described six analyses describing the need for DEFR: the Integration Analysis, New York Department of Public Service (DPS) Proceeding 15-E-0302 Technical Conference, NYISO Resource Outlook, Richard Ellenbogen, Cornell Biology and Environmental Engineering, and Nuclear New York.

The Overview in Appendix F – Dispatchable Emission-Free Resources describes the reason DEFR is needed:

Numerous studies have shown that a system comprised of intermittent renewable energy resources and short-duration storage (i.e. 4 and 8-hour capacity duration) that cycle daily can economically meet demand in most hours across a year.

Importantly NYISO is responsible for meeting demand at all times. Most of the time it is easy but there are times when it is not:

However, due to the seasonal mismatch in electricity demand and weather dependent production from wind and solar resources, there remains a significant amount of energy that must be shifted from the low net load intervals of the spring and fall seasons to the peak load times during the summer and winter months, as discussed in Appendix E: Renewable Profiles and Variability.

I described Appendix E previously. The data presented in Appendix E show that there are frequent periods when all the wind and solar resources are expected to provide much lower output than their rated capacity. It appears that planners must, at a minimum, account for a 36-hour period when all the land-based wind, offshore wind, and solar combined provide less than 10% of their rated capacity. The Overview goes on:

Advances in technological, economic, and modeling approaches are needed to better quantify and characterize the seasonal energy gap that remains to be served after the coordinated economic dispatch of renewables and storage resources. The NYISO seeks to improve the representation of this fleet segment in each of its successive study, while understanding that characterization of emerging technology implementation pathways can introduce its own uncertainty into the model. The NYISO continues to recognize that there is a need for supply beyond renewables and storage resources that can provide dependability supply during the summer and winter peak periods and when the output of renewable resources is low.

In the remainder of this article I will summarize the different sections of Appendix F – Dispatchable Emission-Free Resources.

Technologies

Appendix F in the Outlook evaluates three DEFR options that they believe represent the most likely viable approach but concede that there still are concerns even with these:

While DEFRs represent a broad range of potential options for future supply resources, two technology pathways being discussed as potential options for commercialization are: 1) utilization of low- or zero-carbon intensity hydrogen (typically generated by electrolysis derived from renewable generation) in new or retrofit combustion turbine or fuel cell applications or 2) advanced small modular nuclear reactors, which are currently seeking approval from the relevant regulatory bodies to design and operate these resources. Currently, both technologies have shown limited commercial viability on the proof of concept. Even assuming that they are commercially viable, there remains significant work in the implementation and logistics that must be overcome to economically justify transitioning the dispatchable fleet to some combination of new technologies in the next 15 years. Long-duration energy storage could potentially serve in the role of the modeled DEFRs in the Outlook. In many respects, long-duration energy storage closely mimics various hydrogen production and conversion pathways. Long-duration energy storage adds to load in many hours, similar to electrolysis production of hydrogen. However, a notable difference is that electrolysis production of hydrogen has a lower round-trip efficiency when injecting energy into the system compared to other long duration energy storage technologies under development.

I have a concern about these pathways. Hydrogen and advanced nuclear both “have shown limited commercial viability on the proof of concept”. Commercial viability is particularly important in New York’s deregulated environment because the State must entice some developers to risk an enormous amount of money to provide the necessary resources. Consider that “there remains significant work in the implementation and logistics that must be overcome to economically justify transitioning the dispatchable fleet to some combination of new technologies in the next 15 years”. As a result, I think the State is going to find it very difficult to convince anyone to take on the risk of either technology.

In its description of DEFR option Appendix F also notes “Understanding that many aspects of these technologies are currently unknown, and their capabilities and characteristics could change as more experience is gained, there is no standout leader among the options”. It goes on to conclude that “that a combination of resources and approaches will be needed to serve the role of the DEFR fleet”.

The Resource Outlook provides projections for future generating resources, so it needs to include some technology options. To fulfil this need and consider the uncertainties, the Outlook “modeled several generic DEFRs to represent the range of potential capital and operating costs. In particular, the Low Capital/High Operating cost (LcHo) and High Capital/Low Operating cost (HcLo) DEFRs modeled in this Outlook are informed primarily by hydrogen and nuclear technologies, respectively.”

Capital and Operating Costs

The models that NYISO uses to project future generating resource requirements necessarily incorporate costs. The capital and operating cost DEFR labels refer to high and low values but those are relative costs. This section of Appendix F provides some indications of costs but does not include expected costs to the consumers in the report. I think this information is very important, so I plan to return to this topic in a future post.

Because DEFR technologies are still in development the NYISO cannot use historical cost data. Instead, they used information from six different sources to estimate costs. The results are presented in the two following figures.

Figure F-1: Generator Capital Cost vs. Variable Operating & Maintenance, Fuel, and Emissions Costs

Figure F-2: Generator Capital Cost vs Fixed Operating & Maintenance Costs

I have also included a graph of Dispatchable Emission-Free Resources: 2040 Capacity and Generation from the NYISO Public Information Session presentation on 8/8/24

For what it is worth the following table provides values for the DEFR costs from these three figures. As noted, I will try to use these numbers to provide cost estimates in the future. Regrettably the NYISO report does not provide specific numbers.

DEFR Cost Considerations

This section in Appendix F presented some of the factors that must be addressed when considering costs. It explains that “since DEFRs are a developing technology, the first units built will likely be more expensive compared to similar DEFRs built thereafter”. The Outlook used capital costs representing a mature deployment and “first-of-a-kind costs are not explicitly included as assumed cost components in this study”. As the Outlook points out this means that “the costs for DEFRs in this Outlook are likely to be below the actual costs of the first DEFRs built on the system.”

The Outlook points out that nuclear small modular reactors (SMRs) are a “developing technology and therefore, have varying approaches to their design”. The theory is that “SMRs have the potential of reducing cost through the development and use of uniform designs”. Although this will lower capital costs capital costs will still be higher than other technologies. The expectation for DEFRs is that they will have low operating times and will ramp up and down. The Outlook notes:

Like large-scale nuclear power plants, SMRs can mitigate the risk of high capital costs with lower operating costs and operating with high utilization rates. In other words, it is optimal for an SMR to consistently operate at 100% power to take advantage of its low operating cost. This has the potential to conflict with the notion of DEFRs being used for their ability to dispatch up and down based on variability in the load. The disconnect between a DEFR’s purpose and an SMR can be bridged by pairing the reactor with a behind-the-meter, dispatchable load. The SMR can remain at 100% power, while the behind-the-meter load dispatches up or down to effectively fluctuate the injection onto the grid, as needed.

Unsaid is the obvious alternative that if SMT nuclear is viable then it could be used to replace renewables rather than just provide backup support. Nuclear energy generates zero-emissions electricity, provides firm power that does not require supplemental ancillary transmission support, has low land-use requirements, and requires less transmission development than wind and solar. Going all in for nuclear would not eliminate the need for a peaking power source but it may be possible to use hydro for that purpose. In a rational world keeping existing dual-fueled peaking plants available for this purpose would be an option too.

The Outlook also addresses hydrogen:

Hydrogen-burning combustion turbines or combined cycle units have effective cost mitigation strategies as well. To minimize hydrogen transport costs, the electrolyzer can be sited at the same facility as the resource. This eliminates the need for using an expensive hydrogen pipeline to import the hydrogen from elsewhere in state or even out of state. Additionally, as fossil fuel burning combustion turbines and combined cycle units retire, their assets can be repurposed and retrofit to burn hydrogen as a fuel instead. This has the potential to be less expensive than building a brand-new resource since many elements of the combustion turbine or combined cycle power plants can be reused with limited modification.

One of the more difficult electric system reliability problems is specifical considerations for New York City (NYC). Specifically, there is a reliability requirement for in-city generation. The 1977 NYC blackout was caused by transmission shutdowns and the inability of generating stations within the city to supply necessary load. The reliability load specifies how much in-city generation must be available to replace the loss of transmission power. I bring this up because this issue has not been discussed regarding DEFR. There will have to be DEFR resources in NYC and if hydrogen is the chosen technology, then hydrogen will have to be stored within the city. Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless, explosive gas that is hard to store. What could go wrong.

Operating Parameters

This section describes how some technical parameters are defined and used. The heat rate parameter is a measure of production efficiency, the lower the heat rate the less energy used to produce electricity. Lower heat rate units operate more often. The text lists the values used in the analysis.

There also is a discussion on the need for DEFRs to meet specific requirements such as the ability to be dispatched to follow load. Existing nuclear power technologies in the US have not been used to provide this service. The discussion describes how this service could be provided in future nuclear power designs. It also notes that there is a possibility that future reactors could be re-fueled while online which is much different than today’s reactors that require significant outages to re-fuel.

Conclusion

The NYISO Resource Outlook chapter on DEFR provides further proof that new technology is in fact necessary for the future zero-emissions New York electric system mandated by the Climate Act. The Hochul Administration has not provided cost estimates for the overall transition. I believe that DEFR costs will be a particular problem because this resource is used as rare backup. This report provides some cost information but not enough to estimate expected costs.

Personal Comments on Clean Energy Standard Biennial Review

The Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) requires that the Public Service Commission (PSC) issue a review for notice and comment that considers “(a) progress in

meeting the overall targets for deployment of renewable energy systems and zero emission sources, including factors that will or are likely to frustrate progress toward the targets; (b) distribution of systems by size and load zone; and (c) annual funding commitments and expenditures.” In July Clean Energy Standard Biennial Review Report (Biennial Review) was released in response to this requirement and this post describes my comments to the PSC.

I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 450 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 and Background

Biennial Review Summary

The Introduction to the Biennial Review is a good summary of the report.

The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019 requires that the Public Service Commission (Commission) issue a review for notice and comment that considers “(a) progress in meeting the overall targets for deployment of renewable energy systems and zero emission sources, including factors that will or are likely to frustrate progress toward the targets; (b) distribution of systems by size and load zone; and (c) annual funding commitments and expenditures.” This Report serves to inform the Commission’s review. It summarizes the progress made toward the renewable energy and zero emission goals set by the CLCPA since the establishment of New York State’s Clean Energy Standard (CES), assesses what remains to be done to achieve those goals, presents policy options and proposals, and invites comments from stakeholders and the public on these or any other matters raised in this Report. The Report focuses in particular on New York’s goal to obtain 70% of New York’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030 (the 70% goal) and the related goal of 9 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind by 2035.

My Comments

A comprehensive review of the Biennial Report would have been an enormous effort, so I confined my review to a limited number of issues. The Biennial Review concedes that the 2030 goal to achieve 70% of New York’s electricity from renewable sources is unlikely to be achieved. However, it does not acknowledge that the issues that are causing delays may not be resolved anytime soon. Public Service Law §66-p(4) provides an exemption that enables a delay of the Climate Act targets but no one has defined the safety valve criteria.

There are a couple of broad concerns. An overarching issue with Climate Act implementation is the lack of a comprehensive a feasibility study. The recent announcement of the long-delayed State Energy Plan offers hope that there will be feasibility analyses from that effort, but that will not be available until late next year. In the meantime, the Biennial Review should address whether building as much wind and solar as possible as fast as possible is appropriate. There is another enormous risk that should be addressed. I maintain that the differences between resource planning for the existing system and the proposed weather-dependent electric energy system introduce reliability risks that need to be addressed now.

There has never been a clear and transparent accounting of costs. It is long past time for the impacts on rates to be provided. I recommended that this report should address consumer costs

Finally, I commented on a couple of potentially disingenuous approaches used in the Biennial Review. The emphasis on the Clean Energy Standard underestimates the challenge of meeting all the Climate Act mandates. In the Scoping Plan the unique use of the Reference Case gave misleading cost impact results.

Implications of Progress Issues

The Biennial Review concedes that the 2030 goal to achieve 70% of New York’s electricity from renewable sources is unlikely to be achieved. However, it does not acknowledge that the issues that are causing delays may not be resolved anytime soon. Section 5 provides a speculative path to the 2030 70% goal. Table 8 summarizes the outlook. There is a projected gap of 42,145 GWh or 37% of the 70% goal.

The remainder of Section 5 proposes new development estimates and CES reform options that can accelerate progress. However, while there is an assessment of major factors that have affected and will likely continue to affect progress towards the goals, there is no acknowledgment that those factors are likely to continue to be issues. It concludes that there is a potential path so the 70% goal could be met by 2033 but does not address how building as much wind and solar as possible as fast as possible will ensure a reliable system. It is time to consider a reassessment of the schedule and goals to develop a realistic revised schedule.

The introduction to the Biennial Review mentions New York Public Service Law § 66-p (4) “Establishment of a renewable energy program” that includes safety valve conditions for affordability and reliability that are directly related to the zero emissions resource. § 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 criteria used to define “safe and adequate electric service” and “significant increase in arrears or service disconnections” should be defined in the Biennial Review. This is necessary so that there is a clearly defined standard for determining the need to conduct the hearing included in § 66-p (4) that would form the basis for a schedule revision.

Feasibility

The Biennial Review is supposed to assess what remains to be done to achieve transition goals and present policy options and proposals, However, the Review does not confront the biggest problem – feasibility. At this time, the State has not presented any credible plan demonstrating that in the early to mid-2030s there will be sufficient reliable electricity generation to meet the demands anticipated from both current uses, from the expected addition of new large sources of load like chip fabrication plants and data centers, and from the load added as part of electrification decarbonization strategies. Indeed, the State has admitted that, in lieu of a definitive plan, it relies instead on a speculative hope for new technologies not yet invented or deployed at scale to bridge the large difference in electricity supply that will inevitably arise from the conflicting mandates. The State can point to no Demonstration Project showing how its hope for a de-carbonized electrical grid can succeed. Clearly this should be addressed in the Biennial Review.

I am particularly concerned about the unacknowledged inherent risks of relying on weather dependent resources to provide a substantial portion of future electric power in New York. Wind and solar are inherently intermittent – the sun does not shine at night and the wind does not always blow. Renewable resource intermittency is correlated. All the solar in New York is unavailable at night. It turns out that wind resources across New York also are usually high or low at the same time. There are exceptions but there is a high incidence of similar behavior. All the solutions proposed to deal with solar and wind intermittency have failed to acknowledge that weather dependency makes the reliance on correlated resources very risky. The draft Biennial Review unacknowledged risk is that whatever criteria are used to determine how many resources are necessary to provide an affordable and practical system to meet the worst-case weather induced wind and solar resource lull there will be a high probability that eventually there will be a more extreme case that exceeds the criteria. When that happens, rolling blackouts are inevitable and there is risk of a larger and more severe blackout.

Consumer Costs

On July 16, 2024 the New York State Comptroller Office released an audit of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and Public Service Commission (PSC) implementation efforts for the Climate Act titled Climate Act Goals – Planning, Procurements, and Progress Tracking (“Comptroller Report”). The Comptroller Report included the following key recommendation:

Conduct a detailed analysis of cost estimates to transition to renewable energy sources and meet Climate Act goals. Periodically update and report the results of the analysis to the public.

The Biennial Review should directly respond to this recommendation. In an interview with Susan Arbetter NYSERDA’s Doreen Harris said the “The proceeding that is before the PSC is intended to ‘specifically they look at all this in the context of consumer cost”. If the Biennial Review is part of the Proceeding, then costs should be included. However, consumer costs are not included in the report.

Disingenuous Approaches

The Introduction to the Biennial Review includes the following description in the contents of each section: “Policy options and proposals under consideration in this Report are limited to the Clean Energy Standard (CES) itself.” The problem is that the CES includes a 9-gigawatt (GW) goal for offshore wind by 2035, a 6 GW by 2025 goal for distributed solar, and a 3 GW energy storage resources goal by 2030. Those only cover a portion of the resources needed to achieve Climate Act goals. I think I represent most New Yorkers when I state that the Biennial Review should include all aspects of the transition not a subset of programs. Choosing subsets of related programs is inappropriate because we want to know the total costs to achieve all mandates and all challenges that must be addressed to meet the targets.

There is a related CES issue. In Section 5.1 on page 53 of the Biennial Review the document states: “In all other respects, this Report’s base case reflects the Reference Case presented in NYSERDA’s Integration Analysis”. There is a cost related problem relative to the Scoping Plan “Reference Case” that I have described in a blog post and in my comments on the Draft Scoping Plan. I noted that the Integration Analysis modeling scenarios used an unusual approach. In this type of analysis policy scenarios are typically compared to a “business-as-usual” future without any policy components. However, the Integration Analysis uses a Reference Case that is different than a typical business-as-usual future scenario because it includes already implemented policies. In the Scoping Plan this unique approach was used to suggest the costs of inaction are more than the costs of action, but that claim did not include all the costs to achieve the Climate Act mandates because it excluded the CES components. Everyone outside the Hochul Administration wants to know the costs to achieve the Climate Act, not some subset of component programs.

Discussion

The draft Biennial Review does not address fundamental issues. It does acknowledge that the schedule is in danger but does not concede there are fundamental problems that may not be resolvable. The presumption that a law written by ideologues with a schedule determined for political ends must be met no matter what needs to be laid to rest. A feasibility analysis that addresses the fundamental technology and implementation schedule issues is the only rational way forward.

As it stands the draft Biennial Review is another political document that fulfills a tortured interpretation of the Climate Act requirements. It apparently parses out different components of the implementation efforts. All the transition components must be considered, and the citizens of New York deserve to know the costs for the entire implementation effort.

It is time to confront overarching issues. There are technological issues related to the Integration Analysis strategies for a zero emissions electric grid by 2040. Until the challenges associated with dispatchable emissions-free resources are resolved then it is inappropriate to shut down any existing fossil-fired generators. Relying on weather-dependent resources introduces significant reliability risks that have not been acknowledged. Until this risk is understood better, it is inappropriate to continue to just build as much wind and solar as possible and hope it works out.

The recently announced draft Advanced Nuclear Technologies Blueprint is important for two reasons. It is an appropriate outline for a feasibility study for one of the transition components that should be expanded to all technologies. Secondly, it is recognition that nuclear is the only existing technology that has a proven record of significant carbon reductions. The implications of this blueprint should be incorporated into the Biennial Review.

Conclusion

Only time will tell if the Biennial Review is only a check the box response. While there are some hints that the ramifications of an unreasonable and unachievable energy transition are become so evident that they cannot be ignored, the draft Biennial Review does not confront the problems sufficiently. Public Service Law §66-p (4) provides for a potential delay of the Climate Act schedule and it was mentioned in the draft. In my opinion, if the Hochul Administration is truly committed to addressing the problems identified in the draft, then this requirement must get more attention in the final Biennial Review.

Has the Electricity Reality Check Arrived?

An article by Todd Snitchler originally published by RealClearEnergy and republished at Watts Up With That provides an excellent overview of the issues confronting the electric system today. It is also a response to clean energy advocates that demand that New York double down on its efforts to meet the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) mandates using wind and solar resources. This post annotates the Snitchler article with comments framing the New York context.

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, and two targets that address the electric sector: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040. The Climate Action Council (CAC) was responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” The Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants quantifies the impact of the electrification strategies. That material was used to develop the Draft Scoping Plan outline of strategies. 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.

On September 4-5 the Hochul Administration hosted a Future Energy Summit. I have written several preliminary impression articles about it and plan to do a final summary after the video is posted. My impression is that Hochul suggested the idea for the Summit, but the primary rationale is not obvious. Initially I thought it was in response to three recent independent reports that found that there were schedule issues, inadequate cost support and potential reliability risks. Those findings coupled with a Business Council of New York letter that cited those reports in a plea for a reassessment I thought were compelling reasons for a meeting.

However, the Summit did not address the problems identified. There were a couple of passing mentions of some of the problems but none of the panelists made any statements contrary to the Administration’s narrative. However, two sessions were devoted to incorporating nuclear energy in the implementation plan and a draft blueprint for consideration of advanced nuclear technologies was released for comment. I now think that the purpose was to gauge the political blowback for that option.

In this context, Spectrum News with Susan Arbetter has recently hosted guests (here and here) to discuss the “benefits of nuclear energy, specifically as a dispatchable resource that can fill in the gaps that arise with solar and wind.” The most recent interview was with Blair Horner from the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG). I address his comments in my annotations of the article below.

Has the Electricity Reality Check Arrived?

The author of the article is Todd Snitchler. He is President and CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association (EPSA). He introduces the article by noting that dispatchable generation is needed. For background keep in mind that electric system operators must balance the load with available generation constantly. That challenge is much easier if they have resources available that can be dispatched, that is to say controlled, as needed. Wind and solar are not dispatchable.

At meetings of energy regulators, policymakers, consumer advocates, and industry this summer, the content and tone of the conversations around electric system reliability have changed dramatically. Executives from across the industry all agree that dispatchable generation is needed now and will be needed for many years to come.

Electric system owners have economic goals that are inordinately affected by politicians. As a result, they are reticent to say anything that is inconsistent with the current political narrative. In this case the political narrative is the constant refrain about the need to do something about the “existential” threat of climate change. Consequently, everyone who knows better that works for the utilities or the state has not been speaking out about the risks of relying on generating resources that cannot be dispatched. However, reality is forcing their hands and suggestions that laws like the Climate Act might not work as touted are coming out.

Most prominently, the realization and willingness to say publicly that dispatchable resources like natural gas-fired generation will be needed as the energy expansion continues and load growth accelerates for the first time in decades is a welcome admission.

For several years the discussion around the future of the electrical grid was about how inexpensive it will be and how “out of political favor” resources would be moved off the grid in favor of politically favored ones without creating any disruptions or reliability challenges. And just like that, the story has changed – dramatically. Why?

Privately all the experts who really understand the electric system admit that the proposed Climate Act transition plan is very unlikely to work and certainly cannot work on the arbitrary schedule mandated by the Climate Act. On the other hand, advocates like NYPIRG’s Horner cling to the incorrect notion that no new technologies are needed. That belief underpinned the Climate Act law’s schedule and presumption that meeting the schedule was just a matter of political will. Snitchler describes three reasons why plans like the Climate Act cannot work as advertised in the real world.

First, load growth – and a substantial amount of it is expected in the short term. The second is the pace of dispatchable generation retirements, without replacement generation with similar performance characteristics. The third is consistent and increasing warnings coming from reliability organizations and grid operators that a crisis is coming and coming quickly if system planning does not improve.

The authors of the Climate Act did not understand how the electric grid operates and the impacts of wind and solar intermittency on the proposed changes to the system. In the interview with Arbetter at about the 2:00 mark Horner makes the point that the law established a schedule that must be met. Ignoring all the issues related to the massive shift in resources proposed and all the difficulties associated pandemic impacts to supply chains, he whines that the Hochul Administration is not doing what they are supposed to be doing. Snitchler’s description of grid operation realities is inconsistent with the Climate Act mandates so the State is in an impossible situation relative to the schedule.

What does this mean? In short, it is a long-awaited recognition of the reality of grid operations combined with the acknowledgment (albeit grudgingly in some circles) that dispatchable resources, like natural gas, will need to be retained and operated for a longer time horizon than many were willing to admit. This recognition matches the significant number of credible studies, including work done by McKinsey and EFI, that all said dispatchable natural gas generation would be needed even in a high renewable resource penetration scenario.

The problem of dispatchability is compounded in New York because natural gas generation is prohibited by the Climate Act. Instead, the credible plans for the future electric system plan to use a not yet commercially available “Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resource (DEFR)”. It is long past time that anyone who denies this need should be ignored in the conversation but unfortunately the Hochul Administration has not done anything to confront this problem.

That is not all. Snitchler describes other issues that have impacted the Climate Act schedule that Horner ignores when he whines that the State is not meeting the schedule:

As the reality of load growth, supply chain issues, permitting, siting, and construction challenges impacting all types of resources settled in and the sharp warnings of imminent reliability issues combined, it became clear that the rhetoric was far ahead of reality. Recognizing the problem is the first step in solving it.

Unfortunately, there is a crisis brewing as the reliability margins shrink. This summer there were operator alerts for generation emergencies. Snitchler explains that this is largely due to retirements of fossil-fired generating resources before adequate replacements were available. He goes on to recommend a solution.

Because all resources are now accountable for reliability, including dispatchable, intermittent, and storage resources, the requirement to acknowledge and adapt to grid realities is no longer optional – it’s mission critical. The retirement of significant amounts of dispatchable resources without adequate replacements has pushed us ever closer to a system with zero margin of error.

To correct this situation, policymakers and regulators should take steps to minimize the risk to customers. First, the timing gap between retirements and additions to the system must be addressed; we can’t let existing resources off the grid before the replacements are ready. The process for connecting new generation to the grid must be reformed to ensure projects match system needs, not just policy pronouncements. Permitting and siting reforms are needed so we can deliver development of all types of energy projects.

I agree with Snitchler that one thing that must be done is to readjust the aspirational targets of energy transition laws like the Climate Act. I endorse the idea that offramps for reliability is necessary.

Second, policymakers must temper enthusiasm and set goals that align with the reality of system needs and operational constraints. This could mean pausing policies that hinder the deployment of needed resources or including offramps in legislation to ensure grid reliability.

I do have a concern with his plea for siting reforms and pausing policies that hinder deployment of needed resources. I do not agree if that approach is used to justify deploying wind and solar faster because I think there is a fundamental issue that has not been addressed. Analyses of renewable resource availability have identified periods where DEFRs are required. What has not yet been addressed is the risk that designing an electric system to meet a weather-dependent requirement will inevitably mean that practicality and affordability constraints will lead to a situation where an extreme event exceeds the planning criteria. That would lead to blackouts. I do not believe this has received adequate evaluation and discussion. As a result, I think it is more appropriate to consider reliability constraints before proceeding to build as much solar and wind as possible as fast as possible.

Snitchler raises another practicality issue that is not on the radar of advocates like Horner. New York policies must be consistent with other states or bad outcomes will result. In addition, there must be a plan for developing a market signal for DEFRs. This will be an expensive resource that is not used much raising market viability concerns.

Third, grid operators must move more quickly to adjust markets to send the appropriate signals that will drive investment of the required resources. States must recognize the broader benefits of market participation and positive outcomes for their constituents and stop merely demanding grid operators do what one state wants to the detriment of another. States must again appreciate that the benefits of their utilities joining markets far outweigh their ability to dictate resources and timelines and then disclaim responsibility for the issues those decisions create.

Advocates like Horner are first to accuse market participants of biased motives when there are inconsistencies with their goals. Everyone wants a better environment and would like to reduce the risks of extreme weather impacts due to climate change. Snitchler correctly points out that unrealistic goals raise the risk of reliability problems that, in my opinion, are a much worse outcome than effects of climate change that these policies could possibly alter.

To close, lest anyone accuse market participants of not wanting to reduce emissions or only wanting to profit from their current resources, this reality check in no way means walking away from striving to meet policy goals. Bottom line – we can set goals, but they must be tethered to operational reality to ensure success and reliability are both achieved.

Discussion

I think this is a good summary of issues confronting all the electric grid operators in the United States. The risks in New York are even greater because of the unrealistic Climate Act mandates and the attitude of many that because it is a law the mandates must be met with no acknowledgement that there has never been a feasibility analysis to confirm whether it can be done and how fast it could be done. It is unfortunate that the Future Energy Summit did not address these concerns. I believe that a reassessment is overdue.

One of the most important topics for a reassessment is that the need for dispatchable resources destroys the myth that wind, solar, and energy storage are the only technologies needed. Energy storage can provide some of the necessary dispatchability, but the overwhelming consensus is that new DEFR technology is necessary. It is time to stop giving Robert Howarth, the self-avowed author the Climate Act, any platform to say “We can meet all of the energy needs of New York with solar, with hydro and wind and appropriate (energy) storage.’’ That statement is wrong and incorrectly influences advocacy groups like NYPIRG.

Conclusion

Snitchler summarizes the reality check issues that need to be confronted nationally and in New York. If these issues continue to be ignored and unresolved, then the only outcome will be grid reliability problems. I fear that there are many who will only admit that these problems are real only after there has been a catastrophic blackout.