New York's Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) requires the New York State Public Service Commission to establish a program requiring that (1) by 2030, 70% of the state's electric generation come from renewable sources (the 2030 Target), and (2) by 2040 the “statewide electrical demand system" be “zero emissions” (the 2040 Target). In January, the Coalition for Safe and Reliable Energy petitioned the Commission to hold a hearing to consider temporarily suspending or modifying the Commission's program to achieve these targets (the Renewable Energy Program), arguing that the program threatens grid reliability and safe, adequate, and affordable electric service.
Policy Integrity's comments urge the Commission to deny the petition, arguing that the Commission lacks statutory authority to take the action that the petition requests, and that the petition fails to establish a causal link between the Renewable Energy Program and the reliability concerns that the petition describes. The comments highlight the following key points:
- The CLCPA obligates the Commission to establish a program to achieve both the 2030 Target and the 2040 Target. While the Commission has treated the preexisting Clean Energy Standard as the mechanism to achieve the 2030 target, it has not established any program to achieve the 2040 target.
- Section 66-p(4) of the Public Service Law authorizes the Commission to temporarily suspend or modify obligations under an existing program—not to suspend or modify the statutory targets themselves. Because no program exists to achieve the 2040 Target, Section 66-p(4) is inapplicable to the concerns raised in the petition, which are focused on the putative impacts of the 2040 Target.
- The petition fails to demonstrate a causal link between the Renewable Energy Program and reliability concerns identified by the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) and cited in the petition. Reliability challenges stemming from slowed additions of renewable generation to the grid are (as the Commission has explained) primarily the result of market forces, infrastructure delays, and federal policy, not the Commission's Renewable Energy Program.
- The petition does not propose any specific suspension or modification to the program, nor does it explain how any such change would be kept “temporary," as the statute requires.
- Rather than effectively abandoning the CLCPA's statutory targets by granting the petition's request, the Commission should develop and establish the overdue program to achieve the 2040 Target and work with NYISO to address any specific tensions between Commission actions and resource adequacy planning.