Article 78 Filing

Enough is enough.  I have submitted over 250 filings and comments to the New York Department of Public Service (DPS) Document and Matter Management (DMM) system.  There has never been any acknowledgment of any submittal much less any sign that DPS staff have considered my concerns about New York’s transition away from fossil fuels.  I recently reached the breaking point and with a like-minded individual who shared my frustration, decided to file an Article 78 judicial review of the May 16, 2025 decision of the New York Public Service Commission (“PSC”) in its Case No. 15-E-0302 approval of a Clean Energy Standard (“CES”) Tier 4 Implementation Plan.  This is an overview.

I am convinced that implementation of the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks.  I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 570 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  I acknowledge the use of Perplexity AI to generate summaries and references included in this document.  The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone. 

Background

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and has two electric sector targets: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040. Proponents of the Climate Act argue that the transition strategies must be implemented to meet these targets.  However, they do not acknowledge that Public Service Law (PSL) Section 66-P, Establishment of a renewable energy program, is also a law. PSL 66-P requires the Commission to establish a program to ensure the State meets the 2030 and 2040 Climate Act requirements.  

Over the years my concerns about the transition of the New York electric system have focused on two issues: the failure of the PSC to adequately address its mandate to ensure access to safe, reliable utility service at just and reasonable rates and for the PSC to provide an appropriate solution to the challenge of dark doldrums.  My submittals have argued that the PSC must establish safety valve metrics for affordability and reliability to ensure that the broad mandate for safe and reliable utility service at reasonable rates is accomplished.  I have made numerous submittals that argue that wind and solar resource availability lulls represent the fundamental fatal flaw of renewable energy systems.  Until solutions for this problem are proposed and tested, it is dangerous to proceed with the PSL 66-P renewable energy program.

My co-intervenor is Richard Ellenbogen, CEO of Allied Converters. He intervened in PSC Case No. 15-E-0302 on August 8. 2023 and submitted comments in that PSC case on five occasions.  He is an engineer by training and decarbonized his own factory starting in 1999.  Measurements at the factory resulted in the Public Service Commissions Case 08-E-0751 to reduce power line losses. Ellenbogen was an early adopter of renewable technologies going back to the 1990‘s and decarbonized both his home and business two decades ago.

Article 78

Until this action I have never paid much attention to the Article 78 process.  These proceedings are lawsuits “used mainly to challenge an action (or inaction) by agencies of New York State and local governments.”  According to Perplexity AI four main questions can be raised in an Article 78 proceeding:

  1. Failure to Perform a Duty: Whether the agency or officer failed to perform a duty required by law (mandamus).
  2. Acting Beyond Authority: Whether the agency or officer acted without or in excess of its jurisdiction (prohibition).
  3. Arbitrary or Capricious Action: Whether a determination was made in violation of lawful procedure, was affected by an error of law, or was arbitrary and capricious or an abuse of discretion.
  4. Lack of Substantial Evidence: Whether a determination made after a hearing was supported by substantial evidence

On  September 19, 2025 Rich Ellenbogen and I served papers announcing our intent to litigate.  Our filing states that “The PSC does not appear to have considered or rationally evaluated the evidence presented to it, to the effect that the Tier 4 Implementation Plan is unfeasible and unreasonable.”  The submittal includes a description of our concerns In the “Nature of Action”:

1.           This case seeks judicial review of a May 16, 2025 decision of the New Y ork Public Service Commission (“PSC”) in its Case No. 15-E-0302, which is attached hereto as Exhibit A. In that PSC case, the agency approved a petition by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (“NYSERDA”) proposing a Clean Energy Standard (“CES”) Tier 4 Implementation Plan. At least 194 intervening parties appeared before the PSC, and a listing of the PSC’s docket reflecting the identities of such intervenors is attached hereto as Exhibit B. However, there are fundamental mistakes on the PSC’s docket, including that the PSC docket may not accurately reflect all intervenors.

2.           The PSC does not appear to have considered or rationally evaluated the evidence presented to it, to the effect that the Eier 4 Implementation Plan is unfeasible and unreasonable. Mr. Caiazza and Mr. Ellenbogen each submitted comments to the PSC before it adopted the Tier 4 Implementation Plan. Mr. Ellenbogen specifically notified the PSC that:

  • There is a lack of available energy to support the Plan.
  • Costs to implement the Plan will far exceed other, better solutions.
  • These costs accrue based upon shortages of materials and skilled labor, high energy
  • storage costs, and a lack of financial adequacy.
  • Atmospheric Carbon Levels will rise far above what could be achieved using other alternatives.
  • Planned timing mandates are unachievable.
  • There are logical non-sequiturs contained in the agency’s proposal.

3.           The PSC does not appear to have even considered the comments submitted by Mssrs. Ellenbogen and Caiazza, much less adequately developed its decisions in a way that addresses those comments.

4.           It is well established in the Third Department that a combined petition under Article 78 and Complaint for Declaratory Judgment is the proper mechanism to challenge certain agency actions. Matter of Clean Air Coal. ofW. N.Y., Inc. v. N.Y. State Pub. Serv. Comm’n, 2024 NY Slip Op 24288. • 4 m3, 85 Mise. 3d 665. 675, 223 N.Y.S.3d 837, 845 (Albany Co. Sup. Ct. 2024). A combined CPLR article 78 proceeding/declaratory judgment action is commenced “by filing and serving a notice of petition and a summons under a single index number, along with a combined petition/verified complaint.” Matter of Neyvtoii v Town of Middletown, 31 AD3d 1004, 1005. 820 N.Y.S.2d 154 (3d Dept 2006). “The summons invokes jurisdiction for the declaratory-judgment- action component while the notice of petition performs the same function for the Article 78 aspect of the case.” Vincent C. Alexander, Prac Commentaries, McKinney’s Cons. Laws of NY, Book; 7B, CPLR § 7804:5: see also CPLR § 304 (a) and 403 (a).

5.           In part, this is an action under Article 78 of the Civil Law and Practice Rules to set aside the PSC’s May 16, 2025 decision as unreasonable. “The administrative agency charged with enforcing a statutory mandate has broad discretion in evaluating pertinent factual data and inferences to be drawn therefrom, and its interpretation will be upheld so long as not irrational or unreasonable.” Matter of 333 E. 49th Assocs., LP v. N.Y. State Div. of Hous. & Cmty. Renewal,

Office of Rent Admin., 2007 NY Slip Op 4546, “ 1, 40 A.D.3d 516, 516. 837 N.Y.S.2d 63. 64 (1st Dept. 2007). But just because an agency is permitted broad discretion and deference, that does not mean that a reviewing court has no role to play. A “reviewing court must be presented with a record containing factually meaningful findings… Otherwise, this Court’s mandate – intended to be a conscientious review power over governmental action – will be transformed into a superficial habit of ‘rubber stamping” the most vacuous statements paraded before us as findings of fact.” Id. at 66 (Marlow, J, dissenting).

6.           “The very fact that the scope of judicial review with respect to the exercise of discretion by administrative officers or boards is extremely limited makes it imperative that the courts exercise the necessary supervision to assure that the decisional process on the administrative level is free from impermissible or irrelevant considerations or unsupported conclusions.” Rochester Colony, Inc. v. Hostetter, 19 A.D.2d 250. 254, 241 N.Y.S.2d 210, 215 (4th Dept. 1963).

7.           This case is also, in part, a declaratory judgment action. “A declaratory judgment action is unquestionably a proper procedure.. .to review a quasi-legislative act of an administrative agency…” Lakeland Water Dist. v. Onondaga Cnty. Water Auth., 24 N.Y.2d 400, 408, 301 N.Y.S.2d 1, 7, 248 N.E.2d 855, 859 (1969) (internal quotations and citations omitted). To the extent that the PSC has engaged in an arguably legislative or quasi-legislative act by approving the Tier 4 Implementation Plan, petitioners seek declaratory judgment that the Plain is void.

Discussion

This step is the direct result of the lack of a transparent and open Climate Act implementation process.  Both Rich and I have been making our arguments for years.  There has not been any substantive responses, and we agreed that we needed to go to court to be heard.

One of the impediments to this approach is that at some point we will need to back up our talk with money. Neither Rich or myself has received any compensation for the thousands of hours we have committed to trying to get the state to consider science and engineering in its net-zero transition plans.  While we do not begrudge the time, money is another story.  I mention that because there might be a Go Fund Me campaign if we need money to pursue this effort.

Conclusion

Rich and I are extremely frustrated by New York’s planned transition away from fossil fuels.  It is unfortunate that we had to resort to litigation to get e PSC to address our concerns.  Stay tuned.

Draft Energy Plan Health Benefits in Context

The New York Draft State Energy Plan prepared by the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) is currently out for comments.  This is one in a series of posts describing my concerns about the Health Benefits chapter that I am planning to consolidate and submit as a written comment.  This post puts the benefit claims in context with the observations.

I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks.  The primary emphasis of my career was air pollution meteorology and air quality analysis which is the focus of my planned comments.  I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 575 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone. 

Net-Zero Aspirations

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and has two electric sector targets: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040.

According to the New York State Energy Plan website: “The State Energy Plan is a comprehensive roadmap to build a clean, resilient, and affordable energy system for all New Yorkers.”  This is the first update of the Energy Plan since the Climate Act was passed in 2019, so it is being revised to incorporate the net-zero mandates.  I have provided more background information and a list of previous articles on my Energy Plan page. 

Health Benefit Chapter Comments

I am drafting the components of my planned written comments in a series of posts.  The first post described my oral comment at the virtual Draft State Energy Plan Public Hearing on September 13, 2025.  I noted that NYSERDA is using a new modeling approach to project the air quality impacts associated with Climate Act implementation that are used to determine health benefits.  Although they claimed that they had validated the approach, the methodology used was invalid, thus undermining the credibility of all the health benefits claims.

The crux of the NYSERDA health benefit claim is that various health effects are exacerbated by air pollution.  If that is true, then observed inhalable particulate matter (PM2.5) should correlate with observed health outcomes.  In my second post I compared observations of the same metrics cited in the Health Benefits chapter. I found no observed relationship between annual average PM2.5 and emergency room visits related to asthma for the New York State monitoring stations used. 

Air Quality and Health Impact Context

One of the key findings in the Health Benefits chapter states:

All communities in New York State would experience public health benefits as a result of implementing State energy policies that would substantially reduce air pollutant emissions relative to the No Action scenario and therefore lower pollutant concentrations. As a result of policies in the Draft Plan’s core planning scenario, Additional Action, population-level health risks associated with exposure to air pollutants would be lower, including cumulatively from 2025–2040 reducing premature mortality by approximately 9,700 cases, along with an estimated 4,100 fewer nonfatal heart attacks and nearly 12,500 fewer emergency room visits for asthma, and further improvements in other metrics. Under all planning scenarios, health benefits are expected to increase over time from 2025 to 2040 and continue beyond 2040.

There is no question that reducing air pollutant emissions will provide health benefits but the relationship is complex, and in my opinion usually exaggerated.  My comments address whether the claimed asthma emergency room visit health benefits from the inhalable particulate air pollution improvements related to Climate Act implementation are credible.  Claimed public health effects are listed in Table 2 of the Draft Energy Plan Health Effects chapter.  I address the avoided emergency room visits due to asthma benefits which range from 1,100 to 3,600 fewer cases per year.

Source: Draft Energy Plan Health Effects Chapter

This analysis compares the emergency room visits due to asthma health effect relative to observed data.  As documented in my previous post the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) New York State Asthma Dashboard provides these data.  The Asthma Dashboard provides state-level data for 11 indicators in the “asthma emergency department visits” component.  There is an export function tab on the Main State Dashboard that I used to download a file with state-level data in the Asthma dashboard  to the “Asthma Data Dashboard – State” tab in my AD-State Trend Data RC spreadsheet.  I extracted the asthma emergency department data in the “Data” tab.  Note that no data were reported for 2015.  The “Summary” tab describes the data.  Table 1 lists the annual asthma emergency room visits for different age groups.  All my analyses used the total asthma emergency department visits.  Of particular interest note that the Covid Pandemic changed the identification of asthma.  In my opinion, limiting the comparison data from 2009 to 2019 would be more representative of an actual relationship.

Table 1: NYSDOH New York State Asthma Dashboard Asthma Emergency Department Visits

Table 2 lists some simple statistics describing these data for the entire data record.  NYSERDA modeling claims that avoided emergency room visits due to asthma improve from 1,100 to 3,600 cases per year.  The range between maximum and minimum annual emergency room visits over all 13 years of available data is 107,713.  Importantly, the improvement of 3,600 avoided emergency room visits is 10% of the standard deviation and 3.3% of the range of observed emergency room visits.  I believe the predicted improvement is a negligible fraction of the observed emergency room visit variation.

Table 2: NYSDOH Asthma Dashboard Asthma Emergency Department Visits Statistics 2009-2022

Emergency room asthma reporting changed in 2020 due to Covid.  Because this changed the reporting metric, I re-ran the statistics for the data available from 2009 to 2019. Table 3 lists the same statistics describing these data for that period.  The range of emergency room visits over all 10 years of data before Covid is reduced to 47,636.  The maximum number of avoided emergency room visits is 24% of the standard deviation and 7.6% of the range of observed emergency room visits.  Even with this data set, the predicted improvement is a small fraction of the observed emergency room visit variation.

Table 3: NYSDOH Asthma Dashboard Asthma Emergency Department Visits Statistics 2009-2019

Societal Value

The Draft Energy Plan health benefits chapter includes a section on societal value.  The introductory paragraph notes: “The public health benefits from reductions in air pollutant concentrations described above are also evaluated as a monetized societal value that can be combined into a single metric to evaluate and compare total public health benefits.”   The final key finding states: “The combined societal value of the public health benefits from reductions in PM2.5 and ozone concentrations from 2025 to 2040 is estimated to be nearly $65 billion for Additional Action (net present value 2024$)”.  This section puts the societal values in context.

First, I want to make a general point about NYSERDA documentation.  Jim Shultz described the Scoping Plan as “a true masterpiece in how to hide what is important under an avalanche of words designed to make people never want to read it.”  That extends to the spreadsheet documentation.  In my opinion, spreadsheet documentation should be provided for every graph in the document.  That is not the case. My tables in this section include numbers derived by interpolating numbers off graphs.  In my jaded opinion, NYSERDA is hiding important but inconvenient numbers by not providing the numbers directly.

Figure 11 shows the estimated public health benefits for 2025–2040 (net present value 2024$) from reduced PM2.5 concentrations under each scenario relative to the No Action scenario.  Table 4 lists the PM2.5 net present values for the different scenarios shown on the Health Benefits chapter figure.  To compare the Health Benefits chapter benefits to the air pollution reductions I calculated the average annual benefit by dividing the total by the number of years in the range 2025-2040.  The NYSERDA annual societal benefits range from $1,3 billion for the Current Policies scenario low end estimate to $7.9 billion for the Net Zero A scenario high end estimate.  The aforementioned $65 billion total benefit claim is over 16 years for the Additional Action scenario.

Source: Draft Energy Plan Health Effects Chapter

Table 4: PM2.5 Net Present Value (Billions 2024$) Derived from Figure 11

Health Benefits chapter Figure 4 presents the population-weighted average PM2.5 concentration reductions by scenario relative to the No Action Scenario, 2040 (μg/m3).  Table 5 lists the interpolated concentration values I estimated from the graph.

Source: Draft Energy Plan Health Effects Chapter

Table 5: Population-Weighted Average PM2.5 Concentration (μg/m3) Reductions by Scenario

Table 6 lists the observed (2017-2022) inhalable (PM2.5) particulate matter concentration data included in the Appendix to the Health Benefits chapter.  I calculated the average, standard deviation, and range for each monitor and for the regions used in the chapter.

Table 6: Observed (2017–2022) PM2.5 Concentrations (μg/m3) in New York State

The point of this exercise is to compare the predicted concentrations with the observed concentration variations (Table 7).  The average predicted concentration reduction for all three scenarios is less than the range of observed annual concentrations.  This means that the predicted reductions are within the range of inter-annual variation.  I therefore conclude that is not a significant impact. 

Table 7: Population-Weighted Average PM2.5 Concentration Reductions by Scenario Compared to Observed PM2.5 Concentrations

There is another point of emphasis.  The Health Benefits chapter claims annual benefits of $7.9 billion for emission reductions of up to 1.8 μg/m3.  Although the lack of detail precludes a refined valuation, note that the observed interannual variation exceeds the largest predicted concentration reduction.  If the NYSERDA modeling is correct, then the societal benefits should be observable in the observed annual variation of societal costs.  To prove this is an appropriate approach, NYSERDA should document the observed benefits and how they vary with observed pollution concentrations.

Discussion

The Public Health Impacts Overview states “The draft analysis shows that implementation of State energy policies would continue to provide substantial public health benefits throughout the State in all communities, with the greatest benefits realized in disadvantaged community areas.”  I do not assert this analysis disproves NYSERDA’s claim of substantial public health benefits .  However, I do conclude that NYSERDA justification of their claim for ”substantial public health benefits” has not been adequately justified. 

The rationale to reduce fossil-fired emissions because of the relationship between inhalable particulates and asthma is touted in this analysis and is commonly used in other emission reduction proposals.  This analysis shows that when the NYSERDA numbers are compared to observations, that observed interannual variations exceed the projected changes in PM2.5 concentrations and number of avoided emergency room visits related to asthma.  If these claims are accurate and substantive, then the societal benefits claims should also be observed.  In the absence of any data, I believe that the only value of these efforts is to feel good about an emission reduction.  They are not substantive enough to claim that the net-zero transition is providing health benefits that justify the enormous costs of the proposed emission reductions.

Conclusion

My recent posts address three shortcomings of the NYSERDA analysis of health benefits of the net-zero transitions.  NYSERDA used a new procedure to estimate health impacts that needs to be validated but the alleged verification process was fatally flawed.  One of the key health concerns is the effect of inhalable particulates on asthma related emergency room visits but there is no observed relationship between annual average PM2.5 and emergency room visits related to asthma for the New York State monitoring stations used in the NYSERDA analysis.  This post shows that the predicted impacts on emergency room visits, and inhalable particulate air quality reductions are within the range of observed variations.  This means that the impacts do not justify the investments.

Asthma and Air Quality Relationships in New York

The New York Draft State Energy Plan is currently out for comments.  While I have submitted oral comments at three hearings I have no intention of preparing detailed written comments on many topics because there is no indication that the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) will seriously consider stakeholder input.  Because of my experience as an air pollution meteorologist and because of the fundamental flaw in the air quality analysis underpinning the Health Benefits chapter analysis I am preparing written comments on this topic.  This post presents one component of that submittal – the premise that air quality is responsible for observed asthma health impacts.

I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks.  I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 575 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone. 

Net-Zero Aspirations

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and has two electric sector targets: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040.

According to the New York State Energy Plan website: “The State Energy Plan is a comprehensive roadmap to build a clean, resilient, and affordable energy system for all New Yorkers.”  The driving factor for the updated Energy Plan is net-zero ambitions of the Climate Act.  This is the first update of the Energy Plan since the Climate Act was passed in 2019.  I have provided more background information and a list of previous articles on my Energy Plan page. 

Air Quality and Health Impacts

I submitted an oral comment at the virtual Draft State Energy Plan Public Hearing on September 13, 2025, about the health benefits chapter.  Because comments are limited to two minutes it was impossible to justify my submittal so I posted a documentation article here.  The crux of the oral comment was that NYSERDA is using a new modeling approach to project the air quality impacts associated with Climate Act implementation that are used to determine health benefits.  Although the Health Benefits chapter claimed that they had validated the approach, I showed that their analysis was wrong.

In my written comments I intend to explain why the analysis is wrong.  This is important because one key rationale for the transition is health improvements so if their estimates of air quality improvements are wrong the health benefits are wrong too.  The Public Health Impacts fact sheet claims the following health effect benefits. 

All these calculations are based on air quality impacts estimated using a methodology that is based on the premise that air quality is the driver for these health effects.  I have always been uncomfortable with claims like this but haven’t found data for health impacts that I could compare to air quality observations.  This article simply compares asthma and air quality data to see if there is a clear relationship.

Asthma Data

The New York State Department of Health has developed the New York State Asthma Dashboard. There are five component New York State data sets available:

  • Asthma Emergency Department Visits
  • Asthma Hospital Discharge Data
  • Asthma Deaths and Death Rates
  • Asthma Prevalence
  • Asthma Data for the Medicaid Managed Care Population

Note that the health effect “Emergency room visits, asthma” parameter in the Draft Energy Plan health effects analysis and the “asthma emergency department visits” parameter in the first component measure the same thing. Documentation for the data sources notes that there are qualifications on these data. For example, people can have asthma and not go to the emergency department and asthma visits are not only related to exposure but also are related to access and quality of primary care.

The Asthma Dashboard provides county-level data for 11 indicators in the “asthma emergency department visits” component.  There is an export function tab on the Main County Dashboard that I used to download a file with county-level data in the Asthma dashboard – county trend tab in AD-County Trend Data RC spreadsheet.  The annual trend tab lists values for the discrete years 2017-2022.  The County tab lists values for those counties that had ambient air quality monitoring stations listed in the Health Benefits Chapter Appendix Table A-3.     

Ambient Air Quality Data

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) operates an ambient air quality monitoring system across the state and prepares annual reports.  The methodology appendix in the Health Benefits chapter of the Draft Energy Plan compares the observed inhalable particulate matter (PM2.5) with their model predictions to validate their approach as shown in Table A-3 below.  That analysis used data from 19 monitoring sites.  This analysis will use the same sites except for the near-road monitor because they are not intended to capture average ambient concentrations.

Source: Draft Energy Plan Health Impacts Analysis

Asthma and Inhalable Particulates

The presumption in the Health Impacts analysis is that higher pollution levels will result in greater asthma health effects. The purpose of this article is to simply check the data for this relationship. The data used, graphs generated and statistics calculated are available.  I used EXEL to calculate correlation coefficients using the CORREL function.  This coefficient ranges from -1 (perfect negative) to +1 (perfect positive); values near zero indicate little/no linear relationship between the variables. If asthma rates are related to inhalable pollution, then the coefficient should be close to +1. I also plotted the asthma health impacts against the pollution levels to see if there is an obvious relationship.  The relative changes of the parameters over time should indicate if the premise is likely.  Note that I have scaled the inhalable particulate concentrations so that the plots both show differences with time.

The CORREL correlation coefficient for the Albany monitor and the Total asthma emergency department visit rate per 10,000 in Albany County was 0.07 and for Loudonville it was 0.40.  Note that these were the only correlation coefficients that suggested there was a positive relationship between pollution and asthma.  Inhalable particulate (PM2.5) concentrations are multiplied by 5 in the graph.

The CORREL correlation coefficient for the IS-52 monitor and the Total asthma emergency department visit rate per 10,000 in the Bronx was -0.46 and -0.80 for Pfizer Lab Site Botanical Garden.  Inhalable particulate (PM2.5) concentrations are multiplied by 20. 

The CORREL correlation coefficient for the Amherst monitor and the Total asthma emergency department visit rate per 10,000 in Erie County was -0.62 and -0.51 for Pfizer Lab Site Botanical gar.  Inhalable particulate (PM2.5) concentrations are multiplied by 10. 

The CORREL correlation coefficient for the Whiteface Base monitor and the Total asthma emergency department visit rate per 10,000 in Erie County was -0.02.  Inhalable particulate (PM2.5) concentrations are multiplied by 10. 

The CORREL correlation coefficient for the JHS 126 monitor and the Total asthma emergency department visit rate per 10,000 in Kings County was -0.58.  Inhalable particulate (PM2.5) concentrations are multiplied by 10. 

The CORREL correlation coefficient for the IS 45 monitor and the Total asthma emergency department visit rate per 10,000 in Manhattan was -0.63.  Inhalable particulate (PM2.5) concentrations are multiplied by 10. 

The CORREL correlation coefficient for the IS 45 monitor and the Total asthma emergency department visit rate per 10,000 in Monroe County was -0.75.  This relationship was the worst observed.  Inhalable particulate (PM2.5) concentrations are multiplied by 10. 

The CORREL correlation coefficient for the Newburgh monitor and the Total asthma emergency department visit rate per 10,000 in Orange County was -0.45.  Inhalable particulate (PM2.5) concentrations are multiplied by 10. 

The CORREL correlation coefficient for the East Syracuse monitor and the Total asthma emergency department visit rate per 10,000 in Onondaga County was -0.45.  Inhalable particulate (PM2.5) concentrations are multiplied by 10. 

The CORREL correlation coefficient for the Queens College 2 monitor and the Total asthma emergency department visit rate per 10,000 in Queens County was -0.37.  Inhalable particulate (PM2.5) concentrations are multiplied by 10. 

The CORREL correlation coefficient for the Port Richmond monitor and the Total asthma emergency department visit rate per 10,000 in Richmond County was -0.00.  This was the monitor with the least indication of a relationship. Inhalable particulate (PM2.5) concentrations are multiplied by 10. 

The CORREL correlation coefficient for the Pinnacle State Park monitor and the Total asthma emergency department visit rate per 10,000 in Steuben County was -0.08.  Inhalable particulate (PM2.5) concentrations are multiplied by 10. 

The CORREL correlation coefficient for the Babylon monitor and the Total asthma emergency department visit rate per 10,000 in Suffolk County was -0.50.  Inhalable particulate (PM2.5) concentrations are multiplied by 10. 

Asthma, Ozone, and Inhalable Particulates

The Health Benefits chapter calculates benefits based on impacts from inhalable particulates and ozone.  The following graphs include ozone.  I did not calculate the correlation coeffients.  Note that there are fewer ozone monitors.

Inhalable particulate (PM2.5) concentrations are multiplied by 5 and ozone concentrations are multiplied by 1,000. 

Inhalable particulate (PM2.5) concentrations are multiplied by 20 and ozone concentrations are multiplied by 1,000.

Inhalable particulate (PM2.5) concentrations are multiplied by 10 and ozone concentrations are multiplied by 1,000.

Inhalable particulate (PM2.5) concentrations are multiplied by 10 and ozone concentrations are multiplied by 1,000.

Inhalable particulate (PM2.5) concentrations are multiplied by 10 and ozone concentrations are multiplied by 1,000.

Inhalable particulate (PM2.5) concentrations are multiplied by 10 and ozone concentrations are multiplied by 1,000.

Inhalable particulate (PM2.5) concentrations are multiplied by 10 and ozone concentrations are multiplied by 1,000.

Inhalable particulate (PM2.5) concentrations are multiplied by 10 and ozone concentrations are multiplied by 1,000.

Inhalable particulate (PM2.5) concentrations are multiplied by 10 and ozone concentrations are multiplied by 1,000.

Discussion

I believe that NYSERDA has the responsibility to show that their health effect methodology is accurate.  The intent of this post was to simply generate the graphs and run a simple statistic to see if there was an obvious relationship between normalized county-wide total asthma emergency department visits and air quality monitoring station measured concentrations of inhalable particulates and ozone.  I did not think there would be an obvious relationship, but I was surprised that it was so bad.  Only two of the sixteen comparisons suggested that there was a relationship that indicated that inhalable particulate concentrations influenced asthma emergency department visits.

In the oral comments I made on September 13, I stated that to establish credibility the modeling must prove the methodology is accurate by comparing predictions and observations over the same time period. Incredibly, the Draft Energy Plan does not do that.  On page A-13 the draft states: “Because model projections were only available starting with year 2025, these results were compared against multiple years of observational data”.  That is just plain wrong.

The 2017-2022 data set used was listed in their Table A-3.  This is a very limited data set for validating a model.  I did not bother to try to calculate more sophisticated statistics for my evaluation because the level of effort was high and the data sets so small that any result would not be robust.  Nonetheless, these results set a high bar for the Draft Energy Plan health effects analysis validation study.  If there is no observed relationship between observed air quality and asthma effects, then I cannot imagine a scenario where model predictions compared to observations over the same time period could possibly show that the model is working satisfactorily.

Conclusion

I intend to use the information in this post as part of my written comments on the Draft Energy Plan.  I have more concerns that will make the modeling results used in the health benefits analysis even less credible.  As I said in my oral comments last week, I have seen no indication that NYSERDA is going to seriously consider stakeholder input so this will likely be the extent of my written comments.  When I submit my comments, I will conclusively prove that the air quality relationships that are the fundamental driver of the health benefits are wrong. The question is whether NYSERDA and, by extension the Hochul Administration, will concede that there is a problem and revise their analysis.  I do not think that they will even acknowledge that I submitted a contradictory comment.

My comments at the Draft Energy Plan Virtual Hearing 13 September 2023

This post documents the oral comments I submitted at the virtual Draft State Energy Plan Public Hearing on September 13, 2025.  The New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) only allocated two minutes per person, so this article documents the statements that I made.

I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks.  I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 575 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone. 

Net-Zero Aspirations

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and has two electric sector targets: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040.

According to the New York State Energy Plan website: “The State Energy Plan is a comprehensive roadmap to build a clean, resilient, and affordable energy system for all New Yorkers.”  The New York State Energy Planning Board is a “multi-agency entity established under Article 6 of the Energy Law, playing a core role in the State Energy Plan process”. Among its responsibilities is adopting the State Energy Plan: The Board has the authority to adopt the comprehensive statewide energy plan, and the stakeholder process should be an important component of that responsibility.

The driving factor for the updated Energy Plan is net-zero ambitions of the Climate Act.  This is the first update of the Energy Plan since the Climate Act was passed in 2019.  I have provided more background information and a list of previous articles on my Energy Plan page.  Because of the importance of this process on the future energy system of New York I am following it closely and will be submitting oral and written comments. 

Comments

This section documents the comments I made on September 13, 2025.  I used bullets to differentiate my comments from the explanations. 

  • My name is Roger Caiazza.  Documentation for my comments will be posted on my Pragmatic Environmentalist of NY blog

As noted in the introduction I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Act will do more harm than good.

  • I have not seen any indication that NYSERDA is going to seriously consider stakeholder input, so I have no plans to submit written comments on all the problems I have seen in the draft.  Air quality modeling is a particular expertise of mine so I have looked at the Public Health Impact Chapter air quality modeling analysis.

I submitted comments at the first virtual meeting on August 19 that argued that there had to be assurances that the process will respond to stakeholder input if the process is to be credible.  There hasn’t been any suggestion that the process will respond to stakeholder input.  Moreover, despite assurances that recordings of the hearings would be posted, links to the first hearing were not posted until September 12.

I have been employed as an air pollution meteorologist since 1976.  According to Perplexity AI that means I am a “specialized atmospheric scientist who applies meteorological principles and techniques to understand, predict, and mitigate air pollution impacts.”  To predict air pollution impacts I have used several models that use source characteristics, emission rates, and meteorological conditions to estimate pollution concentrations.

  • The modeling methodology is new and, in my opinion, flawed because it over-simplifies inhalable particulate air quality source-receptor relationships.  At the same time, it applies the model to an extraordinarily large emission inventory. I will submit written comments addressing those concerns.

I am still working on detailed comments about these flaws.  In brief, they use a simplified approach that cuts down on computer time but I think they have oversimplified the source to receptor metrics.  For example, one of the simplifications is to limit the meteorological inputs to four wind directions.  Given that wind direction is enormously impactful on pollution impacts I think that is unacceptable.  A minimum of 16 wind directions are necessary to represent impacts satisfactorily.

  • To establish credibility the modeling must prove the methodology is accurate.  The appendix to the health impact chapter purports to validate the model for this reason.  An air quality model verification analysis uses historical meteorology and emissions input to predict air quality concentrations and compares those results with observed concentrations over the same time period.

While working for a consulting firm I did extensive air quality model evaluation work.  The process is not complicated.  It is necessary to compare model results against observed concentrations.  Obviously, the observations need to be for the same time period as the predictions.

  • The draft does not do that.  On page A-13 the draft states: “Because model projections were only available starting with year 2025, these results were compared against multiple years of observational data”. 

When I first read that statement, I did a double take and read it again. I could not believe it.  It is inconceivable that a reputable analysis could claim to evaluate model performance by comparing observed historical concentrations against future predicted concentrations.

  • That is just plain wrong.  The verification statistics presented are worthless.  It means that the health benefit claims are unsupportable.

The biggest problem describing this situation is finding the right terms to describe the enormity of the error without using profanity. 

Discussion 

The Public Health Impacts fact sheet claims the following health effect benefits. 

All these calculations are based on air quality impacts estimated using a new methodology that has not been validated.  I have many other questions about this methodology that I need to research before I can comment.  I am not denying that there will be benefits but the magnitude of the claims appears to be exaggerated.  My first impression is that because the range of observed PM2.5 concentrations is greater than the projected emission reductions then these projections are suspect.

There are troubling implications associated with this finding that a critical component in the health impact analysis is incorrect.  It does not speak well for the scientific integrity of the work products.  I presumed that NYSERDA hired experts to review the draft before it was released but the enormity of this error indicates that the review process failed. 

Also consider that in the Scoping Plan analysis NYSERDA estimates of the benefits were deliberately misleading.   The Draft Energy Plan is similarly hiding the true costs needed to meet the Climate Act targets.  In both cases the primary trick was to use an inappropriate future baseline scenario.  I have no doubt that the primary charge given to NYSERDA was to make the costs and benefits look as good as possible.  It appears those marching orders override scientific principles.

The Climate Act includes requirements to address disadvantaged community impacts.  To respond to that requirement NYSERDA needed a new model so they developed the modeling approach used here.  I think it is likely that the pressure to produce favorable benefits at the resolution necessary was greater than the pressure to do so following scientific principles.  They probably assumed that no reader would sift through the documentation and pick up on the fact that their modeling validation study was bogus.  Of course, the fact that NYSERDA does not respond to comments means that they will just ignore the flaw that I documented here.

Conclusion

When I described this to one of my friends, he remarked that this is proof that science and NYSERDA cannot be used in the same science.  I agree completely.

Stay tuned for a follow up post on this component of the Draft Energy Plan.

My Comments on the NYPA 2025 Draft Strategic Renewable Plan

The New York Power Authority (NYPA) recently published for public comment the draft first update to its inaugural Strategic Plan for “developing new renewable energy generation projects to supply New Yorkers with affordable, reliable, and emissions-free electricity.”  This post describes my comments on the draft.

I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks.  I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 550 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone. 

Net-Zero Aspirations

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and has two electric sector targets: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040. The electric sector mandates are implemented in Public Service Law (PSL) Section 66-P, Establishment of a renewable energy program.  PSL 66-P also includes often overlooked safety valve provisions.  The PSC is empowered by this statute to temporarily suspend or modify these obligations if, after conducting an appropriate hearing, it finds that the PSL 66-P impedes the provision of safe and adequate electric service.  Despite my best efforts, there has been no response to this requirement.

NYPA Strategic Plan

I described how NYPA was saddled with a renewable development responsibility in an earlier post describing comments submitted by Dennis Higgins. In short legislation forced NYPA to develop a strategic plan to deploy more renewable energy.  They describe this update as follows:

NYPA published a draft of its Updated Strategic Plan on July 29, 2025, which details NYPA’s efforts to develop, own and operate renewable generation and energy storage projects to improve the reliability and resiliency of New York’s grid. The draft Updated Strategic Plan includes 20 new renewable generation projects and four energy storage projects. The plan also includes three new project portfolios that contain 152 storage systems. The new projects are located in every region throughout the state and represent a combined capacity of more than 3.8 gigawatts (GW). Including the first tranche of projects identified in the inaugural strategic plan—approved by the NYPA Board of Trustees in January—NYPA’s draft Updated Strategic Plan includes 64 projects and portfolios representing nearly seven gigawatts of capacity—enough electricity to power nearly seven million homes.

My Comments

My comments argue that the NYPA Draft Plan must develop its own affordability and reliability boundary conditions to ensure that its plans ensure adequate and reliable electric supply consistent with the requirements in PSL 66-P.  Technical staff at NYPA understand the impacts of renewable energy on the electric system whereas the legislators that promulgated the law requiring NYPA to advance renewable energy do not.  Establishing constraints based on a comprehensive understanding of the electric system is a commonsense safeguard.

I argued that there have been two things since NY politicians expanded NYPA’s renewable energy responsibilities that should be reflected in the 2025 Draft Plan.  It has become clear that the costs to implement the Climate Act are significantly more than expected.  There was a blackout on the Iberian Peninsula that was associated with solar generation.  The Draft Plan should address both.

My overarching concern with Climate Act implementation is affordability.  Since the last update to the NYPA strategic renewable energy plan even Governor Hochul has acknowledged this problem.  This is relevant for the Draft Plan because the Governor recognizes the goal of “affordable, reliable, emission-free electricity”. Posts on this blog have repeatedly made the point that affordable and reliable electricity goals are meaningless unless those terms are defined.  My comments said the Draft Plan must acknowledge the PSL 66-P boundary conditions and recognize that the definitions are imprecise and need to be to be refined to properly protect New Yorkers.  The fact that there is insufficient guidance should not mean that NYPA does not have the responsibility to address this problem.  NYPA has the technical expertise to define its own criteria for affordable, reliable electricity that should be incorporated into the Draft Plan.

Affordability will likely be the primary driver for changes in the current energy policies because the impacts are directly observable.  Reliability concerns are more complex and have not been observed yet in New York.  As a result, the problem is not as well recognized.  On April 28, 2025, a problem at a photovoltaic plant in Spain triggered a blackout over the Iberian Peninsula.  Without a course correction similar issues are inevitable here.  The Draft Plan must address the ramifications of this blackout that I described in a recent post where I described several recent articles that explained why increased reliance on renewables threaten reliability.

The first article looked at the physics of power grids and the general behavior of both synchronous generation (gas, hydro and nuclear) and inverter-based generation (wind, solar and batteries).  Inverter-based resources like wind, solar, and energy storage do not inherently provide transmission support such as voltage control and reactive power services as the spinning turbine generators relied on today.  The overarching problem is that not only do inverter-based resources not provide necessary support functions, but they can also de-stabilize the grid in certain, poorly understood circumstances.

The second post explained that the Spanish blackout “demonstrated the importance of voltage control and reactive power, and how a weak grid, with poor controls, was brought down by a single faulty solar inverter.”  The basis of the blog post was a report produced by Red Eléctrica de España (“REE”), the Spanish Transmission System Operator (“TSO”).  The key messages in the REE report are:

  • The blackout was triggered by a solar photo voltaic inverter–induced voltage oscillation
  • Inappropriate disconnections of wind and solar generation, and widespread failure of reactive power support, escalated the disturbance
  • The collapse exposes systemic risks in low-inertia grids with high levels of inverter-based resources (“IBRs”) and inadequate voltage control

I think the findings in third article should be should be considered in the Draft Plan because Spanish blackout shows that “the true cost of solar can no longer be hidden from the public.”  It explained that:

Last week, an expansive article in Bloomberg Green—confessionally titled “The Fix For Solar Blackouts Is Already Here”—captured this sentiment. It lamented that the penetration of solar and wind has outpaced the buildout of stabilization technologies such as synchronous condensers and grid-forming inverters. In other words, the renewables worked as designed, but the infrastructure to integrate them safely at such high percentages of supply lagged far behind:

“The result is huge spending on new wind and solar capacity, but not enough on grids. The 27 members of the European Union and the UK invest on average $0.7 in grids for every dollar spent on renewables, according to BloombergNEF. Spain ranks the lowest, with only $0.3 spent for every dollar.

Blackouts are causing political backlashes against renewables that politicians cannot afford right now. ‘Here’s the problem: Investments in the right infrastructure are not keeping up,’ said António Guterres, head of the United Nations, in a July speech. ‘That ratio should be one to one.’”

With respect to the NYPA Draft Plan this means that simply building renewable capacity is a flawed policy that will lead to similar problems.  The lesson from Europe is that investments in the renewable capacity must be accompanied by investments to maintain reliability in an electric system dependent upon inverter-based resources.  If renewable energy capacity is expanded beyond the ability of the transmission system to use it, then blackouts are inevitable.

Other Comments

One lesson learned about this process is that environmental organizers can rally their supporters to submit comments.   My comments noted that NYPA needs to confront the emotion-driven rhetoric of clean energy advocates when their claims do not meet technical standards necessary for policy decisions.  Many of the numeous comments submitted begin with the demand that NYPA must double its efforts and build the 15GW that New York needs “to comply with the Climate Act, lower electricity bills, create 25,000 green union jobs, and end our fossil fuel dependence.”  My comments responded to these claims.

The comments that demand that NYPA “must build 15 GW of public renewable energy by 2030” ignore reality.  Numerous implementation issues have delayed deployments to the point where the Clean Energy Standard Biennial Review admits that the 70% renewable energy by 2030 target could be delayed. For the same reasons, there should be no expectation that NYPA can accelerate its deployment substantially.

The myth that wind and solar will lower electricity bills is evaporating as described in the section addressing the Spanish blackout.  There are two relevant implications for the NYPA Draft Plan.  It is not enough to just build renewable energy.  Investment in transmission upgrades cited by the head of the United Nations must be included.  Secondly NYPA must include the grid infrastructure investments and necessary energy storage required to back up the intermittent wind and solar deployed to meet legislative requirements.

Commenters claimed without any evidence that building 15 GW of renewables would “create 25,000 green union jobs”.  Too often New York’s energy policies have ignored experiences in other jurisdictions are further down the net-zero transition path.  David Turver has described the cost of green energy jobs in the United Kingdom.  One of the points he makes is that number of green jobs means that the energy sector is becoming less productive.  Most of these jobs are utterly dependent upon subsidies which adds another inefficiency.  Based on his projections the average subsidy across all three sectors is over $259,000 per job.  This leads to the question that the Draft Plan must address.  Who is going to pay for those subsidies?

The claim that deploying more renewables will “end our fossil fuel dependence” ignores society’s broader dependency on fossil fuels. Ronald Stien has made the point that “the world’s 8 billion are dependent on more than 6,000 products made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil”. Furthermore, until dispatchable, emissions-free resources are deployed New York’s electric grid has to rely on dispatchable fossil fuel generators.  Deploying excess renewable energy affects the economic viability of the backup fossil fuel generators and will likely lead to subsidies to maintain that necessary support.

Discussion

NYPA has the technical expertise to define criteria for reliability standards necessary to address the observed problems that led to the Spanish blackout.  My comments assert that the Draft Plan must define safety valve criteria for affordability and reliability metrics.  If the safety valve criteria are exceeded, then the Draft Plan should be paused until alternatives that will not adversely affect affordability and reliability are identified and proved feasible in a demonstration project.  This approach is the only way to ensure that the Draft Plan programs do not cause unaffordable and unreliable energy. 

Conclusion

I think that mixing energy policy and politics is a recipe for disaster.  The hubris of the politicians who enabled this legislation knows no bounds.  It is not only that their legislation mandates the impossible, but they also hamstring organizations in the state responsible for providing affordable, clean, and reliable electricity.  Upset that the deployment of renewable energy was not progressing fast enough to save the planet, the legislation forced NYPA to develop a strategic plan to deploy more renewable energy without any consideration of the consequences.

Assemblyman Phil Palmesano Energy Plan Op-Ed

I believe that the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) has always been about politics.  It was enacted to cater to specific constituencies and implementation will only change if politicians realize that the majority of New Yorkers have limited appetite for the effects on affordability and personal choice and modify the Climate Act.  This post presents an opinion piece by Assemblyman Phil Palmesano (R,C-Corning) who argues that New York energy policies must ensure energy affordability, reliability, feasibility, safety, choice, and fuel diversity.

I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Act net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks.  I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 550 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone. 

Net-Zero Aspirations

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and has two electric sector targets: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040.

In July the Draft Energy Plan was released for public comments.  According to the New York State Energy Plan website: “The State Energy Plan is a comprehensive roadmap to build a clean, resilient, and affordable energy system for all New Yorkers.”  The driving factor for the updated Energy Plan is net-zero ambitions of the Climate Act.  I have provided more background information and a list of my previous articles on my Energy Plan page. 

The opinion piece released by Palmesano is in response to the Draft Energy Plan public stakeholder process. I present it in its entirety below.  Assemblyman Palmesano represents the 132nd District, which includes Schuyler County, Yates County and Parts of Chemung County, Seneca County and Steuben County. He is the ranking member on the Assembly Energy Committee, a role he has held since 2013. For more information about Assemblyman Palmesano, please follow him on Facebook.

New York Leaders Need to Listen to the People

As you may have seen recently, I have embarked on a statewide energy tour, joining with my Assembly and Senate Republican colleagues at all locations across the state where the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) is holding public hearings on the state’s proposed energy plan. The goal of this tour is simple: to make the public aware that Gov. Hochul and Democrats in the Legislature are pushing policies that will continue to increase utility rates for New York families and businesses. The fact of the matter is the policies they continue to advance are designed to dismantle the affordable and reliable natural gas infrastructure, supply and delivery system. This, despite the fact that 60% of New Yorkers heat their homes with natural gas, and 40% of our generation comes from natural gas. Their policies are designed to take away consumer choice on how you heat your home, cook your food, power your buildings and the vehicle you drive. Their policies will jeopardize the reliability of the grid, leading to dangerous and deadly blackouts and will continue our nation-leading outmigration crisis of more families, farmers, small businesses and manufacturers leaving our state. The governor and Democrats in Albany are on mission to fully electrify our state’s energy grid with no concern for energy affordability, reliability, feasibility, safety, energy choice or fuel diversity.x`x`

NYSERDA also needs to expand its hearings to include Central New York, the North Country and the Southern Tier. Currently, in-person hearings are only being held in Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, the Hudson Valley, New York City and Long Island, along with three virtual hearings. It is completely unacceptable and unfair that the citizens and businesses of Central New York, the North Country and the Southern Tier do not get an opportunity to voice their input and concerns at an in-person hearing. Therefore, we have called on NYSERDA to schedule in-person public hearings at these three locations,  as well as grant an extension of the public comment period by 90 additional days until January 4, 2026, so a more thorough process can be achieved. Given the far-reaching impact of our state’s draft energy plan, coupled with the radical energy/climate policies being advanced in Albany, it is critically important more time be granted for New York families and businesses to weigh in on our state’s energy future.

The state’s draft energy plan says we need an “all of the above” approach to our energy plan, including the use of natural gas, nuclear and fuel diversity. Unfortunately, the policies being pushed and advanced in Albany don’t match the words. Gov. Hochul and the Albany Democrat-controlled Legislature continue to side with far-left Green New Deal advocates instead of siding with everyday New Yorkers. Families and businesses across the state have already seen their energy bills sky-rocket while utilities continue to call for even higher rates because of the Democrats’ green energy mandates, with more to come. In fact, in July of 2023, the PSC approved $43B in future ratepayer increases to pay for green energy mandates. The comptroller and others have estimated these green energy mandates will cost more than a quarter-of-a-trillion dollars. 

Some of these costly policies include the following. First, you have the CLCPA (New York Green New Deal), which requires net-zero generation by 2040 regardless of the costs, feasibility or how it jeopardizes energy reliability for families and businesses. In addition, the All- Electric Buildings Act will deny new home construction as of January 2026 the ability to use natural gas or propane and be fully electrified. Then there is the mother of all unfunded mandates, the Electric School Bus Mandate, which is as much as three times more expensive than a near-zero emission-free diesel school bus, which is estimated by the Empire Center to increase replacement costs by as much as $15 billion for school property taxpayers, not to mention the billions of dollars in charging infrastructure and energy grid upgrades. New York is requiring school districts to convert their entire bus fleets to electric by 2035, a full five years before the state is required to convert its fleet. In what world does this make any sense? Why should school districts be the guinea pig for this social experiment? There is Cap and Invest (or Carbon         Tax), which is estimated to increase gas prices at the pump by 62 cents per gallon and natural gas home heating by 80%, according to former DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos. The new electric vehicle purchase requirements, including the Advanced Clean Truck Rule and Advanced Clean Car II rule that mandate electric vehicle and truck purchases regardless of the lack of infrastructure in place, range issues, costs or preferred choice of New Yorkers, just to name a few. In addition, for perspective, the residential electricity rate for New Yorkers in 2019 was 17 cents/kw hr. Today, it is 25 cents/kw hr. or 40% higher than the national average. This is completely unsustainable for New York families and businesses.

To make matters even worse, this plan will barely impact global emissions. New York is already one of the cleanest energy producers in the world; in fact, we contribute just 0.4% of global emissions while China contributes 30%, has 1,000 coal plants and is building more every week. We could literally cut our emissions to zero and have no effect on worldwide global emissions. All this shows that Gov. Hochul is more worried about looking good to her far-left base ahead of next year’s gubernatorial election rather than doing the right thing to advance policies that actually protect ratepayers while ensuring an energy plan that is affordable, reliable, feasible, safe and protects fuel diversity and energy choice. That is what New Yorkers want. 

In fact, there was a poll this past summer where 71% of New Yorkers strongly indicated they did NOT want a ban on natural gas, including 76% of independents. In addition, 66% of New Yorkers indicated they want a balance between renewable energy resources and natural gas, including 74% of Democrats. The decision is clear. New Yorkers want energy choice and the use of natural gas to cook and heat their homes.

It’s long past time for Gov. Hochul and Democrats in Albany to finally listen to New York families and businesses when it comes to our state’s energy plan and policies instead of virtue signaling for votes.

Conclusion

One politician gets it.  I do not know what it will take for enough politicians to accept the inevitable that the Climate Act will adversely affect affordability, reliability, and personal choice for no tangible benefits.  At some point the perceived political benefit of supporting the Climate Act will become an inescapable liability.  To achieve this goal New Yorkers need to know what is happening and then speak up.  Palmesano’s op-ed is a good contribution to that goal.

Implications of the 2025 Spanish Blackout on the Draft Energy Plan

On April 28, 2025, a problem at a photovoltaic plant in Spain triggered a blackout over the Iberian Peninsula.  I believe that this event should be considered in the New York Draft State Energy Plan.

I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks.  I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 550 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone. 

Background

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and has two electric sector targets: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040. The Climate Action Council (CAC) was responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.”  The Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda” was based on an Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). 

The Draft State Energy Plan is being updated for the first time since the Climate Act was promulgated. According to the New York State Energy Plan website: “The State Energy Plan is a comprehensive roadmap to build a clean, resilient, and affordable energy system for all New Yorkers.”  I have provided more background information and a list of previous articles on my Energy Plan page.  Because of the importance of this process on the future energy system of New York I am following it closely and have been developing comments. 

Blackout

The authors of the Climate Act had a very superficial knowledge of the electric system.  The presumption in the academic energy studies that guided the Climate Act is that generation and load are sufficient aspects of the electric system for projecting electric system changes.  They believe that if there is enough generation, no matter the source or where it is located, to balance the load then the system will work.  Meredith Angiwn authored an entire book Shorting the Grid – The Hidden Fragility of Our Electric Grid  devoted to the unacknowledged difficulties associated with wind, solar, and energy storage resources shortcomings related to maintaining voltage and overall system reliability not considered in the Climate Act.  The Spanish blackout should be a wakeup call to New York politicians that the technical experts at the New York Independent System Operator and New York State Reliability Council should be fully integrated into the Energy Plan process.  They are trying to resolve the myriad technical issues associated with integrating wind, solar, and energy storage into the grid and I am uncomfortable that the NYSERDA Draft Energy Plan addresses all their concerns.

Two recent posts at the Watt-Logic blog describe the blackout this spring on the Iberian peninsula that affected Spain, Portugal, and France that I think needs to be considered in the Draft Energy Plan.  The first article looked at the physics of power grids and the general behavior of both synchronous generation (gas, hydro and nuclear) and inverter-based generation (wind, solar and batteries).   Watt-Logic gives an overview explanation of the “importance of voltage control and reactive power” that were the root cause of the Spanish blackout.  In short, the existing system depends upon synchronous generators that convert mechanical energy (spinning turbines) into electrical energy, producing alternating current  that matches the frequency of the electric grid.  These generators inherently provide important electric grid functions that are difficult to replicate with inverter-based resources like wind, solar, and energy storage.  The problem is that not only do inverter-based resources not perform many of these functions, but they can also de-stabilize the grid in certain, poorly understood circumstances.

The second post addressed what we know about the Iberian blackout. Watt-Logic explains that the blackout “demonstrated the importance of voltage control and reactive power, and how a weak grid, with poor controls, was brought down by a single faulty solar inverter.”  The basis of the blog post was a “concise but informative report produced by Red Eléctrica de España (“REE”), the Spanish Transmission System Operator (“TSO”), which is more accessible than the much longer government report (available only in Spanish – rough English translation here).”

Watt-Logic lists the key messages from the REE report:

  • The blackout was triggered by a PV inverter–induced voltage oscillation
  • Inappropriate disconnections of wind and solar generation, and widespread failure of reactive power support, escalated the disturbance
  • REE relied on static controls and failed to deploy dynamic response assets
  • Grid code non-compliance was widespread among renewables, conventional generators, and even REE itself (via non-compliant transformers)
  • The collapse exposes systemic risks in low-inertia grids with high levels of inverter-based resources (“IBRs”) and inadequate voltage control
  • It is notable that, despite confident denials from some renewables advocates in the immediate aftermath, it was in fact a malfunctioning solar installation that triggered the voltage oscillation initiating the collapse. Wind and solar generators failed to meet fault ride-through obligations, and both inverter-based and conventional generators failed to provide the required reactive power support. Crucially, conventional generators did not trip prematurely – they remained online until system conditions breached their design tolerances.

If you want more information about this event then I recommend reading the post.  For the purposes of this article, there are no references in the Draft Energy Plan to the blackout.  That is understandable given that the blackout occurred a couple of months prior to the release of the document.  On the other hand, the consequences of this event have serious implications to New York’s 2040 zero-emissions mandate.

Solar Costs

The second reason that the Spanish blackout should be considered in the Draft Energy Plan is because of the cost implications.  Most of the public still believes the charlatans who claim that solar is the cheapest form of energy.  A recent Doomberg blog explains that after the blackout in Spain earlier this year “the true cost of solar can no longer be hidden from the public.”

The Doomberg post describes the blackout and the attempts by Spanish authorities to deflect blame away from the possibility that the problem was due to the solar facilities.  Their post goes on: “As the results of the investigation became undeniable, responsibility was pinned not on solar but on the grid operators who had failed to make the necessary investments to handle the rapid influx of green electricity.”  They stated that:

Last week, an expansive article in Bloomberg Green—confessionally titled “The Fix For Solar Blackouts Is Already Here”—captured this sentiment. It lamented that the penetration of solar and wind has outpaced the buildout of stabilization technologies such as synchronous condensers and grid-forming inverters. In other words, the renewables worked as designed, but the infrastructure to integrate them safely at such high percentages of supply lagged far behind:

“The result is huge spending on new wind and solar capacity, but not enough on grids. The 27 members of the European Union and the UK invest on average $0.7 in grids for every dollar spent on renewables, according to BloombergNEF. Spain ranks the lowest, with only $0.3 spent for every dollar.

Blackouts are causing political backlash against renewables that politicians cannot afford right now. ‘Here’s the problem: Investments in the right infrastructure are not keeping up,’ said António Guterres, head of the United Nations, in a July speech. ‘That ratio should be one to one.’”

When you hear someone claim that solar is cheaper than natural gas, tell them that the head of the United Nations says that for every dollar spent on solar capacity, another dollar must be spent on transmission upgrades to prevent blackouts.  Then point out that because of night, another dollar must be spent on energy storage. 

Doomberg sums it up:

In reality, while the marginal cost of sunlight is zero, the true system cost of integrating solar into a modern grid includes the heavy and ongoing capital expenditures needed for transmission, stabilization, balancing services, and energy storage. Without those, the electricity produced cannot be delivered reliably, making it far less “cheap” than advocates claim.

Discussion

This post provides more reasons why solar is not the solution that many believe it to be.  It is time that New York politicians insist that the technical experts at the New York Independent System Operator and New York State Reliability Council be fully integrated into the Energy Plan process.  The experts responsible for providing reliable electricity are working to resolve the myriad technical issues associated with integrating wind, solar, and energy storage into the grid.  I am uncomfortable that the NYSERDA Draft Energy Plan addresses all their concerns.

The Draft State Energy Plan is being updated for the first time since 2017.  While the mandate for the Energy Plan calls for more frequent updates there is no need to rush this update.  This is the first update since the Climate Act was promulgated in 2019, so it is more important that this edition get it right than to meet an arbitrary deadline.  Therefore, the fact that this consequential event is not addressed in the Draft is an important reason to delay the deadline for comments on the draft. 

In my opinion, addressing this event and the changes to Federal support for renewable deployment are important enough that there should be a second draft prepared for comment.  The NYSERDA response to the extremely uncertain current situation could result in a significantly different energy plan.  New Yorkers should have the opportunity to address a draft that addresses these issues.

Conclusion

The Spanish Blackout has important implications for New York’s electric energy plan.  The issues raised here should be addressed and resolved before the Energy Plan is finalized.

Rochester Hearing Personal Comments on the Draft Energy Plan

This post documents the oral comments I submitted at the Draft State Energy Plan Public Hearing on September 4, 2025 in Rochester, NY.  The New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) only allocated two minutes per person, so this article documents the statements that I made.

I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks.  I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 550 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone. 

Net-Zero Aspirations

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and has two electric sector targets: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040.

According to the New York State Energy Plan website: “The State Energy Plan is a comprehensive roadmap to build a clean, resilient, and affordable energy system for all New Yorkers.”  The New York State Energy Planning Board is a “multi-agency entity established under Article 6 of the Energy Law, playing a core role in the State Energy Plan process”. Among its responsibilities is adopting the State Energy Plan: The Board has the authority to adopt the comprehensive statewide energy plan, and the stakeholder process should be an important component of that responsibility.

The driving factor for the updated Energy Plan is net-zero ambitions of the Climate Act.  This is the first update of the Energy Plan since the Climate Act was passed in 2019.  I have provided more background information and a list of previous articles on my Energy Plan page.  Because of the importance of this process on the future energy system of New York I am following it closely and will be submitting oral and written comments. 

Comments

This section documents the comments I made on August 4, 2025.  I used bullets to differentiate my comments from the explanations. 

  • My name is Roger Caiazza.  Documentation for my comments will be posted on my Pragmatic Environmentalist of NY blog

As noted in the introduction I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Act will do more harm than good.

  • The Overview for the Draft State Energy Plan states that it is “Advancing abundant, reliable, affordable, and clean energy for all New Yorkers.”

The Overview for the Draft State Energy Plan explains that “the State Energy Plan provides broad policy direction that guides energy-related decision making within New York State”, and includes “an outlook through 2040 with recommendations for meeting future energy demands that prioritize an energy system that is reliable, clean, and affordable while supporting economic development, equity, and a healthy environment.” The Overview also describes broad planning goals including:

Delivering abundant, reliable, resilient, and clean energy through a diverse mix of energy sources and supply infrastructure, while supporting energy efficiency and load flexibility. As clean energy resources ramp up over time, the State will maintain adequate supplies of all major energy sources.

Clearly this is a public relations statement checking all the politically sensitive topics.  There is an interesting statement in the preceding paragraph: “the state will maintain adequate supplies of all major energy sources.”  This hints at the possibility that fossil fueled resources will still be used in 2040.  Another broad planning goal is described:

Providing affordable energy to households and broad clean energy benefits to support continued prosperity, community and economic development, and an equitable energy transition. Policy and market solutions that help New Yorkers make energy-efficient choices and cut energy costs, matching programs to community needs, and inclusive engagement can help ensure that all communities benefit from the energy transition, including disadvantaged communities.

As before, this is just a public relations slogan.

  • Affordability, reliability, and clean energy need to be defined.

All the slogans in the Overview are meaningless unless these terms are defined.  I have long argued that Public Service Law (PSL) Section 66-P, “Establishment of a renewable energy program”, includes bounds on implementation that have not been considered to date.  I have shown that one of the provisions of that regulation and other circumstances warrant the PSC commencing a hearing process to “consider modification and extension” of New York Renewable Energy Program timelines.  Clearly this has an impact on the Draft Energy Plan and must be considered. 

  • The first prerequisite to considering affordability is a clear and transparent accounting of all the projected costs to meet the Climate Act mandates, not just the Climate Act mandated programs.

New Yorkers are starting to see their utility bills increase because of the Climate Act.  The Hochul Administration talks about energy cost concerns but as described in my August 19 comments the Draft Energy Plan continues to hide the costs by cherry picking their Pathways Analysis scenarios.  This should be corrected.

  • The PSC has an affordability metric appropriate for utility costs but that is inadequate for the energy plan that considers other energy costs such as personal transport and heating in homes that do not use electricity or natural gas.  A new metric is needed.

I have been arguing for this in many venues.  I described my search for an affordability metric and I submitted a comment in the Niagara Mohawk/National Grid rate case that also summarizes my concerns.  In short, despite the obvious need, nothing exists.

  • Two aspects of reliability must be addressed.  An electric system that relies on wind and solar is dependent upon weather variability.  The Integration Analysis, Pathways Analysis, PSC, NYISO, and independent work by Cornell’s Lindsay Anderson all agree new dispatchable, emissions free resources (DEFR) will be required to backup wind and solar during dark doldrums.  The relevant reliability question is how much is needed? The second reliability aspect is safety.  What happens to an all-electric energy system when there is an ice storm?

On August 12, 2025 Richard Ellenbogen, Constatine Kontogiannis, Francis Menton, and I submitted a filing to the Public Service Commission that argued safety valves need to be defined that address reliability challenges of a the proposed wind, solar, and energy storage electric system described in the Draft Energy Plan.  The filing included an exhibit that described the resources needed and the challenge associated with determining how much is needed. A recent post summarized the concerns that should be addressed in the Draft Energy Plan.

  • Clean energy needs to be defined too.  The Scoping Plan failed to compare the environmental and life cycle impacts of wind and solar relative to existing alternatives.  In addition, the last update of the cumulative environmental impact statement was completed in 2020 before future energy projections called for many more solar panels and wind turbines. 

The Scoping Plan considered every possible environmental impact associated with fossil fuels but ignored all the environmental impact associated with the manufacture of wind turbines, solar panels, and energy storage batteries.  That means that there hasn’t been a direct comparison of impacts.  In addition no environmental impact accounting addressed the shorter expected lifetimes of those technologies.  There also is a serious deficiency regarding cumulative environmental impacts.  Consistent with 6 New York Codes, Rules and Regulations (NYCRR) §617.9(a)(7), a Generic Environmental Impact Statement was released on September 17, 2020 .  This Final Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) for the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act was released that claimed to evaluate the environmental impacts associated with the incremental resources expected to be needed to comply with the Climate Act.  It built upon and incorporated by reference relevant material from four prior State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) analyses. 

As I documented in the August 12, 2025 PSC filing, the problem is that the original expectations of renewable capacity for the Climate Act falls far short of the renewable capacity requirements in more recent assessments.  The following table compares the capacity (MW) in the 2021-2040 NYISO Outlook Scenario 1, the Scoping Plan Strategic Use of Low-Carbon Fuels Scenario and six scenarios in the July 2025 Draft State Energy Plan.  There are inconsistencies in the categories but the massive increase in renewable resources is obvious.  Onshore wind is projected capacity is 145% higher than analyzed, offshore wind expected capacity is 62% higher than analyzed, and solar is 241% higher than the maximum scenario expectation.  In addition, no previous analysis considered the environmental impacts of massive energy storage facilities or the “zero-carbon firm resource” that the integrated analysis presumes will be provided by hydrogen resources.  The Draft Energy Plan needs to address this failing.

CLCPA Implementation 2040 Fuel Mix Capacity (MW) Compared to 2020 SGEIS Exhibit 2-5 Expected Renewable Capacity

  • If these terms are not defined, then they are just meaningless slogans.

New Yorkers deserve a complete affordability, reliability, and environmental impact accounting.

Discussion

There is no sign to date that NYSERDA is changing anything in its stakeholder process from the unresponsive approach used in the Scoping Plan.  There is another aspect concerning that process and the current outreach.  The public gets slick promotional information and carefully crafted slogans promising abundant, reliable, affordable, and clean energy for all New Yorkers.   These terms are vague enough that the Hochul Administration can continue to avoid responsibility for the impacts of the Climate Act.  The Draft Energy Plan is too important to rely on emotion and political pandering to specific constituencies to not do this process right.

Conclusion

It is troubling that New York energy policy has been dominated by political mandates that ignore physical reality.  I am convinced that nothing from the energy experts responsible for the electric system can say will change the disastrous path of the Draft Energy Plan.  It is going to take a political policy shift to avert disaster.  If you are concerned, demand accountability from the NYSERDA energy plans and please speak out to your elected officials.

Climate Act Safety Valve Filing Exhibits

In early August I submitted a filing that I prepared with Richard Ellenbogen, Constatine Kontogiannis, and Francis Menton to New York Public Service Commission Case 22-M-0149 – Proceeding on Motion of the Commission Assessing implementation of and Compliance with the Requirements and Targets of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection.  The filing argued that there are sufficient circumstances to warrant the PSC commencing a hearing process to consider modification and extension of New York Renewable Energy Program timelines consistent with Public Service Law (PSL) Section 66-P bounds on implementation.  This post provides details on exhibits submitted with the filing.

I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks.  I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 550 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone. 

Background

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and has two electric sector targets: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040. The Climate Action Council (CAC) was responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.”  The Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda” was based on an Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). 

There is a fundamental Climate Act implementation issue.  Clearly there are bounds on what New York State ratepayers can afford and there are limits related to reliability risks for a system reliant on weather-dependent resources.  The problem is that there are no criteria for acceptable bounds.

Submittal

Richard Ellenbogen, Constatine Kontogiannis, Francis Menton, and I (Independent Intervenors)  filed testimony in the Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation dba National Grid and the Consolidated Edison Company of New York rate cases.  Among other things, we argued that Section 66-P, Establishment of a renewable energy program includes bounds on implementation that have not been considered in the rate cases. The Department of Public Service (DPS) staff response to our arguments boiled down to “rate cases are not the appropriate forum to consider limitations of the renewable energy program”.  The filing submitted on August 12 argues that Case 22-M-0149 is the appropriate forum and should address this issue.

The filing included extensive documentation.  An earlier post describes our main argument but only mentioned the attached supporting exhibits.  This post provides more details about exhibits 3-5 that address affordability and reliability challenges.

Affordability Recommendations

Exhibit 3 – Affordability-Focused Recommendations documents references to affordability and reliability recommendations in the New York Department of Public Service (DPS) Document and Matter Management (DMM) System.  Rather than personally wading through the system we acknowledge the use of Perplexity (https://www.perplexity.ai/) to generate summaries and references included in the document.

The Perplexity summary provided the following key takeaway:

Since 2022, at least six concrete safeguards have been proposed in the New York Department of Public Service (DPS) record to keep the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act affordable for households and businesses. They call for (1) rigorous public cost reporting, (2) objective “safety-valve” triggers under Public Service Law §66-p(4), (3) systematic pursuit of alternative funding, (4) expansion of low-income bill-protection programs, (5) transparent data dashboards, and (6) stricter benefit-cost and rate-design standards.

There has been no DPS staff response to any of the calls to develop affordability triggers.

Reliability Recommendations

The biggest unresolved reliability risk associated with Climate Act implementation is addressed in Case 15-E-0302 – Proceeding on Motion of the Commission to Implement a Large-Scale Renewable Program and Clean Energy Standard.  Responsible New York agencies all agree that new Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resource (DEFR) technologies are needed to make a solar and wind-reliant electric energy system viable during extended periods of low wind and solar resource availability.  Case 15-E-0302 is supposed to address this technology.  Exhibit 4 – Resource Gap Characterization describes the challenges of defining the frequency, duration, and intensity of low wind and solar resource availability (known as dark doldrums) events.  Two exhibits addressing reliability were included in the filing.

Exhibit 4 describes the issues associated with the resource planning objective for dark doldrum episodes.  Comparison of results from different evaluation periods indicates that the longer the evaluation period the more likely that the worst-case event will be discovered.  New York has not done an analysis using the longest possible data set.   In the opinion of the Independent Intervenors, the worst-case planning episode will likely be based on a January 1961 dark doldrum episode.  Until that period is evaluated then it is likely that we don’t know how much energy will be required during the worst-case New York dark doldrum.  The Independent Intervenors believe the goal of an evaluation over the longer period would be to define a probabilistic range of return periods for dark doldrum events similar to 100-year floods that could be used for electric system planning. 

Even if a robust probabilistic parameter is developed and used for future resource planning it would not allay all our reliability concerns.  Today’s electric system resource planners for a conventional system base the amount of capacity that they think will be needed based on decades of observations of the fallibility of power plants.  The result is that they know the probability there will be a shortage of available capacity to meet load when the installed reserve margin for system capacity is a fixed percentage of the expected load very well.  In New York State the installed reserve margin to meet the accepted probability of a loss of load expectation of an outage no more than once in ten years reliability metric was under 20% for many years but has increased over 20% in the last several years.

A fundamental observation is that there is no expectation that the failure of conventional power plants will be correlated.  We do not expect that many will fail at the same time.  That in turn means that even if we decided to set the reliability metric based on, for example, a one in thirty-year probability instead of one in ten-year probability, there would not be much of an increase in the installed reserve margin.

Exhibit 4, Renewable Resource Gap Characterization, provides background information explaining why incorporating weather variability needs to consider probabilistic metrics based on as long a record as possible.  The insurmountable reliability concern is that we know that if an even longer period of record was used there would very likely be an even worse event of correlated low wind and solar resource availability.  Instead of the confidence in the current planning process that increasing the lookback period will not markedly change the resources needed for the worst case, relying on weather-dependent resources means that inevitably there will be a period of extreme weather that requires markedly more resources.  The costs to provide backup support for these events will be extraordinary and building excess capacity for a very rare event will significantly add to those costs.  The DEFR requirement means it is likely that we cannot afford to invest in enough safety margin resources using existing technology. This trade-off means that eventually there will be a catastrophic blackout when the load exceeds the storage capacity.  The filing stated that the proposed proceeding should define the acceptable risk for this reliability concern.

The Public Service Commission believes that PSL 66-P, Establishment of a Renewable Energy Program, can be implemented reliably.  This exhibit shows that there are major uncertainties associated with the current assessment of necessary DEFR resource requirements.  New York has not projected the potential need for DEFR using the longest period of data available.  It is also necessary to expand the area covered in such an analysis so that the potential for imports from outside New York can be determined.  Even if an analysis were completed for the longest meteorological data set over the North American continent, it is not possible to address natural variability.  This Proceeding should establish an acceptable reliability metric for weather variability.

Recently, Russ Schussler (a retired electric planning engineer) argued that the intermittency issue addressed here might be solvable: “The long-term problems associated with wind and solar due to their intermittency could and may likely be made manageable with improved technology and decreasing costs.”  The Independent Intervenors note that may not be practical.  It would be necessary to upgrade the electric transmission system, deploy short-term storage, and develop and deploy a dispatchable emissions-free resource all to address short and infrequent periods and to somehow finance those resources with those constraints.  Importantly, even if intermittency can be addressed Schussler argues that there is a fatal flaw:

Overcoming intermittency though complex and expensive resource additions at best gets us around a molehill which will leave a huge mountain ahead. Where will grid support come from?  Wind, solar and batteries provide energy through an electronic inverter. In practice, they lean on and are supported by conventional rotating machines. Essential Reliability Services include the ability to ramp up and down, frequency support, inertia and voltage support. For more details on the real problem see this posting. “Wind and Solar Can’t Support the Grid” that describes the situation and contains links to other past postings provide greater detail on the problems.

Exhibit 5 – Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources explains that the need for a resource that is not currently commercially available risks investments in false solutions and poses significant reliability risks. 

One fundamental flaw in the Climate Act is the mistaken belief by the authors of the law that existing wind, solar, and energy storage resources would be sufficient and that no new technology would be required.  This attachment explains why this position is incorrect.  It describes the unresolved challenges associated with specifying how much DEFR capacity and energy will be needed to prevent a reliability crisis.

The Public Service Commission presumes that the PSL 66-P Establishment of a Renewable Energy Program can be implemented reliably. However, that presumption does not address the fact that DEFR must be identified, tested, and deployed to provide energy during extended periods of low wind and solar resource availability.  There is a real chance that nothing will be feasible.  Furthermore, because the DEFR technologies have not been identified it is impossible to determine if they are affordable. 

The Independent Intervenors believe the requirement for DEFR is the major reliability risk of PSL 66-P zero-emissions electric grid by the 2040 zero-emission-grid mandate.  DEFRs must be developed and deployed at scale well before 2040 to ensure reliability and meet climate mandates.  They are not commercially viable today and the Department of Public Service (DPS) Proceeding 15-E-0302 has no schedule to address the mandates in the May 18, 2023 Order Initiating Process Regarding Zero Emissions Target.  That Order initiated a process to “identify technologies that can close the gap between the capabilities of existing renewable energy technologies and future system reliability needs, and more broadly identify the actions needed to pursue attainment of the Zero Emission by 2040 Target.” 

Deployment of existing technology takes time as shown by the delays in the wind and solar development programs.  The uncertainty associated with deploying new technologies is much greater.  One of the boundary conditions that must be established in the proposed proceeding is to determine the acceptable risk for long-term planning associated with DEFR development.  Given that we don’t know what will work, how much it will cost, and how long it will take to deploy, the Independent Intervenors recommend that implementation should be paused until this issue is resolved. 

Conclusion

The Overview for the Draft State Energy Plan states that it is “Advancing abundant, reliable, affordable, and clean energy for all New Yorkers.”  Unfortunately, the Hochul Administration has yet to define those terms.  This filing made a case that boundary conditions must be established for reliability, affordability, and clean energy.  Without bounds we are flying blind towards a future energy system catastrophe.

The challenges of achieving a 100% renewable electricity system in the United States

I am very frustrated with the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net zero transition because the reality is that there are so many issues coming up with the schedule and ambition of the Climate Act that it is obvious that we need to pause implementation and figure out how best to proceed.  In my opinion, the Hochul Administration failed to acknowledge that the observed problems were inevitable during the development of the Scoping Plan.  This post describes an article that came out in June 2021 prior to the preparation of the Draft Scoping Plan that should have guided the development of the plan.

I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act or CLCPA) net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks.  I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 550 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. 

The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone. 

Net-Zero Aspirations

The Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and has two electric sector targets: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040. The Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda” was based on an Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).  The Climate Act is not the only legislation or regulation that was promulgated to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to address climate change. 

Challenges for a 100% Renewable Electricity System

The article, The challenges of achieving a 100% renewable electricity system in the United States, (Challenge Article) was authored by staff from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, United States Department of Energy and the University of Colorado Boulder, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute.  That means that it represented the mainstream “consensus” of Federal government renewable energy thinking at the time the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) was preparing the Scoping Plan.

The following information is the formal citation for the document.

The challenges of achieving a 100% renewable electricity system in the United States,

 Paul Denholm, Douglas J. Arent, Samuel F. Baldwin, Daniel E. Bilello, Gregory L. Brinkman, Jaquelin M. Cochran, Wesley J. Cole, Bethany Frew, Vahan Gevorgian, Jenny Heeter, Bri-Mathias S. Hodge, Benjamin Kroposki, Trieu Mai, Mark J. O’Malley, Bryan Palmintier, Daniel Steinberg, Yingchen Zhang, Joule, Volume 5, Issue 6, 2021, Pages 1331-1352, ISSN 2542-4351,  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2021.03.028.

Abstract:

Understanding the technical and economic challenges of achieving 100% renewable energy (RE) electric power systems is critical, given the increasing number of United States regional and state commitments toward this goal. Although no detailed study of a major utility of large interconnection under 100% RE system has been published, considerable literature explores the potential to greatly increase RE penetration. This literature, combined with real-world experience with increased RE deployment, points to two main challenges associated with achieving 100% RE across all timescales: (1) economically maintaining a balance of supply and demand and (2) designing technically reliable grids using largely inverter-based resources. The first challenge results in a highly nonlinear increase in costs as the system approaches 100% RE, in large part because of seasonal mismatches. The second challenge might require new inverter designs, depending on the mix of RE technologies. Analysis and experience to date point to no fundamental technical reasons why a 100% RE electric power system cannot be achieved, but the economic challenges indicate the need for advancements in several technologies and careful consideration of the suite of options that could be used to achieve equivalent carbon-reduction goals.

Previous work also points to the need for analytic tool development, and techno-economic feasibility analysis must also consider the host of regulatory, market, and policy issues that might limit the ability to deploy mixes of resources that are suggested by least-cost modeling exercises.

Climate Act Technology

One fundamental flaw in the Climate Act was the mistaken belief by the authors of the law, including Dr. Robert Howarth, that no new technology would be required. I have described this erroneous presumption and its impacts many times but will reference just one example. 

The Challenge Article provides “a perspective on the most technically and economically challenging

aspects of achieving a 100% RE electric power system while maintaining a reliable, cost-effective balance of electricity supply and demand.”  As noted in the Abstract two challenges were emphasized: the need to balance supply and demand and the engineering challenge of incorporating inverter-based resources.  Both issues were discounted by the Climate Action Council.

The report concludes that:

Understanding the technical and economic challenges of achieving 100% RE electric power systems is critical, given the assumed role of these systems in achieving many regional and state commitments to reduce GHG emissions on aggressive timelines.  Furthermore, these are complex, multidisciplinary challenges that cannot be solved by any individual entity but rather will require collaboration across technical research communities, academia, laboratories, and industry.

In the United States, several regions have met more than half of their load with renewables for multi-hour periods, and studies have indicated pathways to achieve cost-competitive penetrations of RE that are much greater than current levels.

Significant unanswered questions remain regarding moving toward or achieving 100% RE at a national scale for all hours of the year. There is no simple answer to how far we can increase RE penetration before costs rise dramatically or reliability becomes compromised. Studies have found no specific technical threshold at which the grid ‘‘breaks,’’ and we cannot extrapolate from previous cost analyses because of nonlinearities and unknown unknowns. Additional research is needed to evaluate the suite of technologies needed to ensure the supply of RE matches demand patterns across all time periods. Substantial engineering and design are needed to transition the grid from one that is dependent on synchronous machines to one that is based on inverters. This science, analysis, and engineering must consider the interaction of multiple low-carbon technologies to identify least-regrets pathways to decarbonizing both the electricity and energy systems in the United States and internationally.

In my opinion, these findings should have been incorporated into the Scoping Plan.  The impacts of the failure to do so are evident now and will be felt for years to come if there is no pause in implementation to consider how best to proceed.  While the Climate Act mandates a net-zero transition, the Public Service Commission (PSC) also has a broad mandate to “ensure access to safe, reliable utility service at just and reasonable rates.”  It is not at all clear that the Climate Act “zero-emissions” electric system can meet the PSC mandate because of the issues raised in the Challenge Article.

It is Even Worse

The Challenge Article emphasized engineering issues, but I think that they neglected one issue that has received much attention in New York.  The Challenge Article included a section on “Exploring the balance challenge” that includes an important graph:

Figure 1 provides a framework to discuss the balance challenge, which conceptually illustrates how the expected costs and challenges might change with increasing penetration of RE. The figure loosely defines regions of annual RE penetration. As discussed in what we know about the balance challenge we know about the balance challenge from real-world re deployment, at current RE penetration levels (18% nationally in 2019), RE is cost competitive with traditional generation sources in many regions of the United States. This is caused by the utility industry cost effectively integrating these resources by addressing the hourly and sub-hourly variability of VRE and load.

Figure 1. A simple framework for discussing the degree of difficulty and cost of increased RE deployment

Beyond these levels, we reach the second zone, where studies discussed in what we think we know about the balance challenge from grid studies have explored how the diurnal mismatch problem might be cost effectively addressed with some combination of current and near-future technologies to reach annual contributions in the range of 80% RE. Beyond this point, in the third zone, the seasonal balance may require technologies that have yet to be deployed on a large scale, with highly uncertain costs and requirements. 

I think a fourth zone is appropriate.  The Challenge Article emphasis on the engineering challenges neglects the weather challenge.  Any electric system reliant on weather-dependent resources like wind and solar must address the dark doldrums, the extended periods of low wind and solar resource availability.  The Scoping Plan, Integration Analysis, New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), and independent analysis by Prof. C. Lindsay Anderson, Chair of Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering Cornell all have noted that a new category of generating resources called Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources (DEFR) is necessary to keep the lights on during these periods. This topic has received much attention at this blog because of my background as a meteorologist and is covered at my DEFR page.

I have incorporated the DEFR challenge as a fourth zone into the Figure 1 simple framework in Figure 2.  I think that this problem will be more expensive and more challenging than the seasonal problem so it must be added to the figure.  New York is addressing DEFR in Case 15-E-0302 – Proceeding on Motion of the Commission to Implement a Large-Scale Renewable Program and Clean Energy Standard, but progress has been slow given that there is agreement that the resource is needed but there is no state recommendation how to proceed.

Figure 2 Modified simple framework for discussing the degree of difficulty and cost of increased RE deployment

I believe the only likely viable DEFR backup technology is nuclear generation despite its costs because it is the only candidate resource that is technologically ready, can be expanded as needed, and does not suffer from limitations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. If the only viable DEFR solution is nuclear, then the wind, solar, and energy storage approach cannot be implemented without nuclear power.  Nuclear power works best as a baseload resource so using it solely as DEFR backup is inappropriate.  Developing baseload nuclear eliminates the need for a huge DEFR backup resource and means that the “build as much as we can as fast as we can” wind and solar buildout currently in progress is unnecessary.  When all the costs associated with the proposed Scoping Plan wind, solar, and energy storage approach are compared to an electric system based on nuclear I believe that nuclear will be cheaper especially if life expectancies are considered. 

There is another argument in favor of abandoning weather-dependent resources in favor of nuclear.  To ensure that there are sufficient backup resources the magnitude and duration of a dark doldrum must be determined.  That is a significant challenge because of the tradeoff between the enormous costs of this necessary but infrequently used resource and the risks if insufficient electric energy is available when the de-carbonized energy system is completely electrified.  This economic and safety tradeoff is not an issue in a de-carbonized system that relies on nuclear energy.

Conclusion

I want to emphasize two points.  This comprehensive analysis should have been incorporated into the Scoping Plan discussions because it makes an irrefutable case that there are unsolved issues that require further research.  Given that uncertainty, the Scoping Plan should have incorporated safety valves if the issues are unsolved at certain points in the transition.  The second point is that the article did not address the dark doldrum DEFR problem so it underestimates the challenges of a 100% renewable system.

This is further evidence that a pause is necessary in Climate Act implementation.