A recent report by the Syracuse Post Standard described the most recent environmental impact assessment for the Micron Technology’s planned semiconductor plant. Last month I described the keynote address for the Business Council of New York 2023 Renewable Energy Conference Energy by Richard Ellenbogen. I contacted Ellenbogen to let him know that the original projection of for energy use that would be the same as the state of Vermont has been expanded to the same as Vermont and New Hampshire. This post describes Ellenbogen’s reaction to that news.
Ellenbogen is President [BIO] of Allied Converters and frequently copies me on emails that address various issues associated with New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). I have published other articles by Ellenbogen because he truly cares about the environment and the environmental performance record of his business shows that he is walking the walk. When he sent a copy of the presentation I asked if I could it post after the conference.
Why NY State Must Rethink Its Energy Plan
Ellenbogen’s keynote address was titled “Why NY State Must Rethink Its Energy Plan and Ten Suggestions to Help Fix the Problems.” My post on the presentation summarized the power point presentation for his keynote address.
One of his suggestions concerned the Micron plant:
Allow Micron Technologies to build a combined cycle plant the size of Cricket Valley Energy Center on their property. The Micron facility will use more energy than the state of Vermont. With generation on-site, the thermal energy could be used at the plant and the 350 GWh of annual line loss will be eliminated. Instead of making them look “green” on paper by buying carbon credits, let them be green in reality with high efficiency generation and have lower energy costs to make them more competitive and able to recoup the $5 billion rebate without faking it. That will eliminate the increase in statewide energy use related to the facility.
Micron Environmental Impact
Glen Coin and Tim Knauss provided an update (subscribers only unfortunately) on the environmental impacts of the facility. Their article included the following statements:
The new estimates of water and energy use are for entire the complex when finished 20 years from now. The company plans to build the four fabrication plants, or fabs, sequentially: Construction of fab 1 starting in November 2024, and work on the fourth fab completed by 2043.
When the Clay complex is complete in 2043, it would use more water and more electricity than all of the company’s factories and offices in use today. The Clay complex will consume 16 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year; according to the 2023 sustainability report, all of the company’s fabs now use a combined 11 billion kilowatt hours
Sixteen billion kilowatt-hours per year is enough for more than 2 million average households.
The Micron fab would use about the same amount of electricity as Vermont and New Hampshire combined, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Ellenbogen Update
Ellenbogen prepared the following update after I sent him the article:
I have been using the Micron facility as an example of how the CLCPA is actually going to increase NY State’s carbon footprint because transmitting all of that energy to the Micron site, as much as is used by the state of Vermont, over long distances was going to result in an amount of lost energy on the wires that could operate 1-3/4 Cornell Universities. One of my readers sent me an update of energy use because now it is projected that the Clay complex will consume 16 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, as much as Vermont and New Hampshire combined, or 16,000 Gigawatt Hours annually (16 Tera-watt hours). That is double the original projections and the idea that this could be supported with renewable generation is laughable. 16,000 GWh is an 11% increase in NY State electric usage just related to the one facility. The line loss will also double to consume the output of about a 100 megawatt fossil fuel plant under continuous operation.
To put the Micron facility’s usage into perspective, in its last full year of operation the 2 Gigawatt Indian Point nuclear plant generated 16.3 Tera-watt hours so the Micron facility will need to be supported by a 2 Gigawatt fossil fuel or nuclear plant on site or 2.1 Gigawatts of generation off site, 5% more. NY State’s policy makes absolutely no sense. To run the Micron facility would require using about 4 GW of the projected 9 GW of offshore wind to support the plant or 16 GW of solar arrays covering 128,000 acres (80 acres per 10 MW) or 200 Square miles. NY State has 7 million acres of farmland so solar arrays to support the Micron facility would use almost 2% of the farmland in the state and would also require an enormous amount of battery storage, the cost of which would greatly exceed the cost of a nuclear plant on site. A combined cycle generating plant on site would be about 75% less than the cost of the nuclear plant. Both the combined cycle gas plant and the nuclear plant on-site offer the option of recovering the waste heat and using it in the plant to make Micron even more energy efficient. With regard to the solar and wind, NY State is having major difficulties getting all of their renewable projects finished because of cost issues and interconnection issues, let alone adding this gigantic lead weight to the Camel’s back.
The politicians can say whatever they want about the wonders of the CLCPA but the mathematical analysis of the project says that the CLCPA and the mandate for Micron to buy Carbon credits is going to raise NY State’s carbon footprint substantially while also raising Micron’s costs. It’s a Lose-Lose proposition for everyone.
That’s what happens when you outsource utility planning to Climate Scientists and environmental activists that have no understanding of what they are doing, which is what NY State has done.
Conclusion
I agree with Ellenbogen’s points. The obvious approach for the energy needed by Micron would be co-generation. As much as I would like to say that this should be provided by nuclear, I agree with him that costs and implementation time preclude that option now so a combined cycle natural gas-fired plant is the pragmatic choice. Either option produces waste heat that can be used at the facility which increases the energy efficiency. As he says the expectation that renewables can provide the necessary power on top of the existing load needs is laughable. Importantly, a facility like this must have uninterruptible power and providing that from wind and solar is an extreme challenge. Finally, I want to close with one of Ellenbogen’s points from his presentation: “When fantasies meet reality, reality always wins.” The Climate Act renewable plans are fantasy and the inevitable clash with reality is going to be interesting to watch.
The Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net-zero transition plan includes a requirement for “zero-emissions” electric generating by 2040. New York’s irrational energy policies preclude the only proven zero-emissions choice (nuclear energy) to meet that requirement. Instead, the emphasis is on solar and wind development. A recent post at Trust, yet verify includes a great graphic that illustrates an inherent flaw with wind and solar that Climate Act implementation must address.
I have been following the Climate Act since it was first proposed. I submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan and have written over 300 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.
Climate Act Background
The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and an interim 2030 target of a 40% reduction by 2030. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlines how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” In brief, that plan is to electrify everything possible and power the electric grid with zero-emissions generating resources by 2040. 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 write a Draft Scoping Plan. After a year-long review the Scoping Plan recommendations were finalized at the end of 2022. In 2023 the Scoping Plan recommendations are supposed to be implemented through regulation and legislation.
Implementation
In order to get a sense of the magnitude of the renewable resource development necessary to implement the Climate Act this section shows the expected changes to load and generating resources.
The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) 2023 Load & Capacity Data Report (also known as the “Gold Book”) 2023 Load & Capacity Data Report (Gold Book) lists the 2022 observed load and projections out to 2053. The following excerpt shows Table I 1-a baseline energy and demand data to 2040.
There are two relevant projections for future generating resources. The “official” Hochul Administration projections are in the Final Scoping Plan. The NYISO projections are in the 2021-2040 System & Resource Outlook I compare the installed capacity for Scoping Plan and the Resource Outlook in the next table. For this post I am only concerned with the total generation projections.
In 2022 the peak observed load was 31,709 MW and the installed summer capability 37,178 MW. In 2030 the NYISO Gold Book baseline predicted summer peak load is 32,490 MW and 36,930 MW in 2040. The peak winter load is 28,970 in 2030 and 44,800 in 2040. In the following table, I list the maximum capability and peak load data and calculate the capability to peak load margin.
The NISO Gold Book Table V-3 lists the historical Installed Reserve Margin (IRM) values for the New York Control Area and the historical minimum Locational Capacity Requirements (LCRs) approved by the NYISO for Zones G-J, Zone J, and Zone K. The IRM requirements are established each year by the New York State Reliability Council (NYSRC). The IRM represents the minimum level of capacity, beyond the forecasted peak demand, which utilities and other energy providers must procure to serve consumers. This post is not going to address the LCRs.
As shown here New York will require an unprecedented level of new wind and solar development in order to meet the net-zero transition mandates of the Climate Act. Note that the capability to peak margin calculated in the preceding table is not exactly the same as the IRM but the expectation is that the IRM will increase significantly in the future. The reason for this IRM shift is that wind and solar are intermittent and overbuilding those resources is necessary to address that intermittency. While overbuilding is suggested as the solution for the best energy plan the question is how much is enough and whether it is a solution that eliminates the need for any new resources.
One Third on Average
I am convinced that overbuilding is not as viable a solution as its proponents claim. However, trying to explain the reasons why is complicated so I have been looking for a more-easily understood graphical explanation. Michel Opdbe wrting at the at Trust, yet verify blog has just such a graphic.
Opdbe lives in Belgium and writes about renewable energy policies in Belgium and adjoining countries. His recent post addressed a claim that on average of 1/3 of the total electricity demand in the Netherlands is now supplied by sun, wind and water. The post was based on a tweet with this message (translated from Dutch):
An average of 1/3 of the total electricity demand in the Netherlands is now supplied by sun, wind and water. The record is from Sunday 24 April, with a nice 68%. The low of last winter was on November 30, with only 4%. #graphoftheday
It was accompanied by a graph showing the daily energy production by solar, wind and water as percent of total demand of the Netherlands:
He explains:
The thick yellow line is the four weeks moving average and, indeed, it ends up at roughly one third of demand at the beginning of 2023. That is however only part of the story, as also hinted by the two values that are mentioned in the text of the tweet.
Although the average ends up around one third of demand, it is derived from a incredibly wide range. According to the tweet, solar and wind together with water produced between 4% and 68% of total demand in 2022 in the Netherlands.
There is also something in this graph that drew my attention, but it is not that clear from that graph. Unfortunately, I don’t have the data from the Netherlands. Luckily, this dynamic is not unique to the Netherlands, it is exactly the same in Belgium and the Belgian data is readily available.
In my opinion this dynamic is universal across all jurisdictions that are moving to a reliance on wind and solar.
This is a recreation of that graph using the Belgian data (only solar and wind, water power in Belgium is negligible):
The Belgian figures are close to that of the Netherlands, albeit a bit lower. The average share of Belgian solar and wind as percent of demand is roughly one fourth (compared to one third of the Netherlands). The range of the Belgian data is also somewhat smaller (between 1 and 58%) compared to the Netherlands (between 4 and 68%). The overall shape is however similar. There is the same funnel shape that is widening the more capacity is added.
The following graphic illustrates the problem well.
Now it is easier to highlight a bit more the wide range that this average is derived from. These are the minimum and maximum values of the share of solar and wind in demand of each year:
It is clear that the lower and upper boundaries don’t increase in the same way The lower boundary is hardly budging, it keeps close to the x-axis over the entire period. In 2022, the lowest daily share supplied by solar and wind was only about 1% of total demand. This didn’t change much over the years: it was roughly between 0.7% and 1.8% of demand between 2014 and 2022. This tells us that a lot of dispatchable capacity will still be needed at specific times of the year (in this case, pretty close to the expected demand and, looking at its shallow slope, that might be the case for quite a while).
The upper boundary behaves different. It shoots up exponentially. In 2022, the highest daily share supplied by solar and wind was 58% of total demand, coming from around 20% in 2014.
Meaning that the difference between the lower and upper boundary will keep increasing over time. Basically, electricity production by solar and wind will at times start to exceed demand, while the need for backup at specific times of the year will stay high.
The key point illustrated in this graph is that over building wind and solar does not help much for those periods when wind and solar resources are low due to the weather.
Some people also seem to recognize this type of dynamic. Already the first comment below the tweet nails it (translated from Dutch):
If we now just install three times as much, then we have more than twice too much at the peak and are almost 90% short at the lowest point.
I couldn’t have said it better.
Discussion
Based on every study of intermittent wind and solar that I have seen, the difference between the lower and upper boundary of wind and solar output will keep increasing over time as these resources are added to any electric system. New York is not as bad as Belgium and Netherlands but it is the reason that the New York IRM will increase from around 20% to on the order of 150% in 2040. The reason for this universal truth is that meteorological conditions that cause light winds are geographically large. When the wind is light at one site in New York it is very likely that winds are light across the state. Data from Australia shows a similar effect across that entire continent.
There are a couple of ramifications. First, overbuilding is not a complete solution. Grid operators must always match load with generation. Therefore, resource adequacy planning must have a solution even at the minimum wind and solar generation output. If the overall state-wide wind generation capacity is only 10% you would need to overbuild by a factor of ten to provide power at night. Aside from the cost I believe that amount of wind development exceeds the expected wind resource availability in New York. In order to address this a new technology is needed. The New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) recently initiated an “Order initiating a process regarding the zero-emissions target” that will “identify innovative technologies to ensure reliability of a zero-emissions electric grid” for this reason.
The other part of the problem is that when wind and solar resources are over-built there will be more and more periods when their output exceeds demand. When that happens the electricity market has issues. Many wind and solar contracts are written such that the operators are paid whether or not the energy produced is needed. For example, the Ontario Independent Electricity System Operator must get rid of the unneeded power by selling it to neighboring control areas at below market costs. New York is a big purchaser of this cheap power. While those purchases drive costs down for ratepayers it also adversely affects the viability of in-state generating facilities. On the other hand, during the light wind conditions in-state generating facilities are needed so it may reach the point that they have to be subsidized to be available. Eventually New York will be in a similar position to Ontario. It turns out that the low- price sales are subsidized by Ontario ratepayers. When everyone has over-built I also wonder where the excess power will be dumped.
Conclusion
The graph of solar and wind generation resources as a fraction of the total resources shows a characteristic shape that proves that over building wind and solar generation does not help always fulfill load requirements. Electric grid operators must match the output of generating resources at all times so this means the problem has to be addressed. Further compounding the problem is the fact that peak loads are associated with temperature extremes that are linked to high-pressure systems that also create light winds. In other words the over-building effect is most pronounced when energy demand peaks exacerbating the risks to reliability when electricity is needed most.
At least one commenter understands the problem when he said “If we now just install three times as much, then we have more than twice too much at the peak and are almost 90% short at the lowest point”. I agree with Opdbe – I couldn’t have said it better.
The unanswered questions are how will the Climate Act implementation address this problem, what will it cost, and will it be able to maintain current standards of reliability.
On June 24, 2023 the Finger Lakes Times published a commentary, Alternate Energy: Scoping it out, Part VI: My humble opinion, conclusion by Jim Bobreski, a process control engineer from Penn Yan. The commentary concludes a series on the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) Scoping Plan. I started this post soon after his article was published but just got around to completing it. While I admire Bobreski’s efforts to try to decipher the Scoping Plan he makes a couple of mistakes that should be addressed.
I have been following the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 300 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good. The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.
Climate Act Background
The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and an interim 2030 target of a 40% reduction by 2030. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlines how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” In brief, that plan is to electrify everything possible and power the electric grid with zero-emissions generating resources by 2040. 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 write a Draft Scoping Plan. After a year-long review the Scoping Plan recommendations were finalized at the end of 2022. In 2023 the Scoping Plan recommendations are supposed to be implemented through regulation and legislation.
In the age of Trump, energy, is as big and important an issue as it ever has been. The decisions we make as nations, and as individuals about energy are as important as always to our present, and more so to our future. However, in this age of Trump, there are delusions and confusion that he and his regime has perpetrated. Trump has succeeded in creating so much doubt that the average person thinks that up is down and down is up. He has turned science upside down as well. His interference with science has so obstructed the truth that Scientific American came out to for the first time in its 175 year politically neutral history and endorsed Joe Biden. This book is a collection of articles about the politics, economics, and technology of alternate energy and its importance to the future of civilization.
Commentary
In this section I will critique the commentary. Renewable energy advocates commonly make similar mistakes relative to the electric system. Although Bobreski was in power production his expertise in process control is not particularly relevant for electric system resource adequacy issues. Consequently there are misconceptions similar to those Richard Perez made arguing that New York should embrace a solar energy future.
The commentary is a mixture of good and bad points. He starts out explaining that technology advances are necessary to make the Climate Act Scoping Plan work.
A call to grandma cost about $5 back in 1970 which is about $38 today. Now the same call is almost nothing. My point: Technology today comes in leaps and bounds and fast. It improves so fast that as soon as you buy some new device, it is obsolete in some way the minute you use it.
My concern is are we becoming dependent upon technology’s rapid evolution to solve our problems? The scoping plan appears to count on this very thing to be successful. Can it happen? I think the answer is yes, but it’s a cautionary yes.
There are limits to this analogy for the electric system. Wind and solar energy have been subsidized for decades in the hopes that the technology would evolve to the point where it could stand on its own. However, there is no sign that the need for those subsidies will disappear anytime soon.
Theresa Hansen of “T&D World” magazine says, “Some locations in the US might meet President Biden’s goal of 100% clean energy by 2035, but I don’t see the entire country being fueled by zero carbon sources 12 years from now.”
“T&D World” is a trade publication for the power transmission industry and they ought to know!
It may be true that “some” locations may have 100% clean energy by 2035 but I don’t expect that it will be any large jurisdiction. I recently described problems with the transition including the European experience showing that wind is not viable, the costs of wind and solar in Germany are untenable, and that a rapid energy transition has many risks but that information is being ignored. There is a reason trade publications are called trade rags. They will publish anything to appeal to their readership.
In the past five columns, I have tried to put together some information about the directives of the Scoping Plan for the energy future of NYS. I concentrated on solar, wind, the grid and storage systems.
I would like to call this a story, because the efforts made by the state to go “green” stretch back over 40 years. In 1982 PASNY — now NYSERDA — planned to place a wind turbine on the shore of Lake Ontario. Numerous studies in NY have been performed on wind power over those years. Whatever became of this? I have filed Freedom of Information requests on the wind turbine projects proposed by PASNY, but have had no luck finding this information. I was attempting to garner what was already known then and why it wasn’t implemented at the time.
There is one mistake here. The state power authority changed its acronym from PASNY to NYPA not NYSERDA. The New York State Energy Research & Development Authority probably did wind turbine assessments for Lake Ontario but I have never seen them either.
A history of learning from others’ mistakes
Back in the early 1980s Germany embarked on an ambitious plan to go solar and wind. The wind turbines in 2022 provided 17.2% of Germany’s electrical power; solar provided about 8%. The problem that is now realized is the cost of making this decision. It was at a time when nuclear was the “energy cure” for clean and cheap energy, production solar panels were only 10% efficient and were very expensive.
To demonstrate my point, Hoffman Electronics in 1955 offered the first solar cell at 1785/watt at 2% efficiency and at today’s prices a solar cell at 21% efficiency by comparison would cost over $18,000 a watt. Germany proceeded anyway. Today the situation is diametrically reversed. Solar is now the cheapest form of providing electrical power. Nuclear is the most expensive. Although Germany produces about 25% from solar and wind it came at too big a cost.
This argument is based on the presumption that solar is currently the cheapest form of electric power. However, that is only true if the reference is to power capacity (MW). Even if solar capacity is half the cost of fossil capacity the cost for delivered energy is much more. We pay for the kWh electric energy we use each month and we expect it to be available 24-7 throughout the year. In order to provide usable energy, other things must be considered that destroy the myth that utility-scale solar is cheaper than other types of power plants. On average a well-designed solar facility can provide (round numbers) 20% of its potential energy possible in New York. A natural gas fired power plant can operate to produce at least 80% of its potential energy over a year. In order to produce the same amount of energy, that means that you need four times as much solar capacity. Even if the solar capacity cost is half the cost for the capacity the energy cost is double simply due to this capacity factor difference.
But wait, there is more. In order to make the energy available when needed storage must be added to the cost of the solar capacity. Also consider that the life expectancy of solar panels is half of the observed life expectancy of fossil-fired power plants. There are unintended financial consequences that affect the viability of other generators that are needed for reliability that add to ratepayer costs. Because the solar resource is diffuse, it is necessary to support the transmission system to get the energy produced by solar from where space is available to site acres of solar panels to where it is needed. There are inherent characteristics of conventional generation that contribute to the stability of the transmission system that are not provided by solar or wind generation. Someone, somewhere must deploy a replacement resource to provide those ancillary transmission services and that cost should be included the cost comparison. Finally, the Integration Analysis, NYISO, New York State Reliability Council, and the Public Service Commission all agree that another resource that can be dispatched and is emissions-free (DEFR) is needed when the electric grid becomes dependent upon solar and wind resources. The state’s irrational fear of nuclear generation precludes the only proven resource that meets the necessary criteria so an entirely new resource must be developed, tested, and deployed. The Integration Analysis and NYISO 2021-2040 System & Resource Outlook both project that the DEFR resource will be comparable in size to existing fossil resources but will operate no more than 9% of the time. I have yet to see an expected cost for this resource but have no doubts that it will be extraordinarily expensive. Summing all the costs necessary to make solar power usable for electric energy reliable delivery and there is no doubt that solar is much more expensive.
The weak link in NYS’ ambitious clean energy plan is the power storage medium. Choosing the right storage medium is critical and the answer may be to wait until these technologies prove themselves. Right now lithium and fuel cells are the only “off the shelf” storage mediums we have. Both have their issues. Lithium has its safety issues of thermal runaway and current fuel cells are expensive and use platinum, a very limited resource. Lithium too is limited as to availability.
I agree with this paragraph.
It has been said that one form of insanity is repeating a past failed experiment and hoping to obtain different results. The Scoping Plan, to put it mildly, is a highly ambitious plan. It treads in uncharted waters. Its success is hinged upon technologies that are not yet developed or not fully developed. Sure technology has been transformative but is the Scoping Plan actually built around an undetermined future? Will these ambitious plans repeat the mistakes of the past?
These are relevant points and I agree. Interpretation of the mistakes of the past is a challenge. For example, I think that the energy transition problems of Germany were due to the inherent challenge of using intermittent and diffuse wind and solar to power modern electricity and not because solar was expensive at the time it was installed. Overcoming all the reasons why solar produced energy is more expensive than fossil-fired energy is likely an impossible challenge.
Like Germany’s ambitious plan for which the country is now left holding the bag. With NYS’ plan the storage system can be viewed in the same way as the German situation. In my humble opinion, large-scale storage battery technology is the linchpin for the Scoping Plan’s success, a technology essentially at its marketable infancy. You may raise a skeptical eyebrow and note the first accessible battery was invented in 1804! Yes, that is true but there was no practical use for it, ergo no market motivation. Now that also is diametrically reversed. A plethora of battery technologies have come out of the metaphorical woodwork. Improved lithium ion, magnesium, zinc, aluminum, carbon, boron, graphene, iron and who knows what. Each promising their own unique benefit such as size, power density, rechargeability, increased life expectancy.
I agree with this paragraph. New York GHG emissions are less than one half of one percent of global emissions and global emissions have been increasing on average by more than one half of one percent per year since 1990. That does not mean we should not do something but it does mean that we have time to address this problem. If the storage problem cannot be solved then there cannot be a transition so I suggest that New York should focus more on developing technology that will enable the transition than on reducing emissions that cannot have any measurable effect on global warming impacts.
Recently the House Ways and Means proposed the “Limit, Save and Grow Act” (talk about a euphemism!) which has passed Congress. This act will greatly impede the change that we can meet the goals of clean energy. Instead it wants to cripple the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides for the advancement of alternate energy and a clean energy for the future. The GOP- sponsored bill should have been implemented during the 2017-21 era when that president authorized a $2.25 trillion-a-year spending spree that is responsible for the inflation we have today. This careless spending did not improve health care, education, clean energy or our infrastructure. With this act the GOP wants to stop advancement in alternate energy and a clean environment. Let’s hope the Senate feels differently.
I don’t have any comment on this.
In questioning average citizens, they respond with the three main concerns: the plan does not seem feasible in the amount of time, the cost of converting their homes to all electric, and the costs changing the system in New York.
The Scoping Plan is highly dependent upon Biden’s IRA, which as mentioned is under attack by the GOP. The Scoping Plan is also highly dependent upon technologies which have yet to be proven.
This is an excellent synopsis of my concerns. The Scoping Plan does not include a feasibility analysis relative to existing reliability standards, did not provide cost impacts for the citizens of New York, and failed to provide justification for the ambitious schedule. It does not matter if the IRA is under attack by Republicans. The question is whether it can provide sufficient support for Climate Act implementation.
My conclusion
Yes, we have to do something! Continuing to process oil by shale or sand sites and clear cutting to get there is consequentially damaging our forests and fresh water supplies. Not to mention the added expense of cleaning up these sites. Nuclear power is way too expensive. While solar and wind power have their flaws, they are far less than the path of oil and nuclear. Gov. Hochul must make the right decisions. It might be better to wait on the predictable advance of technology than to build a questionable foundation.
Conclusion
My over-riding concern about the Climate Act is that there is insufficient support to prove that the plans will not do more harm than good. The analyses comparing environmental impacts are biased and incomplete. At this time the Hochul Administration has not prepared a cumulative environmental impact statement that considers the effects of all the wind and solar generation projected in the Scoping Plan. Affordability and reliability concerns have been ignored and it is obvious that technological advances are needed if the transition is to be successful. I agree that the it is better to make implementation contingent upon necessary technology.
I have been following the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 300 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good. The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.
Climate Act Background
The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and an interim 2030 reduction target of a 40% reduction by 2030. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlines how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” In brief, that plan is to electrify everything possible and power the electric grid with zero-emissions generating resources. 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 write a Draft Scoping Plan. After a year-long review the Scoping Plan recommendations were finalized at the end of 2022. In 2023 the Scoping Plan recommendations are supposed to be implemented through regulation and legislation.
Cap-and-Invest Background
According to the Cap-and-Invest Analysis Inputs and Methods webinar (Inputs and Methods Webinar Presentation and View Session Recording) on June 20, 2023, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSE$RDA) are developing the New York State Cap-and-Invest (NYCI) Program to meet the greenhouse gas emission limits and equity requirements of the Climate Act.
The NYCI feedback webinars all included the following slide that describes the program. Setting a cap is supposed to provide compliance certainty and the revenues generated “will minimize potential consumer costs while supporting critical investments” in the control strategies necessary to meet the Climate Act targets.
NYCI Policy Modeling
The Analysis Inputs and Methods webinar mentioned above described the modeling analyses planned to support the development of the program: “This analytics study will assess potential market outcomes and impact from the proposed New York Cap-and-Invest (NYCI) program.”
In order to evaluate the effects of different policy options, the Hochul Administration has proposed policy modeling. This kind of modeling analysis forecasts future conditions for a baseline or “business-as-usual” case, makes projections for different policy options, and then the results are compared relative to the business-as-usual case. I disagree with the presumptions in the proposed modeling associated with which programs should be included.
The Scoping Plan modeling used a reference case that included “already implemented” programs and the NYCI Cap-and-Invest Analysis Inputs and Methods webinar proposed to use the same framework. Starting with the reference case developed for the Scoping Plan, the NYCI modeling proposed to add policies enacted since then. This reference case approach is misleading because it under estimates the total cost to meet the Climate Act emission reduction mandates.
I maintain that it is more appropriate to compare the policy cases to a base case that excludes all programs intended to reduce GHG emissions. NYCI revenues are supposed to “minimize potential consumer costs while supporting critical investments”. I believe that statement argues that NYCI proceeds are intended to fund all the control programs necessary to meet the Climate Act mandates and not exclude programs that were already implemented.
The Climate Act’s directives require the Commission to build upon its existing efforts to combat climate change through the deployment of clean energy resources and energy storage technologies, energy efficiency and building electrification measures, and electric vehicle charging infrastructure. In recognition of the scale of change and significant work that will be necessary to meet the Climate Act’s aggressive targets, the Commission directed DPS staff to assess the progress made in line with its directives under the Climate Act and to provide guidance, as appropriate, on how to timely meet the requirements of the Climate Act.
The Department of Public Service presentation on the Informational Report notes in the following conclusion slide that “ the estimates of total funding authorized by the Commission to date for various clean energy programs in some instances reflect actions that pre-date the enactment of the Climate Act.” This is the only reference to “already implemented” programs. The conclusion states that the information presented “represents direct effects of CLCPA implementation only, and only the portion of direct effects of programs over which the Commission has oversight authority.” I interpret that to mean that they are not concerned with which program implements the necessary control strategies but only the results of all the programs relative to the Climate Act mandates.
The Informational Report also notes that “It is difficult to pull out exactly what costs we would have otherwise incurred for infrastructure investment vs. the cost of CLCPA.” This is the reason a base case is necessary. You need some estimate of investments that would have occurred were it not for the policy. In my opinion if they were worried about the difference between pre-CLPA investment costs vs. CLCPA-mandated investments they would have mentioned it here. Because the Investment Report does not distinguish between costs for programs that pre-date the Climate Act and programs that are mandated by the Climate Act itself, I conclude that the NYCI modeling analyses should follow that precedent and not include “already implemented” control strategy programs.
Implementation Report Costs
I converted the tables in the Implementation Report to a spreadsheet so that I could combine the data from multiple tables. Three tables are of particular interest: Table 4: 2022 Electric CLCPA Recoveries, Table 7: 2022 Typical Monthly Electric Bills with CLCPA related costs disaggregated, and Table 8: Authorized Funding to Date.
Table 4: 2022 Electric CLCPA Recoveries summarizes costs recovered in 2022 by utilities for electric programs. The costs recoveries include: CES (electric only), CEF (electric only), certain VDER (electric only), Electric Vehicle Make Ready Program (electric only), Clean Heat programs (electric only), Integrated Energy Data Resource (electric only), and Utility Energy Efficiency programs (electric and gas). The table states that $1,175,788,000 in Climate Act costs were recovered in 2022.
Table 7: 2022 Typical Monthly Electric Bills with CLCPA related costs disaggregated is the first admission by the Hochul Administration of potential costs of the Climate Act to ratepayers. The basis for the
typical electric delivery and supply bills for 2022 was provided for the following customer types:
A. Residential customers (600 kWh per month),
B. Non-residential customers (50 kW & 12,600 kWh per month),
C. Non-residential customers (2,000 kW & 720,000 kWh per month), and
D. Non-residential high load factor customers (2,000 kW & 1,296,000 kWh per month).
PSC Staff requested the utilities disaggregate the cost components reported in Table 2 (electric) to determine CLCPA related impacts on customers. Climate Act costs added between 9.8% and 3.7% to residential monthly electric bills in 2022.
Table 8: Authorized Funding to Date “gives a sense” of expenditures that will ultimately be recovered in rates. The Implementation Report explains:
This annual report is a review of actual costs incurred by ratepayers to date in support of various programs and projects to implement the CLCPA and does not fully capture potential future expenditures, including estimated costs already authorized by the Commission but not yet recovered in rates. To complement this overview of cost recoveries incurred to date, we also present below a table of the various programs and the total amount of estimated costs associated with each authorized by the Commission to date. Table 8 gives a sense of expenditures that ratepayers could ultimately see recovered in rates. These values are conservative and reflect both past and prospective estimated costs.
It is important to note that the Commission authorized some of the estimated costs in Table 8 prior to CLCPA enactment and that the cost associated with these authorized programs will be recovered over several years to come, based on the implementation schedules for these projects or programs and will mitigate the cost impacts to ratepayers year over year. These estimated costs represent either total program budget, estimated total cost for the program over its duration, or costs incurred to date in support of the program. Additionally, these initiatives will result in a variety of other changes that will impact how much consumers pay for energy. A number of these would put downward pressure on costs, including benefits in the form of reduced energy usage and therefore reduced energy bills to consumers. The Department has also previously described market price effects that are a result of these investments. When load is reduced or more low-cost generation is added, it would be anticipated that energy prices would fall because the market would rely less on higher cost generators. In addition, investments in transmission infrastructure not only unbottle renewable energy but also yield production cost savings and reliability benefits.
In sum, the total estimated costs associated with these programs or projects should not be considered as entirely incremental costs to what ratepayers would otherwise pay. Subsequent annual reports may include additional information about costs recovered relative to the funding previously authorized by the Commission in these programs, including funds already expended in support of these programs.
The takeaway message from Table 8 is that the authorized funding to date of program costs that will eventually make their way to ratepayer bills totals $43.756 billion. Note that the spreadsheet version of this table details the footnote costs.
The following table (Summary tab in the spreadsheet) combines Table 4: 2022 Electric CLCPA Recoveries and Table 8: Authorized Funding to Date. This represents my best estimates of where the cost categories coincide but it represents my opinion only. Given all the caveats in the preceding description I don’t think anyone has a definitive handle on these numbers. The thing that jumps out is the difference between the relatively paltry $1.176 billion in estimated Climate Act costs collected in 2022 relative to the $43.756 billion in authorized funding. Table 4 data is for one year and Table 8 data is over multiple years. The caveats in the previous quotation should be kept in mind.
Buried in a footnote is an admission that these are not all the costs authorized. Footnote 7 in Table 8 states:
Not included in this table is the Propel NY transmission project, selected by the NYISO Board in June 2023 in response to the Commission’s declaration of a public policy transmission need (PPTN) to support injections of offshore wind energy to the Long Island system by 2030 at an estimated cost of $3.36 billion. Since the Commission did not directly approve this project, the estimated cost is not captured in the table above.
The bottom line is that this is just the start of the costs. The Propel transmission project is one example. I described this project and its costs earlier this year. I noted that the costs associated with this project are for 3,000 MW of offshore wind. The Climate Act goal is for 9,000 MW and the Scoping Plan Integration Analysis projects that 12,675 MW of offshore wind will be needed by 2040 in the Strategic Use of Low-Carbon Fuels mitigation scenario. If the transmission costs are proportional that would mean that transmission costs will be three to four times higher than the $3.36 billion listed for the program that is not included. I am sure that there are many more examples of programs that will be needed to satisfy the regulated utility obligations for Climate Act emission reduction mandates.
NYCI Reference Case Scenario
The proposed modeling methodology for NYCI proposes to follow the same policy modeling approach as the Scoping Plan where a business-as-usual baseline is not used as the comparison standard for the policy scenarios. Instead, they propose to use the Scoping Plan Reference Case described as “Business as usual plus implemented policies” that includes the following:
Growth in housing units, population, commercial square footage, and GDP
Federal appliance standards
Economic fuel switching
New York State bioheat mandate
Estimate of New Efficiency, New York Energy Efficiency achieved by funded programs: HCR+NYPA, DPS (IOUs), LIPA, NYSERDA CEF (assumes market transformation maintains level of efficiency and electrification post-2025)
Funded building electrification (4% HP stock share by 2030)
Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards
Zero-emission vehicle mandate (8% LDV ZEV stock share by 2030)
Clean Energy Standard (70×30), including technology carveouts: (6 GW of behind-the-meter solar by 2025, 3 GW of battery storage by 2030, 9 GW of offshore wind by 2035, 1.25 GW of Tier 4 renewables by 2030)
Business-as-usual in my opinion should only include: growth in housing units, population, commercial square footage, and GDP; Federal appliance standards; and economic fuel switching. All the other programs only exist as part of electrification strategies to reduce GHG emissions.
The Analysis Inputs and Methods webinar presentation stated that the Scoping Plan’s Reference Case will be updated with policies adopted since the original modeling was completed. The webinar asked for input on which policies to include from the following list:
NYC Local Laws
Statewide new construction codes
IRA Incentives
Advanced Clean Cars II/Advanced Clean Trucks
100% sales MHDVs by 2045
100% ZEV school buses by 2035, 100% transit buses by 2040
IRA Methane Charge
EPA Supplemental Rule
NYS Part 203
AIM Act (EPA Technology Transitions)
All of these programs also exist solely to reduce GHG emissions. In order to determine the cost to meet the Climate Act targets they should be included as part of the policy case and not the business-as-usual case.
It can be argued that every line item in Table 8 could be considered part of the proposed Reference Case because some component of each category started before the Climate Act was enacted. Recall that the Informational Report did not try to differentiate between pre-Climate Act and post-Climate Act programs so there are portions of the programs listed that will likely not be considered appropriate for the reference case. However, using this definition most of these costs will be in the reference case and I would bet that the rationale and costs will not be documented well enough to determine which specific control programs are included.
One other way to differentiate between pre-Climate Act and post-Climate Act enactment is by the case number. The first two digits are the year the proceeding began. In my summary table there is only one case number 20 or higher. Strategic Use of Energy Related Data (Case 20-M-0082) has $72 million funding authorized to date. Using this approach, the proposed Reference Case would include $43.684 billion program costs as opposed to the $43.756 billion of total authorized costs. I believe that they can pick and choose programs to include or exclude based on this reference case approach to satisfy the political motivations of the Hochul Administration.
Discussion
The Scoping Plan has been described as “a true masterpiece in how to hide what is important under an avalanche of words designed to make people never want to read it”. The quantitative documentation supporting the document hides relevant information even better. The single number that most New Yorkers want to know is how much will this cost. The Scoping Plan cost numbers did not answer that question.
I addressed the Scoping Plan cost and benefit numbers in my Draft Scoping Plan comments and the verbal comments I presented at the Syracuse public hearing. The issues I raised and summarized in this post have never been addressed. In that post I compared the Scoping Plan cost presentation to a shell game. A shell game is defined as “A fraud or deception perpetrated by shifting conspicuous things to hide something else.” In the Scoping Plan shell game, the authors argue that energy costs in New York are needed to maintain business as usual infrastructure even without decarbonization policies but then include decarbonization costs for “already implemented” programs in the Reference Case baseline contrary to standard operating procedure for this kind of modeling. Shifting legitimate decarbonization costs to the Reference Case because they are already implemented without adequate documentation fits the shifting condition of the shell game deception definition perfectly.
Anyone who has not spent much time following the Climate Act implementation process might ask why was this done for the Scoping Plan analysis and why is it being proposed for the NYCI modeling analysis. One of the justifications for the Scoping Plan was that the “costs of inaction are more than the costs of action”. Shifting implementation costs away from the Climate Act program reduced the costs of actions to the point that they could make that claim.
Why are they doing it again? One of the great unknowns in the NYCI implementation process is the revenue target. The rational approach would be to calculate expected total costs, revenues from Federal programs, revenues from utility ratepayers, and personal and business investments for required infrastructure then calculate the difference between costs and those revenues as the amount necessary for the cap-and-invest revenues. Each of those values is a politically sensitive number that will likely cause public outcry because it is going to be large. If the NYCI revenue target does not include all the costs necessary to meet the Climate Act targets because those costs are covered elsewhere, then the NYCI modeling can show that the program is “affordable” and will not be a major burden. Given that this strategy worked for the Scoping Plan “costs of inaction are less then the costs of action” scam I believe they are sticking with a proven strategy.
Conclusion
This past week there were signs of discontent with the potential costs of the Climate Act on utility ratepayer assessments. Utility bills in New York City will go up significantly next month when Consolidated Edison of New York’s new rate case assessments become effective. Con Ed admitted that renewable energy investments contributed to the cost increases. “Our customers demand safe and reliable service and increasingly renewable energy. This investment from customers is going to allow us to redesign and rebuild the grid, to move it towards electrification,” Con Ed media relations director Jamie McShane told Fox News Digital.
Comparison of the two state initiatives indicate that these costs are going to get much worse. The PSC Implementation Report states “The magnitude of change the CLCPA requires is significant and will present challenges related to the need to preserve the resiliency and reliability of the energy systems, and cost mitigation to preserve energy affordability”. The NYCI modeling assessment proposes to use an inappropriate modeling scenario that hides the true costs of implementation. I have little doubt that the Hochul Administration analysis team has already determined that this approach is necessary to provide a politically correct NYCI revenue target.
At this point all anyone can do is to ask for a full accounting of the costs and expected emission reductions for all the control strategies necessary to meet the net-zero Climate Act mandate. This information was not provided in the Scoping Plan but is a prerequisite for the proposed NYCI program.
Finally, note that the costs addressed in the PSC proceeding are ratepayer costs for energy. The overall strategy for de-carbonization is to electrify everything possible. The costs for each homeowner to replace their furnace, stove, and hot water heater with an electrical replacement is not included. There also will be homeowner costs associated with electric vehicles to say nothing of the cost of electric vehicle itself. When everything is added up the costs will be enormous. I do not think that customer demand for renewable energy is as strong as the desire for affordable energy. It is past time for the Hochul Administration to supply a full accounting of potential costs to residents and businesses so that people will be able to decide for themselves how much they want to pay.
The goals for two proceedings associated with the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) are not clear. The Public Service Commission (PSC) Order on Implementation of the Climate Act (Case 22-M-0149) is supposed to “both track and assess the advancements made towards meeting the CLCPA mandates and provide policy guidance, as necessary, for the additional actions needed to help achieve the objectives of the Climate Act”. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) are implementing the New York Cap-and-Invest (NYCI) proposed by Governor Hochul which is a market-based program to raise revenues for the strategies necessary to meet the mandates of the Climate Act. The question for both programs is whether their goal is to address the Climate Act itself or the entirety of the effort needed to make the transition targets mandated by the Climate Act.
I have been following the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 300 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good. The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.
Climate Act Background
The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and an interim 2030 reduction target of a 40% reduction by 2030. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlines how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” In brief, that plan is to electrify everything possible and power the electric grid with zero-emissions generating resources. 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 write a Draft Scoping Plan. After a year-long review the Scoping Plan recommendations were finalized at the end of 2022. In 2023 the Scoping Plan recommendations are supposed to be implemented through regulation and legislation. This post addresses a couple of implementation components.
PSC Order on Implementation of the Climate Act
The order implementing this proceeding explains that:
The changes contemplated by the CLCPA are expected to profoundly transform the State’s regulatory landscape and impact every sector of the economy. The Public Service Commission (Commission) will play a critical role in these efforts as it continues to implement a variety of clean energy initiatives, including those related to the deployment of renewable energy resources to support the State’s transition to a zero emissions electric grid, energy efficiency, building electrification, and zero emission transportation.
The Commission has already begun to implement the many objectives of the CLCPA through a number of existing proceedings. To date, the Commission has authorized the offshore wind solicitations necessary to achieve the CLCPA goal of procuring nine gigawatts (GW), funded programs to support the electrification of buildings’ heating load and the transportation industry, supported both large scale and distributed clean energy project development, funded programs to reduce natural gas and electricity usage in the State, and instituted a coordinated planning process to evaluate local transmission and distribution system needs to support the State’s full transition to renewable generation.
The Commission has quickly taken action related to items within its jurisdiction to help put the State on a path to meet the aggressive CLCPA targets. However, in consideration of the scope of the CLCPA and the extensive work necessary to achieve its mandates, continuous monitoring of the progress made will be crucial to ensure the State remains on track to achieve these objectives. In addition, there are existing policies that will need to be reviewed, and new policies that will need to be developed, to further the enablement of the CLCPA. This proceeding will be the forum for such policy development. By this Order, the Commission institutes this new proceeding to both track and assess the advancements made towards meeting the CLCPA mandates and provide policy guidance, as necessary, for the additional actions needed to help achieve the objectives of the CLCPA.
On July 20, 2023 the first annual informational report for this proceeding was released. The Power Point presentation summarizing the results includes the following slide describing the purpose, requirements, and goals for the annual report. It explains that the PSC has statutory responsibilities in implementing the Climate Act that must be consistent with its “core mission to ensure that utilities can provide safe and adequate service at just and reasonable rates along with the reliability and resiliency of the system.” My interpretation is that the PSC is required to address all actions, both pre-and post-Climate Act enactment by the Commission to achieve the mandates of the Act.
The report describes the information provided:
The cost recoveries, benefits, and other information reported here are mainly focused on the direct effects of CLCPA implementation. Notably, the estimates of total funding authorized by the Commission to date for various clean energy programs in some instances reflect actions that pre-date the enactment of the CLCPA. With respect to both pre- and post-CLCPA measures, this report focuses only the portion of those direct effects arising from programs over which the Commission has oversight authority and does not account for programs implemented by other state agencies that are funded from other sources (e.g., Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) funding). Examples of effects not captured here include property tax revenues to localities from newly developed renewable generation facilities, workforce development and job growth, and local air quality impacts, among others. It should also be noted that the benefits and costs of the measures discussed in this report do not accrue uniformly across stakeholders, and in some cases one stakeholder’s benefit is another’s cost. As such, this report generally describes a subset of benefits and costs related to the CLCPA and does so from the perspective of New York as a whole by using the Societal Cost Test. In instances where this report adopts a different perspective, it indicates what that perspective is. For those benefits that are difficult to quantify, this report includes qualitative descriptions of the nature, extent, and incidence of the benefit.
The issue I want to raise in this post relates to this description and the PSC core mission “to ensure that utilities can provide safe and adequate service at just and reasonable rates along with the reliability and resiliency of the system.” In particular, consideration of just and reasonable rates needs to consider the effect of other programs that directly impact rates. Although the Commission has no oversight authority for programs like RGGI and NYCI, the costs associated with those programs are passed through to ratepayers. Therefore, I believe that this report should include those costs and any other programs that directly affect ratepayer costs in its assessment.
New York Cap-and-Invest
In June 2023, DEC and NYSERDA hosted a series of webinars addressing NYCI implementation. The Cap-and-Invest Analysis Inputs and Methods webinar (Inputs and Methods Webinar Presentation and View Session Recording) on June 20, 2023 described proposed policy modeling. In order to evaluate the effects of different policy options, this kind of modeling analysis forecasts future conditions for a baseline or “business-as-usual” case, makes projections for different policy options, and then the results are compared relative to the baseline case.
The proposed modeling approach uses a unique approach. The Scoping Plan modeling used a reference case that included “already implemented” programs instead of the usual practice of a “business-as-usual” base case. The NYCI Cap-and-Invest Analysis Inputs and Methods webinar proposed to use the same framework. Starting with the reference case developed for the Scoping Plan, the NYCI modeling proposal will add policies enacted since then.
It is more appropriate to compare the policy cases to a base case that excludes all programs intended to reduce GHG emissions. Putting the pre-Climate Act programs and costs in the reference case means that the cost forecasts will not include all the measures necessary to meet the Climate Act mandates. One of the goals of NYCI is to “minimize potential consumer costs while supporting critical investments” but the proposed approach will only consider a subset of the total costs necessary to meet the Climate Act mandates.
Discussion
The question for both proceedings is whether the goal is to consider all the costs and benefits of the Climate Act or some sub-set. The Hochul Administration has never released its estimate of the total costs to meet any of the Climate Act targets. Instead of providing the cost and benefit components themselves only net numbers are provided to support the misleading and inaccurate party line statement that the costs of inaction are more than the costs of action. In order to make that statement the Administration used the reference case approach that hides the total implementation costs.
There are implications for these two proceedings. In order to provide the total costs, both should cover as many programs as possible. The PSC has statutory limits on its Climate Act Implementation analysis that precludes many aspects of the transition but I believe that they should incorporate the costs of Climate Act-related expenditures that get incorporated into ratepayer assessments even if they are not in a rate case proceeding. There was one relevant item not addressed in the PSC Climate Act Implementation Report. New York Public Service Law § 66-p. “Establishment of a renewable energy program” has safety valve conditions for affordability and reliability that are directly related to the PSC core mission “to ensure that utilities can provide safe and adequate service at just and reasonable rates along with the reliability and resiliency of the system.” § 66-p (4) states: “The commission may temporarily suspend or modify the obligations under such program provided that the commission, after conducting a hearing as provided in section twenty of this chapter, makes a finding that the program impedes the provision of safe and adequate electric service; the program is likely to impair existing obligations and agreements; and/or that there is a significant increase in arrears or service disconnections that the commission determines is related to the program”. I think that this mandate calls for including ratepayer costs that are not related to a rate case proceeding.
With respect to NYCI the question is what is the expectation for the revenues. The revenues needed to make the necessary changes to the energy system are not related to the legislation or regulation that drives the initiative. Therefore, the proposed modeling should evaluate the policy scenarios against a business-as-usual base case that excludes any program that exists to reduce GHG emissions. Furthermore, the proposed approach will not be able to provide an estimate of necessary revenues to meet the Climate Act mandates because it excludes already implemented policies and their associated costs.
Conclusion
The goals for these two programs should be clarified. I believe that I am not the only resident of New York that wants to know the all-in costs necessary to meet the Climate Act mandates. In order to provide those numbers both proceedings should address as many program costs as possible for the effort needed to make the transition targets mandated by the Climate Act.
I intend to evaluate the reported costs in the PSC Climate Act Implementation Analysis relative to the NYCI modeling proposal included programs. At this point I can only say the NYCI approach will be mis-leading for the revenue needs of the Climate Act transition costs but cannot estimate the magnitude of the error. Arbitrarily eliminating some costs is nothing more than a politically expedient ploy to downplay the total costs of the Climate Act.
A real short post. I have been following 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 300 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. My boilerplate introductory material notes that I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good. The recommended videos in this post support my position.
The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.
Climate Policies Hurt the Environment
There is very little career upside for anyone in a regulatory agency to speak up about the environmental impacts of wind and solar development. Consequently, there is not much apparent support for my belief that the Climate Act net-zero transition will do more harm than good. This post links to a video interview with John Baker, retired Assistant Chief with California Fish and Wildlife Department who describes double standards he experienced while enforcing California’s environmental laws:
“In the name of green energy, we’re sacrificing wildlife species. Because of the power mandates, we’re unable to enforce the take of that. I don’t think they have thought what that cost is to us as Californians and to the environment as a whole.”
Baker describes the pragmatic tradeoffs that have been ignored in the rush for net-zero transition.
Climate Fearmongering
Paul Homewood introduces a video with Neil Oliver: Weather maps are among the most blatant forms of fearmongering deployed so far. He notes that British weather maps on TV now use daily temperature maps with frightening colors. He calls out the fearmongers by describing historical European heat waves and goes on to call attention to the hypocrisy of the loudest voices. Finally he notes that the 99.7% of scientists meme is a “scam”.
As they say in the investment business, past performance is no guarantee of future profits. Just because the climatistas consistently got it woefully wrong in the past does not mean that this time around they aren’t right. They could be right this time. There may be a wolf for real this time.
But here’s the thing. They got it wrong in the past for a particular set of reasons. Those same reasons continue to apply in the present case too. Therefore, past performance guarantees the present performance to be precisely the same.
On July 11, 2023 the Partners for Climate Action, Hudson Valley hosted a morning coffee webinar titled “Bringing Climate Into the Classroom”. The first presentation by Samrat Pathania included a slide that stated that climate change is not a technological problem because “most climate solutions exist and are economically feasible”. I consider those statements net-zero transition myths that underpin the narratives of climate activists. This article addresses them both in the context of New York’s Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) 2040 mandate for a zero-emissions electric grid.
I have been following the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 300 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good. The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.
Climate Act Background
The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050. It includes an interim 2030 reduction target of a 40% reduction by 2030 and a requirement that all electricity generated be “zero-emissions” by 2040. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlines how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” In brief, that plan is to electrify everything possible and power the electric grid with zero-emissions generating resources. 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 write a Draft Scoping Plan. After a year-long review the Scoping Plan recommendations were finalized at the end of 2022. In 2023 the Scoping Plan recommendations are supposed to be implemented through regulation and legislation.
The idea that the Climate Act has no technological issues and that the transition will be affordable is a basic component of the Act. Robert W. Howarth, Ph.D., the David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology & Environmental Biology at Cornell University claims that he played a key role in the drafting of the Climate Act. His statement supporting the approval of the Scoping Plan explains (my emphasis added):
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.
The presentation by Pathania included a slide that said that solving climate change was not a technological issue. In the video he explains that most climate solutions exist and are economically feasible. The remainder of this article will address those two components relative to the Climate Act requirement that all electricity generated be “zero-emissions” by 2040. I assume New York will follow the advice of Howarth that New York can “rapidly move away from fossil fuels and instead be fueled completely by the power of the wind, the sun, and hydro”.
Before I address the claims, I want to address why academics like Howarth and the NGOs that evaluate electric energy net-zero transition programs generate misleading studies and reports. Russell Schussler wrote three articles after reading an argument that wind and solar could “easily” be made reliable. In the first article he points out that analyses that claim reliability is not an issue don’t consider all the complex interactions in the electric system. Frequently the difference between power and energy is not understood or misused either by the authors or those who reference the studies claiming current technology is adequate. In the second article Schussler explains that “academics study some problems, determine those are solvable and that is then misinterpreted to imply that greater emerging problems are also solved or easily solvable”. He states that “Barring major breakthroughs in the areas of critical technical challenges (which don’t seem to be receiving a lot of attention at the policy level) the grid cannot reliably support the envisioned increase penetration of wind and solar need to get anywhere close to a net zero goal.” In the third article, he points out that we are a long way from figuring out how to solve for a net zero grid in terms of just theory and what might work on paper is not working as planned as new technology is deployed for many fundamental emerging grid problems.
Climate Solution Technology
A fundamental tenet of the Climate Act is that New York’s electric grid can be powered wind, solar, and hydro and that it can be done completely with currently available technologies. In my opinion one of the greatest missed opportunities of the Climate Action Council was the failure of the Hochul Administration to confront this claim during Council deliberations. . On September 16, 2020 In their presentation to the Power Generation Advisory Panel E3 included a slide titled Electricity Supply – Firm Capacity. Their presentation states: “As the share of intermittent resources like wind and solar grows substantially, some studies suggest that complementing with firm, zero emission resources, such as bioenergy, synthesized fuels such as hydrogen, hydropower, carbon capture and sequestration, and nuclear generation could provide a number of benefits.” The Integration Analysis future generating resource projections project that this resource will equal the amount of existing fossil generation capacity in 2040. The Scoping Plan mentions nuclear only in passing, the Council discouraged any thought of combustion with carbon capture and sequestration, and the amount of bioenergy and hydro resources that can be added to New York’s electric system are small relative to the need. That leaves synthesized fuels. That technology and any other possibilities are not commercially available. Despite the best efforts of the New York State Independent System Operator (NYISO), the New York State Reliability Council (NYSRC), and several members of the Council to prod the Administration and Council into confronting the reliability ramifications of reliance on an unproven technology it was essentially ignored in the Scoping Plan.
The New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) recently initiated an “Order initiating a process regarding the zero-emissions target” that will “identify innovative technologies to ensure reliability of a zero-emissions electric grid”. The press release states:
Today’s action recognizes that as renewable resources and storage facilities are added to the State’s energy supply, additional clean-energy resources capable of responding to fluctuating conditions might be needed to maintain the reliability of the electric grid. The Commission’s work to meet the Climate Act targets must include exploration of technologies that can support reliability once fossil generation has been removed from the system. The order initiates a process to identify technologies that can close the anticipated gap between the capabilities of existing renewable energy technologies and future system reliability needs. Within the order, the Commission asks stakeholders a series of important questions, including how to define ‘zero-emissions’ for purposes of the zero emissions by 2040 target, and whether that definition should include cutting edge technologies such as advanced nuclear, long duration energy storage, green hydrogen, and demand response. The order further elicits feedback from stakeholders on how to best design a zero-emissions by 2040 program, consistent with the Climate Act’s requirement of delivering substantial benefits to disadvantaged communities and New York State’s electric grid reliability rules, while also leveraging other state and federal efforts to research, develop, and deploy zero-emission resources.
The organizations responsible for the reliability of the electric system in New York all say that additional clean-energy resources that do not have emissions and can be dispatched as necessary are needed. Anyone who disagrees with that is naïve, ignorant or deliberately ignoring reality.
Affordability
The myth that converting to solar and wind resources will be cheaper than using fossil fuels is very persistent. The only way it can be perpetuated is if only relative costs are considered or if the difference between power and energy is not recognized. The Scoping Plan claims that “The cost of inaction exceeds the cost of action by more than $90 billion” but that realtive number reduces costs by subtracting value-laden benefits.
The cost that matters to New Yorkers are the direct costs. I recently described my response to the claim that “Solar power is now considerably cheaper than new coal, natural gas, or nuclear energy” by Richard Perez, Ph.D. He claimed that “utility-scale solar electricity has become the least expensive form of electricity generation” but that is true for power capacity (MW). Even if solar capacity is half the cost of fossil capacity the cost for delivered energy is much more. We pay for the kWh electric energy we use each month and we expect it to be available 24-7 throughout the year. In order to provide usable energy, other things must be considered that destroy the myth that utility-scale solar is cheaper than other types of power plants. On average a well-designed solar facility can provide (round numbers) 20% of its potential energy possible in New York. A natural gas fired power plant can operate to produce at least 80% of its potential energy over a year. In order to produce the same amount of energy, that means that you need four times as much solar capacity. Even if the solar capacity cost is half the cost for the capacity, the energy cost is double simply due to this capacity factor difference. My response went on to describe other reasons why it cannot be cheaper: the cost of storage when the sun or wind is not available, the need for ancillary transmission services not provided by wind and solar, and the need for the zero-emissions resource described above.
Solar and wind are only cheaper than fossil fuels in at most a small fraction of situations. For the overwhelming majority of the world’s energy needs, solar and wind are either completely unable to replace fossil fuels or far more expensive.
I encourage any doubters to read the article but provide some highlights below.
On its face, justifying favoritism toward solar and wind by invoking their cheapness is highly suspicious. If they’re cheaper, why do they need coercive policies to throttle their fossil-fueled competitors (e.g., opposing fossil fuel investment, production, and pipelines) and reward solar and wind?
That solar and wind aren’t actually cheaper than fossil fuels should be obvious from the fact that despite enormous cultural and political hostility toward fossil fuels that makes fossil fuels artificially expensive, fossil fuel use is still growing.
When discussing “energy prices” we must recognize that “energy” refers to myriad specific use-cases involving different
Types of machines
Reliability requirements
Locations
Quantities
For the vast majority of use-cases solar and wind can’t compete with fossil fuels.
While it is very common to use the terms “energy” and “electricity” interchangeably, the fact is that the vast majority of machines in the world today don’t run on electricity—they run on the direct burning of fossil fuels, because that is the only or cheapest way to run them.
Many instances of “solar and wind are cheaper than fossil fuels” not only ignore the non-electricity uses where solar and wind are totally uncompetitive, they use a bogus metric called “Levelized Cost of Energy” (LCOE) which by its own definition ignores the issue of reliability!
The basic cost problem with solar and wind is their inherent unreliability. To use them to deliver reliable electricity we need to also pay for a reliable life-support grid (e.g., gas plants). This is very often wasteful; it’s usually cheaper just to pay for a reliable grid.
When we look at large regions that use solar and wind a lot, we see a trend of price increases and/or reliability decreases, because solar and wind add costs to the reliable grids needed to support them—and if you try to save money by shrinking the reliable grid you get reliability problems.¹¹
Whenever you hear someone rave about Southern California or Iowa or West Texas in making some general laudatory claim about solar and wind, you can be sure that the person is trying to dupe you through false generalization from one location to every location.
Note that false generalization from one location to all locations is also common for geothermal energy.
In addition to all their other problems, solar and wind have mining requirements that make them expensive to scale quickly.
Yet today’s solar and wind prices are falsely generalized to be the same or lower if solar and wind scale on a crazy “net-zero-by-2050” timetable.
Whenever we talk about the price of energy, we need to recognize that the price of energy can change dramatically depending on the scale it is being used on.
Sometimes larger scales can reduce prices (economies of scale) and sometimes larger scales can increase prices (diseconomies of scale).
Saying “solar and wind are cheaper” because they might be cheaper at powering midday and afternoon air-conditioning in Dubai is like a CEO saying “teenage labor is cheaper” because it can fill some mailroom positions.
The evidence that solar and wind cannot reduce the price of electricity is overwhelming.
Conclusion
The myths that no new technologies are needed to transition away from fossil fuels and that wind and solar are cheaper than fossil fuels are common. I recently had a commentary published that argued the solar could not be cheaper than a natural gas-fired turbine and rebuttals were published that ignored all the reasons I described here. All that pragmatists can do is to continue to point out the facts and hope that policy makers will come to their senses before the economy is devastated by this nonsensical policy. Equally troubling is that the European experience is showing that wind is not viable, the costs of wind and solar in Germany are untenable, and that a rapid energy transition has many risks but that information is also being ignored.
The most troubling aspect of this story is that the “Bringing Climate Into the Classroom” webinar peddled these myths without any limitations. The presentation by Samrat Pathania included a slide that stated that climate change is not a technological problem because “most climate solutions exist and are economically feasible”. After making the statement his presentation argued that all we need to do is to make a cultural transformation. He said that “Hope and Trust are two of the pillars of a classroom community”. I worry that the constant barrage of existential climate Armageddon stories that can be easily solved being peddled as in this webinar is going to destroy trust when the inevitability of reality eviscerates these myths. Won’t the students lose hope when that happens? Then what will they think?
On July 20, 2023 the first annual informational report on the implementation of the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act)) was released. There is a lot of information in this report that needs to be parsed out but because this is the first report that provides any Climate Act implementation estimated costs for ratepayers, I am publishing this initial summary.
I have been following the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 300 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good. The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.
Climate Act Background
The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050. It includes an interim 2030 reduction target of a 40% reduction by 2030 and a requirement that all electricity generated be “zero-emissions” by 2040. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlines how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” In brief, that plan is to electrify everything possible and power the electric grid with zero-emissions generating resources. 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 write a Draft Scoping Plan. After a year-long review the Scoping Plan recommendations were finalized at the end of 2022. In 2023 the Scoping Plan recommendations are supposed to be implemented through regulation and legislation.
The Climate Act’s directives require the Commission to build upon its existing efforts to combat climate change through the deployment of clean energy resources and energy storage technologies, energy efficiency and building electrification measures, and electric vehicle charging infrastructure. In recognition of the scale of change and significant work that will be necessary to meet the Climate Act’s aggressive targets, the Commission directed DPS staff to assess the progress made in line with its directives under the Climate Act and to provide guidance, as appropriate, on how to timely meet the requirements of the Climate Act.
One of the difficulties trying to understand what expenses have been authorized to date that are covered by this report is the number of programs involved. Seven authorized programs are covered: Clean Energy Standard (CES) Clean Energy Fund (CEF), certain Value of Distributed Energy Resources (VDER), Electric Vehicle Make Ready Program, Clean Heat programs, Integrated Energy Data Resource (IEDR), and Utility Energy Efficiency programs. In a subsequent post I will try to address these programs and their place in the Scoping Plan strategies in detail.
The seven authorized programs support various components of Climate Act mandated strategies. The Clean Energy Standard was originally adopted in 2016 and set a goal for 50% of the electricity consumed in the State by 2030 to be generated by renewable energy sources. There were subsequent revisions and the initiatives been expanded, where necessary, to support Climate Act mandates. The Clean Energy Fund provides support for innovation & research, market development, the NY Green Bank, and NY Sun. Value of Distributed Energy Resources programs support energy generated by distributed energy resources such as solar photovoltaic, energy storage, combined heat and power, anaerobic digesters, wind turbines and small hydro and fuel cells. The Electric Vehicle Make Ready Program funds infrastructure for electric vehicles. Clean Heat programs and promote the electrification of space and water heating by offering contractor and customer incentives for the installation of air- and ground-source heat pumps. The Integrated Energy Data Resource will be a “statewide resource to securely collect, integrate, and provide access to energy related information”. The Utility Energy Efficiency programs support energy conservation and efficiency programs.
For the average residential electric customer, the rate impacts for these critically important investments, not accounting for the overall societal benefits, range from 3.7 percent to 9.8 percent, depending on the utility. The rate impacts for non-residential customer varies depending on the utility and the amount of electricity consumed.
I am not familiar with the jargon of the Department of Public Service (DPS) rate descriptions. I believe that when DPS talks about cost recovery they are referring to costs that the utilities have incurred to implement the Climate Act requirements that have been charged back to the ratepayers. The report notes:
For purposes of estimating the cost recoveries of CLCPA related initiatives in 2022, Staff issued information requests to each of the utilities. Specifically, Staff requested the utilities provide 2022 cost recoveries for: CES (electric only), CEF (electric only), certain VDER (electric only), Electric Vehicle Make Ready Program (electric only), Clean Heat programs (electric only), Integrated Energy Data Resource (electric only), and Utility Energy Efficiency programs (electric and gas).
The following figure summaries the costs recovered in 2022 by the utilities associated with these gas and electric programs. The Climate Act program costs paid by New York gas ratepayers totaled $112,967,498 in 2022 (Table 3). Electric ratepayers paid $1,175,788,000 in 2022 (Table 4).
These totals were converted to gas and electric ratepayer impacts in the report.
The report estimates the effect of the Climate Act programs typical monthly gas bills in Table 6 using the following assumptions:
Staff issued information requests to each of the utilities to help estimate the bill impacts associated with the CLCPA related cost recoveries. Staff requested the utilities provide typical gas delivery and supply bills for 2022 for the following customer types:
A. Residential heating customers (83 therms per month),
B. Small commercial customers (2,500 therms per month),
C. Commercial customers (10,000 therms per month), and
D. Industrial customers (100,000 therms per month).
The report estimates the effect of the Climate Act programs on typical monthly electric bills in Table 7 using the following assumptions:
Staff requested the utilities provide typical electric delivery and supply bills for 2022 for the following customer types:
A. Residential customers (600 kWh per month),
B. Non-residential customers (50 kW & 12,600 kWh per month),
C. Non-residential customers (2,000 kW & 720,000 kWh per month), and
D. Non-residential high load factor customers (2,000 kW & 1,296,000 kWh per month).
The 2022 combined total costs recovered from gas and electric ratepayers is $1,288,755,498. Table 8 lists the costs that have been authorized but not yet captured and that total is 43,756,000,000. Clearly ratepayer costs will have to increase more to cover these additional costs. The report states:
This annual report is a review of actual costs incurred by ratepayers to date in support of various programs and projects to implement the CLCPA and does not fully capture potential future expenditures, including estimated costs already authorized by the Commission but not yet recovered in rates. To complement this overview of cost recoveries incurred to date, we also present below a table of the various programs and the total amount of estimated costs associated with each authorized by the Commission to date. Table 8 gives a sense of expenditures that ratepayers could ultimately see recovered in rates. These values are conservative and reflect both past and prospective estimated costs.
Conclusion
There is a lot to unpack in this report. I plan to look at the numbers in various programs and try to reconcile them with other cost estimates. The report also includes estimates of benefits that need to be addressed.
Based on this first review it is already obvious that costs are significant and this is only the beginning. Many more programs will be required to implement the net-zero transition. Stay tuned.
On July 14, 2023 the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) released its quarterly assessment of reliability of the bulk electric system. The analysis found a deficit in reliability margins for the New York City area beginning in summer 2025. As a result, something must be done or there will be unacceptable risks to reliability that could cause power outages. Unfortunately, it is difficult to understand the reasons for this finding because of the complexity of the subject. This post includes a detailed explanation of the report and its implications. If you want a good non-technical summary, then I recommend James Hanley’s post Get Ready for the New York City Blackout of 2025.
I have been following the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) since it was first proposed. I submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan and have written over 300 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act and New York’s energy planning because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good. Unfortunately, trying to explain the risks and issues associated with the transition is difficult because of the complexity of the problems and the fact that expert reports are dense and filled with jargon. The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.
Resource Adequacy Assessments
The NYISO is responsible power system reliability and competitive markets for New York. As part of that mission NYISO determines whether generating resources and the transmission system can adequately meet expected load. They describe the resource adequacy analyses as follows:
Resource adequacy is the ability of the electric system to supply the aggregate electrical demand and energy requirements of the firm load at all times, considering scheduled and reasonably expected unscheduled outages of system elements. The NYISO performs resource adequacy assessments on a probabilistic basis to capture the random nature of system element outages. If a system has sufficient transmission and generation, the probability of an unplanned disconnection of firm load is equal to or less than the system’s standard, which is expressed as a loss of load expectation (LOLE). Consistent with the Northeast Power Coordinating Council and New York State Reliability Council criterion, the New York State bulk power system is planned to meet an LOLE that, at any given point in time, is less than or equal to an involuntary firm load disconnection that is not more frequent than once in every 10 years, or 0.1 event days per year.
So what does that mean? The first point is that the electric system is very complicated. I summarized my skepticism of the net-zero transition earlier this year in an article that included an overview of the electric system. Incredibly all the fossil, hydro, and nuclear generating stations in the Eastern Interconnection shown below work together. In order to provide electricity, the generating turbines are synchronized to turn at 1800 revolutions per minute. Operators keeps the voltages as constant as possible in the entire area but rely on those turbines to provide inertia as well as voltage control and that can be dispatched as necessary to match load. The NYISO operates the New York State control area within the Interconnection. In addition to the day-to-day operation, they plan for resource adequacy to ensure that the operators have generating resources available so that they can constantly match load.
The NYISO resource adequacy assessments rely on decades of observed characteristics of generating resources, the transmission system, and system load to develop the likelihood of system element outages. If a system has sufficient transmission and generation, then when a problem occurs (say lightning hits a transmission line) the system can respond without an extended outage. The NYISO has a well-established process to identify reliability needs. The analyses consider how the system can react to various combinations of issues based on historical observations of the existing system to determine the loss of load expectation (LOLE). The organizations overseeing New York reliability, the Northeast Power Coordinating Council and New York State Reliability Council, mandate that the New York State bulk power system is planned to meet the LOLE standard that any involuntary firm load disconnection is not more frequent than once in every 10 years, or 0.1 event days per year.
Annotated Executive Summary
This section quotes the Executive Summary in the report and explains the contents. As part of an on-going reliability assessment process the NYISO analyzes any expected changes to the generation and transmission system:
This report sets forth the 2023 Quarter 2 Short-Term Assessment of Reliability (“STAR”) findings for the five-year study period of April 15, 2023, through April 15, 2028, considering forecasts of peak power demand, planned upgrades to the transmission system, and changes to the generation mix over the next five years.
The analysis finds that there are issues associated with peaking power plants in New York City. I have been involved with this problem and these facilities since 2000. This topic has been the subject of multiple articles on this blog and I have summarized my articles as on overview that I can reference when the issue resurfaces. The Executive Summary notes:
This assessment finds a reliability need beginning in summer 2025 within New York City primarily driven by a combination of forecasted increases in peak demand and the assumed unavailability of certain generation in New York City affected by the “Peaker Rule.” In 2019, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation adopted a regulation to limit nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions from simple-cycle combustion turbines, referred to as the “Peaker Rule” (https://www.dec.ny.gov/regulations/116131.html)
The Peaker Rule culminated a decade-long process whereby the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) instituted a framework to retire or control the “peakers”. The DEC, NYISO, facility owners and Consolidate Edison, the load serving entity for New York City, all worked together to ensure that the retirement would not endanger reliability. This latest analysis suggests that there are still issues to be resolved:
Combustion turbines known as “peakers” typically operate to maintain bulk power system reliability during the most stressful operating conditions, such as periods of peak electricity demand. As of May 1, 2023, 1,027 MW of affected peakers have deactivated or limited their operation. An additional 590 MW of peakers are expected to become unavailable beginning May 1, 2025, all of which are in New York City. With the additional peakers unavailable, the bulk power transmission system will not be able to securely and reliably serve the forecasted demand in New York City (Zone J). Specifically, the New York City zone is deficient by as much as 446 MW for a duration of nine hours on the peak day during expected weather conditions when accounting for forecasted economic growth and policy-driven increases in demand.
The following paragraph explains that the reliability need is expected because the latest projections of generation, load, and transmission availability have changed over time:
The reliability need is based on a deficient transmission security margin that accounts for expected generator availability, transmission limitations, and updated demand forecasts using data published in the 2023 Load & Capacity Data Report (“Gold Book”). The transmission security margin represents the balance between demand for electricity and the power supply available from generation and transmission to serve that demand. This assessment recognizes that there is uncertainty in the demand forecast due to uncertainties in key assumptions including population and economic growth, the proliferation of energy efficiency, the installation of behind-the-meter renewable energy resources, and electric vehicle adoption and charging patterns. These risks are accounted for in the transmission security margin calculations by incorporating the lower and higher bounds as a range of forecasted conditions during expected weather, specified in the Gold Book as the policy scenario forecasts. The lower and higher demand policy scenario forecasts reflect achievement of policy targets through alternative pathways and assume the same weather factors as the baseline demand forecast.
The Gold Book is the standard for electric data in New York. The following figure shows the range of the demand forecasts for New York City. I want to point out one thing. The emphasis is on providing generation for the peak load. This is a significantly more difficult problem than estimating the generation necessary for an average year. There are more short-term constraints that could affect generation and load that can be ignored on average.
I have some experience with the resource modeling projections and cannot over-emphasize the complexity of all the factors incorporated in the models. Unfortunately, there is a lot of uncertainty associated with projecting all those factors. That is why the NYISO is constantly re-evaluating the model inputs and projections. In addition, they are always looking to refine the model itself. Based on their latest estimates:
Under the baseline forecast for coincident summer peak demand, the New York City transmission security margin would be deficient by 306 MW in 2025 for a duration of 7 hours. However, accounting for uncertainties in key demand forecast assumptions, the higher bound of expected demand under baseline weather conditions (95 degrees Fahrenheit) in 2025 results in a deficiency of 446 MW over 9 hours. The deficiency would be significantly greater if New York City experiences a heatwave (98 degrees Fahrenheit) or an extreme heatwave (102 degrees Fahrenheit).
The NYISO is banking on one project to address this problem after 2025.
Overall, the New York City transmission security margin is expected to improve in 2026 if the Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE) connection from Hydro Quebec to New York City enters service on schedule in spring 2026, but the margin gradually erodes through time thereafter as expected demand for electricity grows. Beyond 2025, the forecasted reliability margins within New York City may not be sufficient if (i) the CHPE project experiences a significant delay, (ii) additional power plants become unavailable, or (iii) demand significantly exceeds current forecasts. Without the CHPE project in service or other offsetting changes or solutions, the reliability margins continue to be deficient for the ten-year planning horizon. In addition, while CHPE is expected to contribute to reliability in the summer, the facility is not expected to provide any capacity in the winter.
I am uncomfortable that there is this much reliance on a single project to address the problems identified. I discussed the start of construction late last year for the Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE) project. It is a 339-mile underground transmission line capable of bringing 1,250 MW from the Province of Quebec to Astoria Queens in New York City. I explained that I was worried about the schedule and costs of the project. The NYISO Resource Adequacy analyses must necessarily rely on the developer’s prediction for completion. Richard Ellenbogen and I share the timeliness concern. Richard noted that the project was proposed in 2011 and the PSC authorized it on 4/18/13. It has been 11.5 years since it was proposed, 9.5 years since it was authorized, and construction started a year after the funding contract was signed. In addition, it has recently come out that landowners on sections of the right-of-way that are on land have just been informed that they will be impacted. The likelihood of additional delays seems high. Given that other renewable projects are being re-evaluated because of price increases due to inflation and increased cost of materials it seems that this project will also have the same problems. Given its importance to New York City reliability, I cannot conceive of any scenario in which the State will not grant any cost overruns requested by the developers. This project is already expensive equating to an estimated increase in customer electric bills of 2.1 – 4.1% (or $2.08 – $4.08 per month for the average residential customer. I am confident that at the end of the day the final costs will be much higher.
The STAR quarterly report did not limit its analysis to just New York City.
In addition to New York City, this assessment also evaluated the transmission security margins for the statewide system as well as Lower Hudson Valley and Long Island localities. For these localities, the planned Bulk Power Transmission Facilities (“BPTF”) through the study period are within applicable reliability criteria based on the baseline summer coincident peak demand forecast with expected weather and with the planned projects meeting their proposed in-service dates. The NYISO assessed the resource adequacy of the overall system and found no resource adequacy reliability needs.
The NYISO is a product of the de-regulated New York electric system. As such they are ardent supporters of “market” solutions. This adds a layer of uncertainty because NYISO must develop some sort of incentive for a developer to provide the necessary resources. If it was an attractive investment, then I would expect that someone would already be developing the necessary resources. In addition, Con Ed must also determine if local transmission upgrades can resolve the problem.
The short-term need observed in 2025 is a Near-Term Reliability Need. As a result, solutions will be solicited, evaluated, and addressed in accordance with the NYISO Short-Term Reliability Process. The need arises within the Con Edison Transmission District; therefore, Con Edison is the Responsible Transmission Owner for developing a regulated solution.(Reference NYISO’s Open Access Transmission Tariff Section 38.3.6)
The report identifies another particular issue that illustrates why regular STAR analyses are required and why this issue is coming up now. Although all the affected parties may know that there will be changes to the system and have reasonable expectations what they will be, the NYISO cannot officially act until certain filings are made.
Central Hudson identified transmission security issues in its transmission district on its non-BPTF system. These are primarily driven by the assumed unavailability of certain generation in its district affected by the Peaker Rule. Given that those generators have not yet provided complete Generator Deactivation Notices to the NYISO, the local non-BPTF criteria violations identified by Central Hudson are being provided for information but were not assessed to identify possible Generator Deactivation Reliability Needs at this time.
The report also describes an upcoming issue that will be considered officially in a subsequent report. The “informational scenario” considers interconnecting large loads: the Micron New York semiconductor manufacturing (530 MW in 2030), the Air Products and Chemicals (Q#1446), and other load changes that increase load another 694 MW.
As an informational scenario, this STAR includes an evaluation of the impact of additional large load interconnection projects primarily in western and central New York. The anticipated increases to the demand forecast due to these large loads in 2025 is 764 MW which results in a corresponding reduction to the available margin, such that in 2025 the statewide system margin is projected to be deficient of 145MW. By 2033, additional large loads increase the demand by 1,224 MW which results in a corresponding deficient margin of 104 MW. If CHPE does not begin operation, the state wide system margin is projected to be deficient for all years 2025 through 2033 when considering the additional large loads. The 2023 Quarter 3 STAR will include these load projects and the associated system margin impacts. The solution to the New York City reliability need identified in this STAR may also address the state wide system margin concern.
The Executive Summary summarizes their approach:
The wholesale electricity markets administered by the NYISO are an important tool to help mitigate these risks. The markets are designed, and continue to evolve and adapt, to send appropriate price signals for new market entry and the retention of resources that assist in maintaining reliability. The potential risks and resource needs identified in the NYISO’s analyses may be resolved by new capacity resources coming into service, construction of additional transmission facilities, and/or increased energy efficiency and integration of demand-side resources. The NYISO is tracking the progression of many projects that may contribute to grid reliability, including numerous offshore wind facilities that have not yet met the inclusion rules for reliability assessments. The NYISO will continue to monitor these resources and other developments to determine whether changing system resources and conditions could impact the reliability of the New York bulk electric grid.
Note that there are three ways the problem identified can be resolved: building new capacity resources, construction of additional transmission facilities, and/or reducing load expectations with increased energy efficiency and integration of demand-side resources. Even if the Hochul Administration came to its senses and decided to facilitate the construction of dependable generating capacity, that is to say, fossil-fired generators, there is no way that any generating resource to support reliability could get built in this timeframe. My rule of thumb for just getting permits in New York City is a minimum of three years. The summer of 2025 is only two years away. Of course, the possibility of any new fossil infrastructure is very unlikely anyway. Designing, permitting, and building additional transmission facilities may not take quite as long but I cannot imagine this solution could be available in two years. There already are great expectations for reducing load so I cannot imagine any scenario that could reduce additional load on the order necessary to meet the identified load shortfall.
The final paragraph in the Executive Summary describes the specific filings that will trigger further STAR revisions.
As generators that are subject to the DEC’s Peaker Rule submit their Generator Deactivation Notices, the NYISO and the responsible Transmission Owners will continue to evaluate in future STARs whether Generator Deactivation Reliability Needs arise from the deactivation of Initiating Generators. (Reference NYISO’s Open Access Transmission Tariff Section 38.1 state that an “Initiating Generator” is “a Generator with a nameplate rating that exceeds 1 MW that submits a Generator Deactivation Notice for purposes of becoming Retire or entering into a Mothball Outage or that has entered into an Installed Capacity (ICAP) Ineligible Forced Outage pursuant to Section 5.18.2.1 of the ISO Services Tariff which action is being evaluated by the ISO in accordance with its Short-Term Reliability Process requirements in this Section 38 of the ISO Open Access Transmission Tariff.
Discussion
The Findings section expands the description of the problem found. Without changes to existing load pattern the summer peak load demand in New York City would be “deficient by 306 MW in 2025 for a duration of 7 hours”. There are uncertainties in the load demand forecasts. Assuming the upper bound of “demand under baseline weather conditions (95 degrees Fahrenheit) in 2025 results in a deficiency of 446 MW over 9 hours.” If the weather is hotter or lasts for an extended period the “deficiency would be significantly greater.” This exemplifies the tradeoffs the NYISO and NYSRC must make when assessing resource adequacy and reliability standards. If the deficiency is “significantly greater” then it will be impossible to manage the load without rolling blackouts.
The NYISO writes: “The deficient margin is primarily due to the increased demand forecasts within New York City combined with the planned unavailability of simple-cycle combustion turbines to comply with the DEC’s Peaker Rule in 2025”. Apparently, it is not politically correct to point out that Hochul Administration’s policy that finalized the shutdown of 2,000 MW of nuclear power and the disapproval of a plan to build a 1,040 MW, eventually reduced to 437 MW, combined cycle facility exacerbated this problem and that if those resources were available there would not be a problem.
As it stands now, I expect that the solution will be an extension of the operating permits for the peaking turbines because there is no other viable solution to maintain reliability.
The NYISO describes the process and explains how it will be resolved in the following figure. They have identified the reliability need. They will ask Consolidated Edison if the problem can be resolved with transmission system revisions in Step 2. At the same time in Step 3, NYISO will solicit market-based solutions from other developers. In the next step NYISO reviews the proposed solutions “to determine if they are viable and sufficient to address the identified need.” The NYISO description of the last step notes:
Timing is an essential component of the NYISO’s evaluation. If proposed solutions are not viable or sufficient to meet the identified reliability need, interim solutions must be in place to keep the grid reliable. One potential outcome could include relying on generators that are subject to the DEC’s Peaker Rule to remain in operation until a permanent solution is in place. The DEC’s Peaker Rule anticipated this scenario when it authorized the NYISO to designate certain units to remain in operation beyond 2025 on an as-needed basis for reliability. Based on findings from its Short-Term Reliability Process, the NYISO may designate certain units, in sufficient quantity, to remain in operation for an additional two years (until May 1, 2027) with the potential of an additional two-year extension (to May 1, 2029) if a permanent solution that is needed to maintain reliability has been selected but is not yet online. The NYISO would only temporarily retain peakers as a last-step approach if it does not expect solutions to be in place when the identified reliability need is expected in 2025.
Reaction
Utility Dive described the report. Their article quotes Zach Smith, vice president of system and resource planning for the NYISO as saying the assessment “reflects the extraordinary challenges of the grid in transition.” It also notes that the report acknowledges “uncertainty” in the demand forecast surrounding assumptions including population and economic growth, the proliferation of energy efficiency, the installation of behind-the-meter renewable energy resources, and EV adoption and charging patterns.
The reaction of parties in New York State was predictable. Marie French writing at Politico solicited comments from the Hochul Administration:
“To be clear: The reliability of our grid is not in question,” Hochul spokesperson Katy Zielinski said in a statement. “We are committed to ensuring New Yorkers have a reliable and affordable power supply — and we can do this while accomplishing our nation-leading climate goals. Governor Hochul remains fully committed to rapidly decreasing emissions and setting an example for how clean energy and reliability can go hand-in-hand.”
French said that Zielinski cited the planned Canadian hydropower line, the Clean Path line and offshore wind projects as ways to bring more renewables into New York City. There is a fundamental issue with these projects because they all rely heavily on distant transmission that is overly vulnerable to outages One of the New York City blackouts occurred because a transmission line into the city went down and in-city generation could not be brought up fast enough to react to the loss of energy supply. There are specific reliability rules in place that mandate a minimum capability of in-city generation when storms threaten transmission lines into the City. I am not sure how this will be addressed in the future. The Canadian hydropower line may not be affected by storms but still could go down unexpectedly for other reasons. The Clean Path project is “is comprised of more than 20 renewable energy generation projects and an approximate 175-mile, underground transmission line. I am guessing that the argument is that an underground line can provide power that is not subject to storm outages so is exempt from the transmission line reliability rule. However, even if they are much less likely to go out, when they do have problems fixing them is much more difficult. Counting on offshore wind as a viable replacement in the City is very risky unless it is coupled with sufficient energy storage to cover the energy needs for an entire heat wave because the meteorological conditions that cause extreme heat are associated with high-pressure systems that also have light winds.
The Peak Coalition has been the primary mover for peaking power plant environmental justice. French mentioned their statement that notes:
PEAK Coalition is gravely concerned with the impact that the reliability deficit estimated in the Short-Term Assessment of Reliability (STAR) report for Q2 of 2023 released by the New York Independent Systems Operator (NYISO) will have on communities that live near power plants. We encourage all stakeholders involved in the energy planning process to take concrete action to prevent delaying the closure of fossil fuel peaker plants in 2025 and beyond. These plants harm the communities that surround them every hour that they operate. PEAK refuses to accept a scenario in which environmental justice communities must suffer further harm to guarantee further profligate summertime energy consumption in commercial buildings and wealthy communities.
I have evaluated the EJ claims. The PEAK coalition has stated that “Fossil peaker plants in New York City are perhaps the most egregious energy-related example of what environmental injustice means today.” The influence of this position on current New York State environmental policy has led to this issue finding its way into multiple environmental initiatives. However, the presumption of egregious harm is based on selective choice of metrics, poor understanding of air quality health impacts, and ignorance of air quality trends.
As noted previously the NYISO is invested in market solutions. French also got a statement from the NYISO that is completely consistent with that approach:
“We’ve identified the reliability need, so we’re confident that’s present for summer 2025,” said NYISO spokesman Kevin Lanahan. “We’re also confident that we can solve the reliability [need]. That’s the nature of our planning process, to identify those issues with enough time to solve the problems so we’re confident we can find the solution and keep the system reliable.”
French also got a statement from Gavin Donohue at the Independent Power Producers:
“The pace of play is not keeping up with pace of promises, and this report makes that clear,” said Independent Power Producers of New York president and CEO Gavin Donohue, who represents the state’s existing nuclear, renewable and predominantly fossil fuel power plants. “This report should draw attention from state officials in shaping realistic public policies. I encourage the NYISO to identify solutions that are market-based so we can set ourselves on the pathway to a cleaner energy future, while maintaining the reliability of our grid at affordable rates.”
The mistake New York has made is not its goal to eventually reduce NOx emissions but its rush to shut down the peakers — and Indian Point — before developing reliable replacement sources of power. Notably, the Department of Environmental Conservation rejected proposals by NRG Energy to update nearly 1,000 megawatts of electricity production in the city to newer, cleaner-burning, and NOx-standard compliant combined-cycle power plants, claiming that NRG “failed to demonstrate the need or justification for the proposed project.”
This “shutdown first, replace later” model was a major cause of rolling blackouts on the West Coast, but New York authorities didn’t bother to learn from California’s experience. Simple common sense would indicate that the wise approach would be to find assured sources of reliable and dispatchable electricity production before taking critical power plants offline. Sadly, common sense was the first victim of New York energy policy. Even more sadly, it won’t be the last.
Conclusion
Despite assurances from Hochul spokesperson Katy Zielinski, the reliability of the New York City grid is in question. The plans rely on resources that are new to New York and that increases uncertainty. Presuming that proposed projects will replace operational facilities on the schedule proposed is very risky.
There is another dynamic here that will be interesting to watch. Peaker power plants are a primary scapegoat for the New York City EJ community. The PEAK Coalition has already gone on record stating that “If NYISO is forced to issue reliability-must-run orders, New Yorkers will know that electric utilities and state governments willingly failed to act to protect communities most impacted by fossil fuel emissions and climate change”. The electric utilities and state government have failed to explain the potential impacts to the disadvantaged communities if fossil-fired peaking units are not replaced with proven technology. The risks to those communities imposed by the presence of such resources are not nearly as large as the risks to those communities from blackouts. Keeping the lights on is the better social choice.
Thanks to Russell Schussler for review and helpful comments. Any technical errors are mine.
Given that there are limitations on how often I can get letters published I must settle for responses here.
New York’s response to climate change is the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act). I have been following the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 300 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good. The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.
Climate Act Background
The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050, an interim 2030 target of a 40% reduction by 2030, and 100% “zero emissions” electricity generation by 2030. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlines how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” In brief, that plan is to electrify everything possible and power the electric grid with zero-emissions generating resources by 2040. 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 write a Draft Scoping Plan. After a year-long review the Scoping Plan recommendations were finalized at the end of 2022. In 2023 the Scoping Plan recommendations are supposed to be implemented through regulation and legislation.
According to the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) “Gold Book” load and capacity report, in 2022 there were a total of 4,444 MW of solar nameplate capacity (154 MW of utility-scale solar and 4,290 MW of behind-the-meter) on-line in the state. However, implementation of the Climate Act transition to net-zero will significantly increase that amount by 2030. By 2030 the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) and consultant Energy + Environmental Economics (E3) Integration Analysis that provides quantitative estimates of resources for the Scoping Plan projects a total of 18,852 MW and the NYISO 2021-2040 System & Resource Outlook projects 14,731 MW.
Rebuttal to Letters to My Commentary
There were two letters published in response to my commentary. The first by Shelley Conture from
Syracuse and the second by Gary McDermott from Chittenango. I have attached all the commentaries below for your information. Conture basically repeated everything Perez said and insinuated that because he has “notable credentials” he must be right. McDermott addressed the points I made and raised a couple of points that deserve clarification.
Perez claimed the Earth receives more solar energy than the total annual energy consumption of all economies, combined, in a week. I argued that ignores that availability when and where needed is a critical requirement. In New York, the winter solar resource is poor because the days are short, the irradiance is low because the sun is low in the sky, and clouds and snow-covered panels contribute to low solar resource availability.
McDermott responded: “No one is claiming solar power will be the only source, but rather a major source of power in the future. We will always use hydropower in New York.” Both statements are true but both are naïve. The Integration Analysis projects that by 2035 there will be more installed solar capacity than today’s fossil capacity so the issue is the magnitude of the reliance on solar. My concern with hydro is that we cannot add significantly more capacity so its advantages are tapped out.
McDermott goes on to address specifics associated with solar abundance. He states that “The suggestion that winter days are too short for solar fails to recognize that we also have 15-hour long days in the summer, three hours longer than Florida” but ignores the implication that reliability requires electric planners to consider the worst case. When everything is electrified, the peak load will be in the winter so we must address 9-hour long days. He says “As far as snow on panels is concerned: It’s simple to brush snow off a 35-degree slope panel, especially since we don’t get as much annual snow.” Not considering the worst case is problematic here too. It may not be so simple to brush snow off panels if it is not possible to get to the panels because there is too much snow or ice. Better would be a requirement that the utility-scale solar installations use tilting-axis panels so that they can be adjusted to minimize snow accumulation, albeit that only works if there is no power outage. More of a problem is that roof-top distributed systems may not accessible to clear off. He again ignores the worst case when he states “Also, wind power occurs at night.” Wind lulls can occur at night and then what?
I firmly believe that most people do not understand the ramifications of the Climate Act. McDermott appears to be knowledgeable but does not understand the Climate Act targets when he says “During low sunshine conditions, natural gas energy can temporarily fill in, but with greater volumes of solar power, our net gas usage would grow much smaller.” The goal of the Climate Act is no natural gas by 2040. The practicality of that mandate is the issue.
I made the point that there is no mandate that solar developments meet the Department of Agriculture and Markets prime farmland protection goal and that projects approved to date have converted 21% of the prime farmland within project areas to unusable land. I do not disagree with McDermott’s response except that I stand by the prime farmland protections. Responsible solar siting that includes agrivoltaics is appropriate but not enough. He states:
In Boulder, Colorado, farmers grow tomatoes, turnips, carrots, squash, beets, lettuce, kale, chard and peppers under 8-foot-high solar panels. I recommend that state laws require solar farm panels to be built this high, to maintain farming. With this reality in mind, the greatest threat to farm land is not solar, but rural housing developments.
McDermott’s other comments do not stand up to scrutiny. He said that “It’s pointless to complain about new transmission requirements when any new source of electricity will require additional power lines.” The point is that diffuse renewables require much more transmission and getting offshore wind into the existing grid system is extraordinarily expensive. I disagree with his statement that “Solar panels last 30 years, whereas combined-cycle gas turbines last only between 25 and 30 years, and produce more pollution.” The life expectancy of a gas plant is on the order of 40 years and I have never heard a solar developer claim 30 years. In addition, solar panels degrade 0.8% per year but fossil plants do not degrade. There are also significant environmental impacts associated with mining the rare earth metals necessary for solar panels.
Both Conture and McDermott claim solar is cheaper. McDermott says “On average, it costs about $200,000 more per megawatt to build a gas plant than it does a solar farm.” Conture just repeats what Perez said. In the limited space I had, I said:
Perez claims that “utility-scale solar electricity has become the least expensive form of electricity generation” but that only refers power capacity (MW). When you consider the relative amount of energy that can be produced annually, the storage needed to provide energy when the sun isn’t shining, the shorter life expectancy of PV panels, transmission support service requirements and the need for a new dispatchable, emissions-free resource, then the cost of solar energy provided when and where needed is much higher than conventional sources of electricity.
In my post providing background material for the commentary, I expanded on this description. The claim that “utility-scale solar electricity has become the least expensive form of electricity generation” refers only to power capacity (MW). Even if solar capacity is half the cost of fossil capacity the cost for delivered energy is much more. We pay for the kWh electric energy we use each month and we expect it to be available 24-7 throughout the year. In order to provide usable energy, other things must be considered that destroy the myth that utility-scale solar is cheaper than other types of power plants. On average a well-designed solar facility can provide (round numbers) 20% of its potential energy possible in New York. A natural gas fired power plant can operate to produce at least 80% of its potential energy over a year. In order to produce the same amount of energy, that means that you need four times as much solar capacity. Even if the solar capacity cost is half the cost for the capacity the energy cost is double simply due to this capacity factor difference.
But wait, there is more. In order to make the energy available when needed storage must be added to the cost of the solar capacity. Also consider that the life expectancy of solar panels is less than the observed life expectancy of fossil-fired power plants. There are unintended financial consequences that affect the viability of other generators that are needed for reliability that add to ratepayer costs. Because the solar resource is diffuse, it is necessary to support the transmission system to get the solar power to New York City. There are inherent characteristics of conventional generation that contribute to the stability of the transmission system that are not provided by solar or wind generation. Someone, somewhere must deploy a replacement resource to provide those ancillary transmission services and that cost should be included the cost comparison.
Finally, the Integration Analysis, New York Independent System Operator (NYISO, New York State Reliability Council), and the Public Service Commission all agree that another resource that can be dispatched and is emissions-free (DEFR) is needed when the electric grid becomes dependent upon solar and wind resources. The state’s irrational fear of nuclear generation precludes the only proven resource that meets the necessary criteria so an entirely new resource must be developed, tested, and deployed.
The Integration Analysis and NYISO 2021-2040 System & Resource Outlook both project that the DEFR resource will be comparable in size to existing fossil resources but will operate no more than 9% of the time. I have yet to see an expected cost for this resource but have no doubts that it will be extraordinarily expensive. Summing all the costs necessary to make solar power usable for electric energy reliable delivery and there is no doubt that solar is much more expensive.
Conture brings up an issue that McDermott does not address. She says:
With regard to reliability, he discusses the emerging solutions to the concern about solar energy’s intermittency. In his words these solutions, (which he enumerates) “will ensure a continuous power supply which will be available day and night year round without fail.”
Perez discounts the need for and difficulties associated with DEFR technologies that the organizations responsible for electric system reliability all agree are necessary. The NYISO’s recent reports all emphasize the point that DEFR is not “commercially available” and the PSC Proceeding is devoted to this issue. I believe that a ensuring a continuous power supply is much more difficult than Perez thinks.
Conclusion
Sadly, readers of the Post Standard will likely remember the last opinions and not mine despite the fallacies of the writers. Conture appeals to authority and simply repeats what Perez said. McDermott at least tries to address my points. Part of his reasoning is that my arguments are invalid because he underestimates the magnitude of the solar resources projected in the Scoping Plan and the Climate Act target that mandates zero emissions by 2040. My concerns are directly related to the impacts of those considerations.
Perez subscribes to the academic belief that exiting renewable technologies are sufficient and deployment will result in lower costs. The fatal flaw in the arguments supporting those points is that they don’t address the worst-case renewable energy droughts that will coincide with future larger peaks in the winter. The organizations responsible for reliability in New York State all agree that unless nuclear power is deployed that a resource that is not yet commercially available must be developed, tested, and deployed. I think that is an incredible risk unacknowledged by Perez and the authors of these letters.
I stand by the concluding remark in my commentary. This is a recipe for disaster because if the resource adequacy planning does not correctly estimate the worst-case period of abnormally low wind and solar energy availability then the energy needed to keep the lights on and homes heated will not be available when needed most. People will freeze to death in the dark.
The June 12, 2023, commentary “Five reasons New Yorkers should embrace a solar energy future” by Richard Perez, Ph.D., claims to “clarify common misunderstandings about solar energy and demonstrate its potential to provide an abundant, reliable, affordable and environmentally friendly energy future for New York.” I disagree with his reasons.
“Solar technology is improving” is another claimed reason but solar energy in New York is limited because of the latitude and weather so there are limits to the value of technological improvements. If it is so good, then why does deployment rely on direct subsidies?
While solar energy may not have environmental impacts in New York, that does not mean that there are no impacts. Instead. they are moved elsewhere, likely where environmental constraints and social justice concerns are not as strict. The rare earth metals necessary for solar, wind and battery technology require massive amount of mining and the disposal of all the solar panels are significant unconsidered environmental issues.
Perez dismisses land use issues because “a 100% renewable PV/wind future for New York would require less than 1% of the state’s total area.” There is no mandate that solar developments meet the Department of Agriculture and Markets prime farmland protection goal. Projects approved to date have converted 21% of the prime farmland within project areas to unusable land. There is no requirement for utility-scale solar projects to use tracking solar panels, so more panels are required than originally estimated.
Perez claims that “utility-scale solar electricity has become the least expensive form of electricity generation” but that only refers power capacity (MW). When you consider the relative amount of energy that can be produced annually, the storage needed to provide energy when the sun isn’t shining, the shorter life expectancy of PV panels, transmission support service requirements and the need for a new dispatchable, emissions-free resource, then the cost of solar energy provided when and where needed is much higher than conventional sources of electricity.
The suggestion that a system depending on solar energy will be more dependable than the existing system would be laughable if it were not so dangerous. The reliability of the existing electric system has evolved over decades using dispatchable resources with inherent qualities that support the transmission of electric energy. The net-zero electric system will depend upon wind and solar resources hoping they will be available when needed, additional resources to support transmission requirements, and a new resource that is not commercially available. This is a recipe for disaster because if the resource adequacy planning does not correctly estimate the worst-case period of abnormally low wind and solar energy availability then the energy needed to keep the lights on and homes heated will not be available when needed most. People will freeze to death in the dark.
This writer even refers to Perez’s stated goal which is to “clarify common misunderstandings about solar energy and demonstrate its potential to provide an abundant, reliable, affordable environmentally friendly energy future for New York” in a way that suggests that there is something questionable about this goal. I have read Perez’s essay and strongly disagree with these negative implications.
Perez is far more than a concerned citizen expressing his strong opinion. Along with other notable credentials, he heads solar energy research at SUNY Albany’s Atmospheric Sciences Research Center and has served multiple terms on the board of the American Solar Energy Society.
As intended, he covers the topics of the growth of solar technology as well as solar energy’s abundance, affordability, reliability and significantly lower environmental footprint — and he does so very well. He also addresses the concerns about its affordability and reliability in ways that should reassure people who are concerned about these issues.
With regard to reliability, he discusses the emerging solutions to the concern about solar energy’s intermittency. In his words these solutions, (which he enumerates) “will ensure a continuous power supply which will be available day and night year round without fail.”
And with regard to affordability, as with his other responses to common misunderstandings, Perez is careful to back up his statement that, “solar power is now considerably cheaper than new coal, natural gas or nuclear energy.”
What I especially objected to in the July 2 letter is the writer’s calling what Perez suggests “dangerous” and implying that we would do much better by continuing to stay with our conventional sources of electricity. This would, of course, involve the burning of fossil fuels, which is known to be the primary cause of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change.
I totally understand why people might prefer to do this. It would be more convenient and more familiar. But what I, along with many others, believe is that this is no longer a real choice. Our choice is actually between staying addicted to fossil fuels and believing the misinformation promoting them, or making difficult but ultimately better choices which could halt the continuing destruction of the planet.
No one is claiming solar power will be the only source, but rather a major source of power in the future. We will always use hydropower in New York. The suggestion that are winter days are too short for solar fails to recognize that we also have 15-hour long days in the summer, three hours longer than Florida. As far as snow on panels is concerned: It’s simple to brush snow off a 35-degree slope panel, especially since we don’t get as much annual snow. During low sunshine conditions, natural gas energy can temporarily fill in, but with greater volumes of solar power, our net gas usage would grow much smaller. Also, wind power occurs at night.
In Boulder, Colorado, farmers grow tomatoes, turnips, carrots, squash, beets, lettuce, kale, chard and peppers under 8-foot-high solar panels. I recommend that state laws require solar farm panels to be built this high, to maintain farming. With this reality in mind, the greatest threat to farm land is not solar, but rural housing developments.
It’s pointless to complain about new transmission requirements when any new source of electricity will require additional power lines. On average, it costs about $200,000 more per megawatt to build a gas plant than it does a solar farm. Solar panels last 30 years, whereas combined-cycle gas turbines last only between 25 and 30 years, and produce more pollution. People pay less for solar electricity.
Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York 