Smarter Electricity in New York
New York Times
12 May 2014
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
In one of the most promising moves in the energy sector in years,
New York State is proposing a way to get a head start on, and
perhaps help lead, a revolution in the world of electricity
generation. Starting this week, the main players in the state’s
complex electricity business will be asked to comment on a new
report from the state’s Public Service Commission that envisions
more efficient and climate-friendly ways to produce electricity.
“Business as usual just doesn’t cut it anymore,” said Audrey
Zibelman, the commission’s chairwoman. By the end of the year, she
said, the commission hopes to produce new “rules of the road for
utilities.” In its most basic form, what the commission is talking
about is an increasingly decentralized system dominated not by big
generating stations but by smaller stations located throughout the
state, many of them using renewable sources like solar or wind
power. The big utilities like Con Edison that now sell electricity
to consumers would essentially become traffic cops, making sure
power is distributed evenly and fairly.
The hope is that New York can provide a template for other states
at a time of rapid change in the energy landscape brought about by
new pollution controls and concerns about global warming. These
changes have not gone unnoticed by industry leaders. Jim Rogers,
the retired chairman of Duke Energy, told a conference at Columbia
University last week that by midcentury “virtually every power
plant in this country will be retired and replaced.”
Modernizing a system that has been largely static for the last 100
years will be no small task. But Gov. Andrew Cuomo insists that
the state is ready to try. He praised the commissioners for
“taking a giant step from the status quo” and working toward a
“more market-based, decentralized” approach to energy policy.
In addition to constructing hundreds or even thousands of smaller
generators, the study envisions a much greater role for individual
homeowners and commercial enterprises who choose to install their
own energy sources (like solar panels) or invest in more efficient
appliances. The proposal, which the commission has called
Reforming Energy Vision, stresses that any new system be designed
to deal with the consequences of climate change, including floods,
hurricanes and heat waves.
The commissioners should take care not to undo regulations and
incentives that promote clean and sustainable energy — including
the state’s participation in the regional greenhouse gas
initiative, a trading system that has gradually ratcheted down
carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. A renewable energy
mandate that sunsets next year should be extended and
strengthened. State monitors should not presume that the market
alone will solve all energy problems. If the state does this
right, it could well show the rest of the country smarter ways to
make and use electricity in the future.