A Climate Week NYC To Remember!
By Anne Reynolds
Four years ago, when ACE NY held our first event for Climate Week NYC, we had a great breakfast and excellent discussion (Remember the topic? Access to clean energy for low-income New Yorkers), but the rest of the world didn’t pay all that much attention to Climate Week.
Not so 2021! Yes, we had a great event: Offshore Wind, Ports, and Job Creation, co-hosted by our friends at NRDC, NYCP, and E2, and we also released a new offshore wind ports video to mark the week. We were happy to have speakers from the City of Albany, UPROSE in Brooklyn, Equinor, and The Business Network for Offshore wind to really dig into the question of how port development to support the offshore wind industry can also urban communities.
But we weren’t nearly as busy as New York Governor Kathy Hochul! She made a series of big announcements, starting on September 20, at the opening ceremony of Climate Week NYC, with two major clean energy related announcements. First, she increased New York’s goal for local (rooftop & community) solar to 10,000 MW by 2030 (in NY’s climate law it is 6,000 by 2025) and directed NYSERDA to develop a roadmap to achieve that. Second, she announced that New York has selected two winners for the Clean Energy Standard Tier 4, the NYC Renewable Energy Program. According to this Gov Press Release the winners were the Clean Path project which is a collaboration of NYPA, Invenergy, and EnergyRE (Related Companies) and the Champlain Hudson Power Express. These projects will have to go through a contract review process at the NYS PSC as well as permitting and interconnection processes. And yes, while we here at ACE NY sincerely wish it were two projects supporting wind and solar power development inside New York State, we offer a congratulations to Invenergy and their Clean Path team. Here is our statement.
Monday’s announcement was followed by several others. The Governor announced her support for expanding the amount of funding in next year’s Environmental Bond Act from $3 billion to $4 billion. She launched a $36 million project to create 10 new Clean Energy Hubs across the state to educate and engage local communities in the clean energy transition. Just prior to the week she signed new legislation aimed at spurring the electrification of New York’s transportation sector - a bill that ACE NY supported and pushed for. Less directly on clean energy, but still climate related, the governor announced a deal with NYSEG to protect 470 shoreline acres along Cayuga Lake; a wastewater infrastructure project in the North Country; $15 million in new funding for municipalities to tackle water infrastructure and energy projects; grants to local environmental justice organizations to monitor air quality in severely polluted communities; and finally 11 new Climate Smart Smart communities. (And this isn’t even a complete list!)
So, it was an active and interesting week for fans of climate policy watcher. Even late night comedy shows joined in to mark Climate Week NYC this year! We appreciate Governor Hochul’s sense of urgency in enhancing New York’s climate policy and look forward to continuing to work in New York to make it a great place for the clean energy industry to do business.
