By Michael Kuser

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week announced a push to amend this year’s state budget to speed up the permitting and construction of renewable energy projects.

If the legislature passes the amendment, a new Office of Renewable Energy Permitting will be set up to streamline the siting process for large-scale renewable energy projects.

“This legislation will help achieve a more sustainable future … with a revamped process for building and delivering renewable energy projects faster,” Cuomo said.

The state’s existing energy generation siting process was designed for permitting coal-, oil- and natural gas-fired power plants, dating from prior to the growth of clean energy.

New York in 2011 revised Public Service Law Article 10 to unify siting reviews of new or modified electric generating facilities under one state agency, the Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment.

“The renewable energy industry is ready to invest in New York, and a more sensible permitting process that still retains all the environmental protections is sorely needed,” said Anne Reynolds, executive director of the Alliance for Clean Energy New York. “The proposal also includes transmission planning, which is so critical to moving clean power to where it is needed.”

The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (A8429), signed into law last July, calls for 70% of New York’s electricity to come from renewable resources by 2030 and for electricity generation to be 100% carbon-free by 2040. It also nearly quadrupled New York’s offshore wind energy target to 9 GW by 2035.

The law’s clean energy mandates also 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 executive branch proposes that the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority collaborate with the Department of Environmental Conservation and Department of Public Service to develop build-ready sites for renewable energy projects.

“Permitting is a process that involves basically anyone who wants to be involved, which is a good thing, but a challenge for the state,” Sarah Osgood, director of policy implementation at the Department of Public Service, told a conference in 2018. (See New York Plans for Wind Energy, Related Jobs.)

The proposal includes a bulk transmission investment program and streamlined siting process for transmission infrastructure built within existing rights of way, and foresees NYSERDA working with the New York Power Authority, the Long Island Power Authority, NYISO and the state’s utilities to identify cost-effective bulk electric system upgrades and file such evaluations with the Public Service Commission.

The PSC in turn would establish a distribution and local transmission system capital program, with benchmarks and reviews, for each relevant utility.