ALBANY, N.Y. — About 200 participants turned out last week at the Alliance for Clean Energy New York’s 13th annual fall conference to hear about New York’s efforts to boost renewables, price carbon into NYISO markets and ramp up sales of electric vehicles.

The conference focused on the state’s trailblazing climate change efforts, epitomized by the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (A8429) enacted in July, which requires 70% of the state’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2030, and for power generators to be zero-emitting by 2040.

“Despite the challenges that many developers face, there is a lot of good news to tell, [with] 49 proposed grid-scale wind, solar and offshore wind projects in New York that now have awarded contracts,” ACE NY Executive Director Anne Reynolds said. “That is a significant number. And that group of projects, when they’re built, will sum to 4,700 MW.”

Reynolds additionally listed the many other proposed projects that will be ready to compete for contracts, a total of 138 wind, solar and hydro projects in the NYISO queue, plus 53 storage projects.

The following is some of what we heard at the conference.

Climate Strike

The conference coincided with Friday’s climate strike, where millions of people around the world took to the streets to call for government action to fight climate change, including in Albany.

“New York is on the bleeding edge of shaping a livable, just future,” said Katharine Wilkinson of Project Drawdown, an organization that analyzes solutions to climate change. “Part of the critical context of today is that it is strike day. … They had the largest public rally in Australian history. … It’s incredibly beautiful to see these oceans of people calling for the kind of action that New York has committed to.”

Wilkinson pointed to the importance of listening to young people and their call to be active participants, “to do the work that science has made clear absolutely has to be done.”

Food and agriculture solutions are as important as electricity solutions, Wilkinson said, but often get short shrift in conversations about reducing emissions, as have the climate benefits of guaranteeing access to healthcare and education for all girls and women.

Lest anyone doubt the power of the youth-led climate strike action, Wilkinson reminded her listeners that, “Culture always, always, always leads the way for political action.”

Eleanor Stein, formerly with the Public Service Commission and now teaching climate change law at Albany Law School and the State University of New York, told of checking out the climate strike protestors in Albany that day and seeing two signs. One read, “Tell the truth,” and its companion sign read, “Act as if the truth was real.”

“I think that’s a very challenging and thought-provoking slogan, and I urge you to take it home and talk to your teenage children or friends, or nieces and nephews about those things,” Stein said.

Carbon Pricing

Energy markets must be able to adapt to New York’s shifting policy landscape, NYISO CEO Rich Dewey said.

The effort to price carbon into the wholesale electricity markets “can help drive the transition of the generation fleet and the grid itself,” Dewey said. Carbon pricing would provide a revenue incentive for zero-emitting, clean energy resources by sending a price signal using the ISO’s locational-based marginal pricing mechanism in the wholesale markets, directing placement of those resources where they would be most valuable, he said.

More important, it would shift the risk of investment from ratepayers to investors, which is better for consumers and a more efficient way to achieve public policy goals, he said.

“We will not bring this down to the FERC as a proposal unless we know that we’ve got both the NYISO stakeholders in agreement and New York state in agreement,” Dewey said. “FERC has told us that unless everybody agrees and you’re moving in lockstep, they are not optimistic that they would agree and approve the changes.”

“Markets are as big of a challenge as anything in terms of coordinating the effort of getting us to the right place by 2030, 2040 and beyond,” said Ksenia Kaladiouk, engagement manager for McKinsey and Company. “Perhaps one of the biggest challenges is coordination sequencing and timing, so if we think we’re going to see huge levels of renewables 10 years out, the transmission needs to be well on its way to catching those.”

Sheila Manz, technical director at GE Energy Consulting, said New York does not face as big a challenge as people may think, because 70% by 2030 “is more like achieving 30% non-hydro renewables, which is where SPP is today.”

“The panhandle of Texas also has lessons for New York to leverage, where there are no synchronous generators to help support voltage and to keep the 60 Hz that we’re used to pretty stable,” Manz said.

Electric Vehicles

John Williams, director of policy and regulatory affairs at the New York Energy Research and Development Authority, led a panel on reducing demand through energy efficiency and electrification of transportation and heating.

Matt Stanberry, managing director of Advanced Energy Economy, said New York has a charging problem, ranking 30th in terms of charging stations per capita, as well as an awareness problem, with 60% of new car buyers unaware that buying an electric vehicle is possible.

Improving consumer awareness is important, agreed Adam Ruder, program manager for clean transportation at NYSERDA.

“We need to help normalize electric vehicles in consumers’ minds and really bring more partners into the fold in getting this message out,” Ruder said. “The state should not be the main messenger here. The automakers are starting to up the ante on their advertising, but a lot more needs to be done.”

Cecil Corbin-Mark, deputy director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice, urged policymakers to remember people in the cities, “to think about the ways in which transportation-starved communities are better served by public transit; so the emphasis does need to be placed on … the electrification of public transportation systems.”

“Really to meet these goals, 50% of light-duty vehicle sales will have to be EVs by 2030, and our analysis says that we’re at about 10% of the charging infrastructure we need to support that,” said Rachel McCrea, National Grid’s growth management lead for New York.

– Michael Kuser