Can New York City Really Go 100% Renewables?
There are roughly 8.3 million people living in NYC within a 300 square mile area. As a result, NYC is one of the toughest cities to find open real estate for development. Additionally, since real estate is scare, the cost of land comes at a premium. The key would be, finding underutilized real estate in the NYC service area. There is a need for a development company that focuses on this issue. In order to accomplish this a developer would build need to build renewable generation at unique locations in NYC.
The focus would be on developing abandoned Islands, and open-air rail road and train yards. In NYC there are 42 islands, 6 major water ways, 25 train yards, and 11 rail road yards. These areas represent areas that would be ideal for Solar and Tidal farms with Hybrid Storage. The water ways in NYC are both tidal and flowing (Tidal Straight), which would be prime for Tidal energy systems.
What is the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act
NY State has passed Senate bill S6599 titled the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act CLCPA. This bill “would mandate that New York State go totally carbon-neutral by 2050” Carbon neutrality is having a net zero carbon footprint . Refers to achieving net zero carbon dioxide emissions by balancing carbon emissions with carbon removal or simply eliminating carbon emissions altogether. It is used in the context of carbon dioxide-releasing processes associated with transportation, energy production, agriculture, and industrial processes.
In order to accomplish a true zero carbon city all Carbon-based generation would need to be replaced with renewable source of power by 2035. It would also increase the target for distributed solar from 3,000 MW by 2023 to 6,000 MW by 2025. Zero carbon includes eliminating all source of carbon dioxide emissions. would entail the complete electrification of vehicles, and electrification for heating of homes removing methane (Gas). As a result, the challenge will be accommodating all the new electric demand, with a decrease in carbon-based generation.
Cuomo’s plan calls for increasing the state’s offshore wind target from 2,400 megawatts by 2030 to 9,000 MW within the NYISO. NYC represents .86% of the total land within NYS but had 1/3 of the overall electricity usage.