Breaking Through the Barriers
By Jeff Jones, Alliance for Clean Energy New York
As efforts to site grid-scale renewable energy projects increase, attention has shifted to state staffing levels as a possible hindrance to meeting New York’s ambitious climate goals. A late-September analysis by New York Focus, a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom covering state and local government, noted that “a legacy of austerity, paired with job attrition during the pandemic and Great Resignation, have left regulators struggling to manage an economy-wide shift away from fossil fuels.” With the Climate Action Council’s Scoping Plan set for release in January, concern is growing that key groups like the Independent System Operator (NYISO), and state agencies like the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), NYSERDA and the Department of State’s Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES), will lack sufficient staff necessary for timely implementation.
Understaffing Threatens To Slow New York Climate Plans, the New York Focus report, looks at the lack of trained personnel necessary to achieve state goals. One example is the NYSIO. The group plays a key role in maintaining the electric grid. Its responsibilities include managing New York’s interconnection queue. Every new energy facility must go through the queue to be added to the grid. The report notes that while requests to enter the queue have more than tripled since 2016, the number of staff managing it has remained nearly constant.
Observers of state efforts include the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI). The clean energy-focused group previously played a key role in developing and implementing the Public Service Commission’s ambitions Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) strategy. At present, just 6% of New York’s electricity comes from wind and solar generation. RMI fears that without a significant increase in appropriate staffing, the state will only achieve two-thirds of its wind and energy goals by 2030.
On a positive note, ORES, created in 2020 as a reform to address siting backlogs, is moving forward expeditiously. It has grown to 30 staff – some of them recruited from other state agencies – and says it is on track to finish reviewing the 11 projects currently on its list within a year.
In the NY Focus article, republished in the Albany Times Union and in Politico, ACE NY Executive Director Anne Reynolds described the current process of connecting new renewables to the grid as “a snake eating an elephant.” Noting that the speed up of renewable energy contracting and permitting has greatly increased the number of projects seeking connection to the grid, Reynolds warned that the transmission and interconnection processes in New York are not keeping up with demand and “now stand as the biggest obstacles to clean energy deployment.”
