2025 Legislative Priorities
2025 Goals for the Alliance for Clean Energy New York
Stillwater Solar, Stillwater, N.Y.
For New York to achieve its climate and clean energy goals, the clean energy industry needs accelerated investment and construction in all clean energy market segments, including grid-connected renewables, energy storage, distributed renewables, transportation electrification, and building efficiency and electrification. Each has unique challenges but offers significant opportunities to create jobs (and offer other economic benefits) and provide clean energy, while helping to tackle climate change.
ACE NY PRIORITIES FOR LARGE-SCALE, GRID-CONNECTED RENEWABLES:
Advocate for on-time NYSERDA competitive procurements in 2025 and beyond to support solar and wind project construction and continued development of a robust pipeline of projects in the state to meet the Climate Law goals.
Continued tracking of the Clean Energy Standard biennial review to ensure its stated goals are finalized and implemented in a useful way to speed project deployment.
Continued support of transmission, including transmission needs identified through the Coordinated Grid Planning Process (CGPP); Public Service Commission (PSC) designation of a public policy transmission need (PPTN) upstate; significant progress on the NYC PPTN; and decision-making around other transmission development to enable onshore and offshore project development.
Continue to work with NYISO on the improved interconnection process, including filings with FERC, if necessary, to ensure that the improvements being implemented work as intended to streamline project interconnections.
Advocate for efficient permitting, as evidenced by steady progress by the Office of Renewable Energy Siting and Electric Transmission. Our goal is to allow responsible developers to move steadily and predictably through the process in a timely manner, so that there is a healthy pipeline of diverse projects. Also, advocate for improvements to the species impact mitigation process and wetland permitting.
Continue to advocate for solar developers to have the ability to lease land from farmers. Agriculturally compatible solar development that supports the state’s energy and agricultural needs will help the state achieve its clean energy and climate goals. Agrivoltaics presents a promising pathway to achieve New York’s clean energy goals while preserving production on agricultural lands and promoting economic development.
Support NYISO rules that are fair and favorable for renewables, e.g., capacity or ancillary services market rules that don’t disadvantage renewable energy or storage.
For offshore wind planning, we will continue to advocate for the state to authorize NYSERDA to procure more than 9 GW of offshore wind energy. We support legislation that advances the offshore wind industry in New York as one of the best renewable technologies to meet the downstate energy demands.
Support standardized and fair property taxation of wind and solar projects, and the elimination of unfair renewable energy bans and moratoria at the local level.
Continued support for a successful competitive Tier 2 program to support renewable resources built before 2015, or another means of support for these projects, plus rules that enable and encourage renewables repowering which can extend the life of a project and, in many cases, increase a project’s power output.
Advocate for reasonable statewide requirements for decommissioning projects and end-of-life disposal rather than town-by-town requirements. Support the development of solar panel recycling facilities in New York.
Advocate for increased funding in the FY2026 NYS Budget of new and revitalized port infrastructure to support the offshore wind industry, as multiple projects go into construction and operational phases.
Support improved access to public rights-of-way for the purposes renewable energy of transmission cables, particularly with respect to the longitudinal utilization of major highways and parkways.
Maple Ridge Wind Farm, Lowville, N.Y.
For energy storage, ACE NY will advocate for the timely implementation of a new Index Storage Credit procurement program for bulk storage, as well as continued funding for a commercial and residential storage program at NYSERDA, towards the achievement of New York’s 6 GW by 2030 goal. We will support rules that facilitate energy storage growth at the NYISO, especially paired with renewables. And we will advocate for a sales tax exemption for commercial energy storage and centralized permitting for energy storage in the FY2026 NYS Budget.
For building energy efficiency, ACE NY will advocate for passage of a new benchmarking bill and participate in the New Efficiency New York implementation to advocate for utility spending plans that create robust and sustainable markets for building energy efficiency providers. We will also push for new, aggressive building codes, a system to value efficiency and load reduction effectively, and a better data access framework.
For distributed renewables, ACE NY will work in coalition to support and weigh in on improvements to the Value of Distributed Energy Resources (VDER) policy and will support the expansion of VDER to small hydro and technology-neutrality.
For transportation electrification, ACE NY will advocate for effective implementation of the PSC’s make-ready order and tariff revisions to support fast charging networks, implementation of the Zero-Emission School Bus provisions, will watchdog implementation of EV-related rules at the Departments of Conservation and Agriculture, and will support passage of legislation that supports transportation electrification, such as the Direct Sales Bill, the Clean Fuel Standard, and the EV Sales Tax Exemption Bill.
At the Legislature, ACE NY will have a full agenda for 2025 and will track all bills that would affect our member companies’ operations and investment in New York.
Finally, continued implementation of the Climate Scoping Plan is a priority for ACE NY in 2025 as we advocate for its full inclusion in the State Energy Plan. We will continue to monitor progress and advocate for measures included in the Final Scoping Plan, particularly progress on the economy-wide cap-and-invest policy with an eye to equity and reinvestment in disadvantaged communities.