Recent Projects

In 2019, New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act) was passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor. The Climate Act set economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions limits and established the Climate Action Council. In its Scoping Plan, the Climate Action Council ultimately recommended implementation of a cap-and-invest program to meet the Climate Act’s emissions reduction requirements. In preparation for developing a proposal, DEC and NYSERDA conducted a preliminary stakeholder outreach process consisting of a series of online Stakeholder Feedback Sessions followed by an informal comment opportunity. Policy Integrity filed comments focused on the scope and structure of the stakeholder outreach process. 

In 2022, as part of a multi-year MI Power Grid Initiative initiative focused on maximizing the benefits of the transition to clean, distributed energy resources, the Michigan Public Service Commission (PSC) directed specified Michigan electric utilities to file a proposal for a benefit-cost analysis (BCA) framework for use in evaluating prospective pilot programs.  In February 2023, DTE Electric Company and Consumers Energy filed a BCA proposal, and on June 23, Policy Integrity submitted comments to the PSC on that propsal. Our comments made several recommendations to ensure that the BCA framework would be useful for properly weighting environmental impacts associated with proposed pilots and maximizing net benefits, including that the test ultimately adopted should incorporate Michigan’s decarbonization policy with greater specificity.

The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) has appointed Policy Integrity’s Executive Director, Dr. Burçin Ünel, to serve on its Environmental Advisory Council. The Council provides NYISO with information, analysis, and expert perspectives on state and federal environmental policies to help it better achieve its mission of maintaining reliability of the bulk electric system and administering competitive wholesale electricity markets. In her role on the Council, Dr. Ünel will use her expertise in utility regulation and energy policy to help NYISO build and maintain New York's “grid of the future.”

Together with Resources for the Future, we submitted comments to the New York Public Service Commission in response to questions posed by the Commission about addressing barriers to medium- and heavy-duty electric vehicle charging. Our comments focus on the possibility for managed charging to reduce infrastructure needs and on additional considerations to optimize emissions outcomes. Our comments are centered around depot charging and draw on research that examines fleet charging needs in a depot setting.

We submitted recommendations to the New York Public Service Commission regarding New York’s 6 GW Energy Storage Roadmap: Policy Options for Continued Growth in Energy Storage, a document that analyzes the need to increase New York’s storage target to 6 GW and the barriers to storage deployment, and provides policy recommendations to help the state achieve 6GW of storage deployment by 2030.

Energy storage can play an important role in a transition to clean energy, but only if it’s deployed within an effective policy framework. The Connecticut Public Utility Regulatory Authority (PURA) adopted our recommendations to target its energy storage incentives to areas with the highest differential between the highest and lowest marginal emissions rates so batteries could ultimately lead to reductions in emissions. In addition, PURA directed the Connecticut Green Bank to review our comments when setting the scope of the program's marketing plan.