The New York Public Service Commission heard a progress report Thursday on a grid study underway to identify distribution upgrades, local transmission upgrades and bulk transmission investments needed to meet the state’s clean energy goals, as well as brief outlines of three separate petitions on large-scale public policy transmission needs (Case No. 20-E-0197).
“We need more; we need smarter; we need faster transmission,” PSC Chair John B. Rhodes said. “Recognizing this, there is necessarily a lot going on.”
Tammy Mitchell, chief of bulk electric systems for the state’s Department of Public Service (DPS), said the study results — due Nov. 1 — will inform two separate investment plans to be established by the PSC, one related to distribution and local transmission investments or upgrades, and another plan for bulk system transmission investments.
The commission in May authorized the study as directed the previous month by the Accelerated Renewable Energy Growth and Community Benefit Act (A09508), which set up the Office of Renewable Energy Siting and required investment plans to meet the renewable energy targets of last year’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). (See NYPSC Launches Grid Study, Extends Solar Funding.)
The CLCPA mandates that 70% of the state’s electricity come from renewable resources by 2030 and that electricity generation be 100% carbon-free by 2040. Its clean energy targets include doubling distributed solar generation to 6 GW by 2025, deploying 3 GW of energy storage by 2030 and raising energy efficiency savings to 185 trillion BTU by 2025.
The PSC in May also directed utilities to file proposals to incorporate the statutorily mandated environmental benefits in utility planning and investment criteria, and proposals to prioritize such projects in their capital spending and apply benefit/cost analysis for potential investments. It also directed them to file cost-containment, cost-recovery and cost-allocation methods. All proposals are due no later than Oct. 5.
The commission will seek public comments on the grid study results and utility proposals and expects to be able to move ahead with distribution and local transmission upgrades early in 2021, Mitchell said.
Three Projects Now Being Sited
New York currently has three 345-kV transmission projects underway that were selected through the NYISO Public Policy Transmission Planning process and are in the Article VII — or full review — siting process, Mitchell said.
NYISO selected NextEra Energy’s Empire State Line proposal in October 2017 to obtain full output of the New York Power Authority’s (NYPA) Niagara hydro facility, maximize Ontario inflows and maximize exports of renewable resources out of western New York to the rest of the state. The line is expected to be in service in the first half of 2022.
The other two projects underway were selected by NYISO last year as part of the broader AC Public Policy Transmission Project. One being built by LS Power and NYPA will increase transmission capacity by approximately 800 MW at the Central East (Segment A) electrical interface, well above the commission’s minimum of 350 MW, she said. (See NYISO Board Selects 2 AC Public Policy Tx Projects.)
Another by New York Transco for the Upstate New York/Southeast New York (Segment B) interface will run from the Albany region to the Hudson Valley region, increasing transfer capability by about 2,000 MW, well above the commission’s minimum of 900 MW.
Both of the latter projects are expected to be in service by December 2023, Mitchell said.
Fast-track Proposals from NYPA, DPS, LIPA
On July 2, NYPA and the DPS submitted a two-part petition to the PSC that included DPS staff’s proposed criteria for determining priority projects and a NYPA proposal that the commission designate its “Northern NY Project” as a priority project to be developed under the new siting law.
The DPS criteria included an investment’s potential for unbottling existing renewable generation, avoiding future congestion and increasing the deliverability of existing and anticipated baseload renewable or low-carbon generation. It also factored in whether an early in-service date would increase the likelihood of meeting CLCPA targets and considered the transmission investment’s eligibility for expedited review under Article VII and its implementing regulations.
The redacted public version of the petition does not include cost estimates, but in it, NYPA estimates the project will result in approximately 7.5 TWh of avoided renewable curtailments annually, starting in 2025, and result in production cost savings of approximately $99 million per year, for a net present value of approximately $1 billion over a 20-year period.
The Northern NY Project “will establish a continuous 345-kV path that greatly expands the deliverability of renewable generation from northern and western New York to load centers,” while compounding the benefits from the Segments A and B projects already underway, NYPA said.
On July 13, NYPA filed another petition asking the PSC to designate its Western New York Energy Link Project (WNYEL) to also be a priority for the state.
NYPA said the project will upgrade assets owned by National Grid, New York State Electric and Gas and NYPA to reduce or eliminate existing curtailment of renewable and carbon emission-free generation, facilitate the siting of new renewable generation in the area and increase transfer capability from the region to load centers by approximately 600 MW.
The WNYEL project includes reconductoring two 42-mile Packard-Huntley-Gardenville 230 kV circuits; a tower separating 230 kV lines; converting the existing double-circuit common tower structures to single-circuit single tower structures; and installing a new phase angle regulator at the South Ripley substation to control the flow from PJM to the New York Control Area.
NYPA said NYISO’s 2019 Congestion Assessment Resource Integration Study, issued in June 2020, supports the need for additional transfer capability near the Niagara Power Project, citing the study’s identified renewable generation pockets. (See Bulk Tx, 115-kV Upgrades Needed for NY 70×30 Goal.)
NYPA asked that if the PSC does not designate WNYEL as a priority project, the commission instead direct National Grid and NYSEG to undertake the necessary improvements to develop the project in coordination with NYPA.
Collectively, NYISO projected that Zone A will be the site of more wind and solar generation than any other zone except for Zone J (New York City), and found three potential areas of transmission bottlenecks, identified as pockets W1, W2 and W3. NYISO projected curtailments of 20 to 30% for solar generation between and 5 to 8% for land-based wind resources.
The Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) on July 30 submitted to the PSC a FERC Order 1000 referral, as allowed under the NYISO Tariff, seeking the commission’s determination that the 2018 Offshore Wind Standard is a public policy driving the need for transmission. LIPA also asked the PSC to find a need for additional export capability on the Consolidated Edison interface, as well as for upgrades to the local transmission system on Long Island to support the 2018 OSW procurement target of 2,400 MW (18-E-0623).
Two years ago, NYISO solicited proposals for transmission needs driven by public policy requirements and, in October 2018, submitted to LIPA seven of the 15 proposed needs it received from stakeholders, including one from PSEG Long Island that summarized the OSW procurements as giving “rise to the need to optimize transmission development and to create a ‘transmission backbone’ structure in order to meet the state’s ambitious goal of 2,400 MW of resources by 2030.”
“The transmission system was originally built to serve native load of monopoly utilities, and ratemaking at both the state and federal level was based on that,” Commissioner John B. Howard said. “This new paradigm is as dramatically different from that as can be imagined, since the primary focus of our bulk transmission system will now be to enhance and provide environmental benefits through zero-emissions generation across the state.”