NYISO announced on Tuesday that the state broke its hourly wind generation record Sunday, generating 1,939 MW from 28 wind power facilities.
The ISO said that meant wind energy met 12.9% of New York state’s electricity demand between 3 and 4 p.m. that day. The previous record of 1,897 MW was set Feb. 17, 2022, during the 1 a.m. hour.
“Wind generation is an important part of the diverse energy mix that helps maintain system reliability for consumers across the state,” NYISO CEO Rich Dewey said in a statement. “While there’s much more work to be done to decarbonize our system, this new record demonstrates wind energy’s increasing contribution to the state’s climate goals.”
“New York’s clean energy transition is ensuring more homes and businesses across the state are powered by renewable energy sources like land-based wind — a shift that is especially important during times of peak demand,” said Doreen Harris, CEO of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.
The milestone comes as offshore wind developers exit the power purchase agreements off New England and seek to renegotiate them amid high inflation and supply chain constraints. (See Park City Wind to Cancel PPAs, Exit OSW Pipeline.)
None of New York’s four OSW projects under development have made that move yet, but their developers have said they may be forced to do so if the Public Service Commission does not grant NYSERDA’s request to adjust the reference price for offshore wind renewable certificate contracts to account for inflation. The PSC is set to rule on the matter Thursday (15-E-0302/18-E-0071).
“Unforeseeable economic forces — including unprecedented global supply chain bottlenecks, high inflation [and] rising interest rates, along with permitting and grid delays — have eroded the financial viability of” Empire Wind and Beacon Wind, their developers told the PSC in comments filed Friday, “to the point where contract restructuring is required to permit those capital-intensive projects to move forward. Notwithstanding these severe market shocks, however, the projects remain the most cost-effective means of fulfilling the [state’s] renewable energy mandates.”
In the same docket Friday, the PSC granted a one-year extension for NYSERDA to create an implementation plan for Tier 4 of its renewable resource procurement program. (See NYSERDA Can’t Meet Deadline to Design New REC Plan.)
