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Greentech Media (and others): New York Boosts Efficiency Target, Makes Way for More Solar and Energy Storage

Posted by Lacey Johnson on Apr 24, 2018

Greentech Media reports New York regulators approved multiple initiatives to advance the state’s clean energy goals, while the governor doubles down on energy efficiency. The story included comments and perspective from AEE state partner, Alliance for Clean Energy New York’s (ACE NY) Anne Reynolds.

Here are excerpts and Anne’s comments. See the full Greentech Media story here and related CleanTechnica and Daily Energy Insider stories that quote AEE’s Lisa Frantzis. A Utility Dive story also covered our support.

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced new energy efficiency standards for New York on Friday, calling for investor-owned utilities to achieve annual efficiency savings equal to 3 percent of sales by 2025.

The new target would accelerate energy efficiency by more than 40 percent over current forecasts and reduce energy consumption by 185 trillion Btu. The state also committed $36.5 million to train more than 19,500 New Yorkers for clean energy jobs. 

"Energy efficiency is the most cost-effective way for New Yorkers to lower utility bills, curb harmful emissions and battle climate change," said Governor Cuomo, in a statement. 

The energy efficiency plan should help the state achieve nearly one-third of its climate goal to reduce emissions by 40 percent by 2030. 

New York’s Public Service Commission also approved a series of measures last week as part of the state’s Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) initiative. Now in its fourth year, REV is a sweeping overhaul of utility and energy regulations meant to enable more distributed energy on the grid.

One of the changes will allow distributed energy storage projects of up to 5 megawatts to connect to the grid, which the commission says will expand the integration of larger energy storage technologies…

“New York is sending strong signals to the storage industry to come to invest in New York, and those signals are coming in [the form of many] different changes, and this is one of them,” said Anne Reynolds, executive director of the Alliance for Clean Energy New York...  

Reynolds says the enthusiasm of climate activists in New York has pushed Cuomo to move forward on clean energy initiatives in recent years. 

“There’s still a lot of work to be done in terms of implementation," she said. "But the goals are really strong, and this latest energy efficiency announcement was the missing piece in getting us toward those goals.”

See related CleanTechnica and Daily Energy Insider stories that also quote Lisa Frantzis:

“Today’s announcement represents a big commitment to money-saving energy efficiency by Governor Cuomo,”said Lisa Frantzis, senior vice president of Advanced Energy Economy. “It is inspiring to see New York take on energy efficiency with the same level of ambition the state has shown on renewable energy and utility transformation. The result will be savings for customers and jobs for New Yorkers making homes and businesses more energy efficient.”

Topics: United In The News