NYISO on March 4 presented its assumptions for the economic and electrification trends that would drive load growth through the 2040s based on Moody’s Analytics data, which show statewide population to “significantly” decline, dropping below 18 million by 2055.
The steepest areas of decline are western and central New York, Max Schuler, demand forecasting analyst for NYISO, told the joint meeting of the Load Forecasting Task Force and Transmission Planning Advisory Subcommittee. The state’s population as of the 2020 U.S. Census was 20.2 million.
Household growth is projected to be flat through the end of the decade, then begin to decline along with the population throughout the 2030s and 2040s. Total employment is expected to increase during 2025 but decline in the long run. Gross state product has recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic and is expected to be strong in the long term.
Despite the drop in population, NYISO expects electricity demand to continue to grow, in part from electric vehicle adoption and building electrification. The ISO’s baseline assumption is that 80% of new vehicle sales will be those of electric models by 2035.
A stakeholder asked whether these scenarios had been developed with the recent presidential election in mind.
“These scenarios were more pre-election and so probably won’t account for new changes in policies recently,” said Ebby Thomas, NYISO demand planning analyst. “The rates are based on the data we do have.”
Thomas went on to explain that even if the overall stock of vehicles declines because of population loss, there still would be millions of new vehicles coming onto the grid. The growth curve becomes exponential during the “stagnant” population decades of the 30s and 40s. By 2040, NYISO projects there will be about 6 million electric vehicles on the grid consuming 30 TWh of electricity.
Building electrification also is projected to grow through a variety of technological changes, including air source, ground geothermal, electric resistance and dual-fuel heat pumps.
“In 2024, Moody’s tells us there’s 7.7 million households throughout the state. By 2040 that drops to 7.6 million,” said Arthur Maniaci, principal forecaster for NYISO.
By 2030, New York would be “close” to the Public Service Commission’s targets for electrification in each utility’s footprint, a little under 250,000 homes statewide. By 2040, 22% of housing units will have adopted some form of electric heating technology, the ISO predicts. If adoption occurs at that rate, NYISO projects the state will be using 4,000 GWh annually for electric home heating in 2040. By 2050, 75% of all homes would be electrified.
Moody’s forecast for heat pumps includes different adoption rates in different regions. NYISO does not anticipate high rates of ground geothermal heat pump adoption in New York City, for example, instead projecting that such systems will be more popular upstate.
Some stakeholders questioned the rates of replacement NYISO put forward.
“You’re talking about a major expense for something that otherwise one wouldn’t do,” said Mark Younger of Hudson Energy Economics. “The [New York State Energy Research and Development Authority] incentives are borderline insignificant in the face of the expense.”
After some back and forth, Maniaci said it was possible NYSERDA could open up the incentives “like they did for solar” to enhance adoption rates statewide. He said these incentives had been enormously influential in getting solar onto residential roofs.
“What we are trying to do is give our best effort at incorporating emerging technologies consistent with state energy policies,” Maniaci said. “Everyone knows that the [Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act] has some aggressive goals. This forecast is making our level best effort at incorporating those.”