The New York Public Service Commission on Thursday approved an environmental impact statement on the additional renewable resources needed under the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) that concludes that the increase “could result in direct benefits in the form of reduction in [greenhouse gas] emissions, additional economic development, workforce employment, the avoidance of adverse health outcomes, and improved transmission and distribution network” (15-E-0302).

“This is just one step, but it is essential in moving ahead on the ambitious and necessary renewable energy targets called for in the CLCPA,” PSC Chair John B. Rhodes said.

The CLCPA requires that 70% of electricity come from renewable resources by 2030 and that electricity generation be 100% carbon-free by 2040. Its clean energy targets include deploying at least 9 GW of offshore wind energy by 2035, 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 supplemental generic environmental impact statement (SGEIS) for the new law, as required by the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), updated the state’s 2018 SGEIS by including:

• the impact of additional utility-scale solar projects on grassland birds;
• additional hydropower upgrades and low-impact run-of-river projects;
• development of additional offshore wind; and
• development of 3,000 MW of distributed solar on land use, visual resources and birds.

The PSC’s resolution of acceptance built on a white paper published in June by it and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), which recommended updating the state’s Clean Energy Standard with the CLCPA targets and proposed a feasibility study for Great Lakes wind development. (See NYPSC Approves $700 Million for EV Chargers.)

Commissioner Diane Burman voted “no” without prejudice, as she did in June on the draft SGEIS. Although she said she would normally vote in favor of such a procedural matter, she could not accept the SGEIS as complete because the comments from stakeholders such as Sierra Club and National Fuel Gas “are really worth taking the time as a group to review and go through.”

Commissioner Tracey Edwards voted in favor but noted that an SGEIS can be submitted anytime “if there is any change in circumstances. … We should be following the [SEQRA] documents, as it’s important for us to check environmental circumstances along the way. The lead agency has a requirement to do that.”

Commissioner John Howard said that “while this is a roadmap, the real nitty-gritty questions will come in implementation.” He asked that the PSC pay close attention to “environmental justice issues, to make sure that rural communities get treated equitably.”

The assessment noted that it does “not substitute for project-specific environmental reviews, which may result in the identification of site-specific impacts.”

DLM Incentives Extension

The commission also modified the dynamic load management (DLM) implementation plans for the six major electric utilities in New York to include solicitations for two new products (18-E-0130).

The commission’s action follows from its 2018 energy storage order, which directed Central Hudson Gas and Electric, Consolidated Edison, New York State Electric and Gas, Niagara Mohawk, Orange and Rockland Utilities and Rochester Gas & Electric to supplement their existing one-year DLM programs by holding competitive procurements for resources for at least three years. The commission said it expects that energy storage rates for PSEG Long Island, which operates the grid for the Long Island Power Authority, will be consistent with its guidelines.

The commission said the existing DLM programs — commercial system relief program, a day-ahead peak-shaving program; distribution load relief program, an intraday reliability program; and direct load control program, a peak-shaving and reliability program for residential and small commercial non-demand customers — “resulted in a bias towards short-term, low-capital investment solutions” because of their yearly performance structure.

“The [2018] energy storage order explained that securing compensation over a multiyear period is expected to stimulate more participation and investment in the programs,” the commission said.

The commission ordered the utilities to issue solicitations by November to procure DLM resources beginning next summer:

• A day-ahead peak-shaving program requiring load relief for a four-hour period with at least 21 hours advance notice (called “Term-DLM”)
• A reliability and peak-shaving program to provide load relief for four hours at any time except for specified off-peak charging hours, with at least 10 minutes advance notice (called “Auto-DLM”)

Term-DLM will be available throughout each utility’s service territory, while Auto-DLM will be limited to certain areas of their territories.

Although the order did not explicitly require the utilities to issue annual solicitations for new Term-DLM and Auto-DLM resources, it said “we hereby establish the expectation that such solicitations will become a regular part of DLM program operations.”

“Sometimes our work is technical, and at the same time it’s a big deal, and this is one of those cases,” Chairman Rhodes said. “This will unlock storage and other flexibility resources into use cases that are good for the system and, critically, are also good for customers.”

New York now has approximately 93 MW of advanced energy storage capacity deployed with 841 MW in the pipeline, in addition to 1,400 MW of traditional pumped hydro storage, toward meeting its goal of 1,500 MW deployed by 2025, the PSC said.

The PSC’s 2018 storage order, which doubled New York’s storage goal to 3,000 MW by 2030, said that the targeted deployment of storage “will result in reductions in system peak load demand during critical periods, increases in the overall efficiency and resiliency of the electric grid, and displacement of fossil fuel-based generation.” (See NYPSC Expands Storage, Energy Efficiency Programs.)

Commissioner Burman dissented in part because she said the commission should have reconsidered its position on energy storage, as so much has changed since the 2018 order.

“We started numerous technical conferences; a market design and integration group was set up; NYSERDA filed many different filings; and there was a [Department of Public Service] end-use storage deployment program report; and there were notices issued for comment; … and the list goes on,” Burman said.