The New York Power Authority has finalized a plan to begin executing in its expanded role as a renewable energy developer.
NYPA said it is pursuing 37 solar and storage projects totaling 3 GW of nameplate capacity, most of them in partnership with private-sector developers.
The final plan is noticeably smaller than the draft plan offered in October 2024, which envisioned 40 proposals rated at 3.5 GW. NYPA officials had cautioned at the time that there would be substantial attrition among that initial list of proposals, as there would be with any list of early-stage renewable energy projects.
Public power advocates have been hoping for a 15-GW road map and have been sorely disappointed with NYPA’s much lower ambition for its first tranche. With release of the final plan, they renewed their call for the ouster of CEO Justin Driscoll.
During a budget hearing Jan. 28, Driscoll faced some pointed questioning by legislators who also had hoped for more from NYPA, which until recently had limited itself to small solar and battery projects, often in cooperation with other entities.
In 2023, they and like-minded legislators gave the U.S.’ largest state-owned power entity expanded development powers as private-sector efforts to decarbonize New York’s power grid were proving to be slow and expensive.
The idea was that without a profit motive, NYPA could accomplish the task at lower cost to New Yorkers, who already pay some of the highest electricity rates in the U.S. and are looking at significant increases as aging power infrastructure is expanded or replaced.
The move would also democratize energy, they hoped, giving the public a greater voice in how its state is powered.
The initial interaction of this vision, the Build Public Renewables Act, never made it into law; the version that subsequently was enacted is less ambitious or more achievable, depending on one’s perspective.
Driscoll did not bend under questioning, telling legislators that NYPA is proud of its freshman effort. Three gigawatts is only the first tranche, he said.
“We’re going to be amending the plan that we just approved today to add additional projects within the next six months. … This is a long journey toward achieving these goals, but we think we’re playing a significant role, along with others.”
Driscoll noted that the three projects that dropped out of the draft plan are not dead; they are just moving forward separately from NYPA.
State Sen. Kevin Parker (D), chair of the Energy and Telecommunications Committee, asked Driscoll what NYPA needed from the legislature to help it move forward.
The requirement that NYPA own at least 51% of joint projects has caused some setbacks, Driscoll responded.
“We’re finding that some developers don’t want to have a minority interest with us,” he said.
The coalition Public Power NY ripped into this idea.
“Justin Driscoll’s suggestion to strip the public ownership requirement out of the Build Public Renewables Act shows he is unfit to serve as NYPA CEO and not accountable to New Yorkers, legislators and labor demanding NYPA build 15 GW of renewables, but instead serves the interest of private energy developers,” it said in a press release.
Other legislators wanted to know about progress toward another mandate placed on NYPA in the same 2023 law: retirement of its 11 small natural gas power plants by 2030, if grid resource adequacy allows.
NYPA is making progress and on schedule to meet the May 2025 deadline to report its plans, Driscoll said. It has reached the framework for a potential agreement with developers who want to convert two of the peakers into battery facilities and is in similar negotiations on three others.
NYPA generates up to a quarter of the state’s electricity, mainly through huge hydropower projects that harness the outflow of two of the Great Lakes; it operates a third of the state’s high-voltage transmission; its pumped hydro facility is by far the largest energy storage system in New York; and it is 94 years old.
A PPNY activist and an NYPA executive who spoke separately to NetZero Insider after release of the draft plan in October laid out a classic chicken-and-egg impasse:
PPNY: NYPA could use its strong bond rating to boost the energy transition at a lower cost.
NYPA: Our bond rating is strong because we operate judiciously.
PPNY: NYPA should concentrate less on preserving its bond rating and more on preserving the planet.
NYPA: Our ability to develop planet-saving renewables depends on our strong bond rating.
This week’s events suggest the two sides will have to agree to disagree a while longer.
