NYC’s Controversial Plan For A Big Clean-Energy Project Just Got The Green Light

New York state regulators on Thursday approved two massive transmission projects to carry clean electricity into New York City, boosting hopes that the nation’s largest city could start to meaningfully wean off fossil fuels this decade.

At a hearing in Albany, five out of the state Public Service Commission’s seven members voted in favor of a proposal to construct power lines from hydroelectric dams in Québec and upstate New York solar and wind farms. Once completed, the two projects combined are expected to reduce New York City’s demand for fossil fuels by 51%.

“Simply put, if we can’t deliver renewable energy to New York City, we can’t reduce emissions from the fossil fuel fleet,” Rory Christian, the commission’s chairman and lone appointee from New York City, said at the hearing. “Should we delay and reconsider our approach at another time, we’ll very likely run the risk of putting ourselves in the unenviable position of paying more for future projects with lesser benefits.”

Clean Power New York, a 175-mile line from a substation in New York’s Delaware County into the borough of Queens, generated little controversy, but carried greater risks, as the project has yet to receive permits and won’t come online until 2027 at the earliest. By contrast, the Champlain Hudson Power Express, a 339-mile conduit from hydro dams in Canada to the Queens neighborhood of Astoria, stoked heated challenges from a ragtag alliance of environmentalists, gas-fired generators and Indigenous groups.

The opposition cited concerns ranging from the costs to New York ratepayers and competition to New York energy companies, to fears that Hydro-Québec, the government-owned utility behind the project, might prioritize Canadians in a disaster or repeat its dark history of seizing Indigenous lands in Canada to build more dams and increase its electricity output.

Critics also raised issues with the current contract, which does not obligate Hydro-Québec to sell the same amount of power to the city during winter months, when electricity demand is forecast to peak at some point in the next few decades. Currently, New York City’s power demand surged in the summertime, when air conditioning to fend off the sweltering heat spikes. As the city moves away from gas for heating, electric heat pumps are expected to make demand soar the highest during the cold months.

But the company, and economic analysts working for the state commission, downplayed that concern, noting that the utility would have a financial incentive to make more money selling power when demand was high.

Still, intrastate regional rivalries took center stage in the debate, with commissioners from upstate arguing that New York City would receive virtually all the benefits as ratepayers in the state’s poorer, northern reaches would possibly see increases to their electric bills.

Complaining that “nary a word” was said about the projects in upstate media, Commissioner John Howard — the former chairman, who was demoted after he refused Gov. Kathy Hochul’s pressure to resign from the panel — said “this lack of proactive outreach is to say, at the very least, troubling.”

“Even today, we heard over and over again the vast majority of benefits to this proposal accrue to New York City,” Howard said.

Supporters of the project countered that the New York City government had already budgeted tens of millions of dollars to help finance the project, and a landmark municipal law passed in 2019, requiring large buildings to slash energy use, also incentivized landlords to help pay for the hydro line. Another state agency, the Office of General Services, had also signaled it was going to make a deal to help pay for the project.

Commissioner Diane Burman said those commitments were not firm enough, and were thus “troubling and unacceptable.”

“I struggle with being able to approve these contracts at a time when consumers all across this state are already experiencing rising supply costs and record-high inflation,” she said.

But Commissioner Tracey Edwards — who, hailing from Long Island, was the only other appointee representing the densely populated downstate region besides Christian — said that voting down the transmission projects only cleared the way to approve more fossil fuel use in the state.

“We are rightly concerned about the costs of doing things differently, but I believe that we do have an obligation and moral and health obligation to do things differently,” she said. “I’m not comfortable continuing to spend ratepayer money on the same dirty fossil fuel results if there is an alternative before us.”

Opponents of the Champlain Hudson line had urged commissioners to approve the Clean Path project but reject the Canadian deal and reopen the bidding process.

But a big part of Champlain Hudson’s appeal was that the project already had state and federal permits, and could begin construction in a matter of weeks. If all starts on schedule, the line would start running hydro power into New York City by December 2025, two years earlier than Clean Path and likely many more years before any new proposal.

Champlain Hudson also already had contracts in place, meaning it locked in prices from before inflation soared across the world. This means that, in all probability, any alternative would not only come online much later, but cost much more due to increased material prices.

Marco Padula, an economist at the state’s Department of Public Services, testified that approving both transmission lines “would be the way to go to maximize the energy benefits for the state.”