The New York Public Service Commission on Thursday approved electric vehicle charging programs for the state’s investor-owned utilities, enabling electrification of transportation with minimum upgrades to the grid (18-E-0138).

NYPSC Chair Rory Christian | NYDPS

The state’s EV Make-Ready initiative directed the utilities to develop managed charging programs that provide customers an alternative to home time-of-use rates.

“A one-size-fits-all approach isn’t going to meet the diverse needs of the drivers and transportation providers in New York state,” PSC Chair Rory Christian said.

“The mix of passive and active programs was made possible through some foundational investments … by utilities to deploy smart meters to collect more granular customer data. I look forward to reviewing the progress overtime that these utilities will make and seeing how the programs evolve to meet our customer needs.”

NYPSC Commissioner John B. Howard | NYDPS

The commission also approved modifying the EV rules for Consolidated Edison (NYSE:ED) to allow the utility to increase the current single-site plug limit on fast-charging stations from 10 plugs to 30 and eliminate the funding limit on certain incentives.

“In terms of EV charging writ large, there’s a right way to do this, and there’s a wrong way to do this,” Commissioner John Howard said.

“This commission for decades as a matter of policy has asked, ‘How do we reduce the peak?’ The peak is difficult and it’s enormously expensive to maintain, so the idea of moving as much [load] as we can, particularly in the early stages of electrification, to off-peak use is the only logical way to go forward.”

Transmission Upgrades

The commission also approved nearly $700 million for National Grid (NYSE:NGG) to develop 26 transmission upgrade projects in support of the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). It was the first utility petition driven by the Accelerated Renewable Energy Growth and Community Benefit Act (20-E-0197).

The PSC categorized transmission projects that satisfy traditional reliability purposes and also address bottlenecks or constraints that limit the deliverability of renewable energy as phase 1, while phase 2 projects comprise upgrades that are needed solely to support CLCPA objectives.

NYPSC Commissioner Diane X. Burman | NYDPS

The transmission projects for National Grid subsidiary Niagara Mohawk Power include substation equipment capacity upgrades, installation of larger transformers, rebuilds of existing transmission lines and installation of a dynamic line rating system to allow higher capacity operation during certain times. While 19 projects are relatively small and total about $38 million, seven other projects are more involved, such as the rebuild of century-old 115-kV lines — notably 126 miles of parallel lines in the Mohawk Valley from Little Falls to Schenectady.

“These items are here as a direct result of the directive of the Accelerated Renewable Energy Growth Act, and the investments identified will serve to do just that: accelerate the deployment and growth of renewable energy,” Christian said. “Once complete, the need to curtail existing renewable energy resources will be diminished while making room to add additional renewable resources to the grid, and as an added bonus, this will reduce congestion in the overall transmission system and improve reliability to customers throughout the region.”

Commissioner Diane Burman voted against the proposal, saying she was concerned that the commission had just this year approved a three-year rate plan for National Grid.

“I have real concerns about how rigorously the accounting for today’s projects will be kept separate from the accounting for the rate case projects,” Burman said. “I have concerns with how the company may reprioritize funding among both sets and whether that is truly coming before us. That action can have detrimental results on ratepayers if not done right.”

Elizabeth Grisaru, NYDPS | NYDPS

Elizabeth Grisaru, deputy director of the Department of Public Service’s Office of Electric Gas and Water, described the treatment of these projects as part of “a narrow exception” to the rule established for phase 1 projects.

“They were not required to identify local transmission investments that contributed to CLCPA guideline deadlines; it was not part of their planning obligation prior to February 2021, and I think that’s probably why in the mix of capital programs that were part of the last National Grid rate case, these projects were not there because planning for CLCPA investment was not a component of the utilities’ planning obligation before that date,” Grisaru said.

Howard said that while there’s enough regulatory assets to pay for the Niagara Mohawk upgrades, “this is not done in a vacuum. We still have Tier I expenses coming in; we have Tier III, Tier IV, phase 2 expenses that we don’t know what they are. We have potential offshore wind integration, dealing particularly with a very large billion-dollar project in New York City. These things sound modest, but don’t think that that’s all you’re going to pay for transmission, because there’s a lot of other money that the customers will have to pony up to make these capital expenses.” (See Stakeholders Question CLCPA Pace and Costs for New York.)