The photo voltaic group, advancing photo voltaic coverage and rising solar-plus-storage initiatives had been sizzling subjects that drew a report attendance of 550 on the New York Photo voltaic Vitality Industries Affiliation’s (NYSEIA) 2022 New York Photo voltaic Summit.
Held Tuesday in Albany, NYSEIA govt director Zack Dufresne launched the convention’s each day panel session with statistics that the Empire State continues to guide the nation in group photo voltaic improvement, with whole -an set up fee of 693 MW of photo voltaic belongings deployed by 2022.
Doreen Harris, president and chief govt officer of the New York Analysis Growth Authority (NYSERDA), the state’s power improvement authority, echoed Dufresne’s feedback about group photo voltaic and distributed improvement. of era, saying the state has deployed 4.24 GW of cumulative photo voltaic installations, largely because of the NY-Solar program and 13,000 photo voltaic power jobs created to this point.
Began in 2011 by former Governor Andrew Cuomo, NY-Solar is the Empire State’s platform for photo voltaic incentives and financing to make photo voltaic accessible to all householders, renters, and business companies. .
This week’s Photo voltaic Summit is near the one-year anniversary of NYSERDA’s December 17, 2021 submission of the Distributed Photo voltaic Roadmap through which the state set a purpose of deploying 10 GW of distributed photo voltaic by 2030 in step with PSC docket 21-E-0629.
Harris, Dufresne and different company officers mentioned that by the tip of this 12 months, the state is properly on its technique to surpassing 50% of its DG mandate by 2023. The NY-Solar program is the framework for $4.4 billion in non-public funding and state funding of photo voltaic improvement within the upstate New York C&I (2.9 GW goal) area, downstate Consolidated Edison service territory (300 MW) and numerous residential photo voltaic blocks (150 MW) across the state.
NYSERDA submitted a ultimate protection plan on December 19 outlining the carbon discount targets outlined for 2023 to 2030 underneath the state’s Local weather Management and Group Safety Act (CLCPA), which advocates web zero state targets in 2030. The CLCPA covers not solely clear power mandates, however power effectivity, water, infrastructure and different sustainable improvement.
Harris has but to touch upon whether or not the state company will improve its 10 GW mandate if the transfer continues with utility-scale and group photo voltaic improvement.
The vibe of mid-December in upstate New York with a crisp 15 diploma air temperature strolling into the Albany Capital Heart was simply that, crisp and barely grey. pv journal USA crossed paths with business photo voltaic builders and light-weight photo voltaic racking producers from Buffalo, NY, to rooftop storage and photo voltaic cover integrators from Brooklyn, NY together with NineDot Vitality, Brooklyn Photo voltaic Cover and Ecogy Vitality.
Picture: NYSERDA
Partnerships with utility builders open up non-wire options
A fireplace chat between developer Nexamp and Nationwide Grid highlighted the significance of distributed era partnerships between challenge improvement groups and native utilities. In western New York, Nationwide Grid is dealing with a troublesome process of upgrading a number of billion greenback capital value electrical substations in a congested area of getting old 5 kV strains. energy station.
Reasonably than decide to a multi-year and multi-billion greenback T&D improve, the utility is partnering with developer Nexamp to unlock knotted transmission capability in Watertown, NY with non-wire options, or distributed era. .
Final September, the businesses introduced plans to put in an 8.4 MW photo voltaic challenge with 10 Tesla Megapack batteries offering 31 MWh of storage capability, giving the Nationwide Grid the flexibility to name the system as much as 5.7 MW / 29 MWh as much as 25 occasions per 12 months. from panels or batteries.
Rob Ritchie, director of power storage for Nexamp, mentioned the utility is taking a look at a stranded grid asset in Watertown, NY, a mid-tier metropolis whose inhabitants is simply shy of 25,000 residents. , positioned greater than 3 miles from the Coffeen utility sub-station in query.
Nexamp discovered {that a} non-wire various challenge with solar-plus-storage saves money and time somewhat than counting on the primary methodology of updating a sub-station and numerous strains of electrical energy and poles.
Tom Vaccaro, director of transmission for renewables at Nationwide Grid, mentioned the London utility’s US enterprise is making use of a method to repair grid congestion used within the UK by Nationwide Grid’s Western Energy Distribution affiliate.
“Distributed era is just not an alternate, it is a new asset class that does not require a 100-year energy line and improve wires,” Vaccaro mentioned. “It’s going to now not be a stranded asset. Now it may be renewed each 15 years if crucial with various non-wire options.
Vaccaro says utility-developer partnerships and common conversations with impartial system operators are the simplest technique to quickly improve distributed era sources like group photo voltaic. and storage.
Nexamp has eight initiatives in New York with roughly 80 MWh of electrical capability, and the corporate just lately introduced that it’ll construct a Hawaiian group photo voltaic portfolio for Hawaiian Electrical to supply photo voltaic group of native residents.
Picture: Nexamp
Group photo voltaic and power fairness
NYSERDA president Doreen Harris mentioned that whereas it is no shock that New York continues to rank primary in whole group photo voltaic output, state companies have seen 1.6 GW of group photo voltaic era. accessible to low to average earnings (LMI) households and constructing homeowners, a beforehand underserved demographic of power requirements.
Harris and different state lawmakers argue that the NY-Solar influence program of greater than a decade and instruments just like the NY Photo voltaic Mapping toolkit and web site make photo voltaic a simple addition to the discount targets. carbon emissions within the state.
Austin Perea, supervisor of New York coverage and market improvement at retail power supplier Arcadia, mentioned New York has deployed about 1.4 GW to 1.6 GW of group photo voltaic initiatives, whereas Arcadia itself supplies energy from about 500 MW of photo voltaic belongings in New York.
“Nowhere however in New York does group photo voltaic exist as central to local weather change mitigation targets,” Perea mentioned in a day panel titled, Group Photo voltaic – Vitality Fairness and Environmental Justice.
Noah Ginsburg, director of SolarOne, a New York Metropolis non-profit group that gives clear power coaching options, mentioned an imbalance nonetheless exists between utilities and state ratepayers for photo voltaic. group entry to reasonably priced power.
Distributed era and group photo voltaic ought to set requirements between ratepayers and the utility, although Ginsburg mentioned, “utilities are dangerous actors proper now,” taking photo voltaic era in the neighborhood and promote it at their increased retail power costs.
Whereas the Inflation Discount Act permits for non-profits to take part in distributed era, federal and state applications ought to embody an adder to leverage extra non-public investments to make extra low-to-moderate earnings family participation in New York’s photo voltaic group, Ginsburg mentioned.
Picture: NineDot Vitality
Photo voltaic-plus-storage
Looking forward to 2023, a lot of the year-end buzz on the New York Photo voltaic Summit centered across the Vitality Storage Roadmap, which is NYSERDA’s revised framework for setting a multi-year deployment goal. of 6 GW of power storage belongings, which is double the Governor. Kathy Hochul’s preliminary 3 GW storage goal.
Jon Carbajal, director of product improvement for NineDot Vitality, mentioned the formidable 10 GW of photo voltaic and 6 GW of power storage statewide targets are actually achievable. A lot of the new photo voltaic capability will come from the upstate and Hudson Valley area with quite a lot of land, and power storage will be deployed on smaller plots of land together with within the New York Metropolis metropolitan area.
The director of NineDot mentioned that the builders of the city challenge had been capable of deploy 5 MW price of Tesla Megapack storage techniques on 10,000 sq. ft, or 0.25 acre of land in and across the New York Metropolis space. That compares to the roughly 25 acres wanted to put in a comparable 5 MW photo voltaic array in an upstate group photo voltaic challenge, he mentioned.
Builders NineDot, City Vitality and Ecogy Vitality level to the features of downstate distributed era from figuring out native stakeholders resembling vacant constructing and lot homeowners, non-profit organizations resembling church buildings and native representatives of the Division of Housing and City Growth.
On Lengthy Island, Bob Boerner, supervisor of renewable power for the Public Service Enterprise Group – Lengthy Island mentioned that at the moment about 14% of Lengthy Island’s load within the area comes from rooftop photo voltaic and storage techniques, whereas the utility sees no downside with signing up residents of oversubscribed photo voltaic and storage blocks throughout the island.
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