On today’s informative episode of Quick Charge, we’ve got Honda engineers Jason Hwang and Emilio Sanchez to talk us through some of the things that make the GM Ultium-based Honda Prologue EV feel like a real Honda, and why that matters.
Jason and Emilio talk about some of the choices they made to make the Honda Prologue and Acura ZDX feel different from its GM-branded cousins, and explain why this was much more than a case of badge-engineering. Give it a listen, then let us know what you think of the Prologue and ZDX in the comments.
Today’s episode is sponsored by BLUETTI, a leading provider of portable power stations, solar generators, and energy storage systems. For a limited time, save up to 52% during BLUETTI’s exclusive Black Friday sale, now through November 28, and be sure to use promo code BLUETTI5OFF for 5% off all power stations site wide. Learn more by clicking here.
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Read more: All my favorite EVs, racecars, and robots from Electrify Expo Austin.
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Nikola workers assemble the company’s Tre hydrogen fuel cell electric truck.
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Truck maker Nikola recently reduced staffing levels as it seeks to control costs.
The Phoenix-based hydrogen fuel cell electric truck and battery-electric truck manufacturer in October cut 135 jobs, a move that CEO Steve Girsky acknowledged was tough to make.
“This is a difficult, but necessary, decision and we thank those team members who helped build Nikola and wish them the best moving forward,” he said in a statement provided to Transport Topics. “Nikola is a pioneer in the zero-emissions trucking and hydrogen infrastructure solution arenas, and to ensure long-term viability and maintain our first-mover advantage, we must scale our business appropriately for the future. To extend our runway, we are adjusting and rescaling our staffing needs.”
RELATED: Nikola Leads Field in Hydrogen Fuel Cell EV Deployment
Girsky since arriving at Nikola in August 2023 has sought to bolster the company’s executive ranks with industry veterans. Former General Motors executive Mary Chan was appointed chief operating officer in September 2023, while ex-Eaton finance chief Tom Okray became chief financial officer in March 2024.
Nikola in Q4 2023 raised more than $230 million to help fund its operations. In the third quarter of this year, it reported a loss of $200 million, narrower than the $425.5 million year-ago loss, but the company’s cash and cash equivalents as of Sept. 30 totaled $198.3 million, compared with $464.7 million at the end of 2023.
“We estimate that our existing cash is sufficient to fund our forecast operating costs and meet our obligations into but not beyond [the first quarter of] 2025,” Okray told analysts during the company’s most recent quarterly earnings call. “We are examining every opportunity to optimize cash.”
That may include partnerships, Girsky said during the call.
“We are actively talking to lots of potential different partners who value what we do and value what we’ve built,” he said. “It’s because we’ve been doing the hard work out front building the framework, and we have proof points. We’re on the road today with customers. So we are looking to build [a] coalition of the willing, [a] coalition of like-minded companies that want to pursue and push zero-emission forward because that’s all we do.”
Host Seth Clevenger and Features Coordinator Mike Senatore take you behind the scenes to unveil the 2024 Top 50 Global Freight Companies. Tune in above or by going to RoadSigns.ttnews.com.
Okray said potential partners include companies with corporatewide decarbonization goals, hydrogen producers and automotive original equipment manufacturers that want to bring a light-duty or heavy-duty hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle to market.
Nikola is one of two hydrogen fuel cell electric truck makers to begin serial production of a Class 8 tractor in North America. The other, Hyzon, also is facing a cash crunch.
Legacy truck maker Paccar expects serial production of hydrogen fuel cell electric versions of Peterbilt’s 579 Model and Kenworth’s T680 tractors to begin in 2025.
Nikola sold a hydrogen production project in July 2023, one month after it cut 270 jobs and two months after it halted production of its battery-electric trucks.
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Adding geothermal to their toolkit “provides a window for [gas utilities] to expand their business, but in a non-polluting way,” said Mark Dyen, part of the steering team at Gas Transition Allies, a coalition focused on reducing methane emissions in the state.
If gas utilities wish to expand their service or build new pipelines, the Department of Public Utilities (DPU) will now be required to evaluate whether expansion furthers the Commonwealths’ climate goals or creates stranded assets with high costs for ratepayers, and whether an alternative to gas service could be provided that still offers substantially similar service.
“We’re now saying ‘the gas system is not here forever. We are moving off of it,’” Dyen said. “It doesn’t stop gas company expansion, but it certainly puts an entirely new lens on it.”
Since 2014, utilities in Massachusetts have been replacing and repairing leaky gas pipes in an effort to reduce methane emissions and improve safety. Now, the DPU has the option to not just approve the repair or replacement of a gas pipe, but to recommend that utilities retire a gas pipe, taking it offline completely.
In 2021, the DPU updated its mission to include promoting equity and greenhouse gas emission reductions, in addition to safety, security, reliability, and affordability. “I think this DPU takes that mission seriously. And so I’m confident they will take these updated provisions seriously,” said Kyle Murray, director of state program implementation at the Acadia Center.
Other sections of the bill set electric vehicle charging efficiency standards, remove barriers to EV chargers in condo associations, require the DPU to look into installing chargers on electric poles, and clarify legislative authority for the DPU to order differential utility rates based on customers’ income.
Even with all the new changes, “I do think we’re behind where we would want to be in 2024,” Peale Sloan said. In the next legislative session, she hopes to see another climate bill move forward that makes public transit more attractive and affordable and prevents new fossil fuel equipment from being installed.
“I think it’s critical that we continue in this environment where we’re not going to be able to look to the federal government for help for a while,” Peale Sloan said. “We have to focus on creating a livable and affordable Massachusetts and getting off fossil fuels is a critical step towards that.”
Patent enables higher charge rates from lower-voltage DC fast chargers
Solution adds a series of relay switches and a capacitor
It’s a smart workaround for Tesla V3 Superchargers, which can’t charge at 800 volts
Stellantis is working on hardware to boost the output of low-power DC fast-chargers for electric vehicles that can handle that extra power, while keeping added weight and complexity to a minimum.
Between the lines, although the patent makes no mention of Tesla, it could make a serious real-world charging difference. The idea might allow 800-volt EVs—large EVs like the upcoming Ram 1500 REV—to charge at a higher rate when plugged into sub-800-volt fast-charge connectors, such as the vast majority of those on the Tesla Supercharger network.
Stellantis confirmed plans to adopt the Tesla-based charge port, otherwise called NACS and now part of a standard called SAE J3400, in February.
Rivian NACS adapter
This proposed boost system is described by the automaker in a patent filing published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Oct. 31, 2024, but originally filed Apr. 25, 2023. In it, Stellantis says the system is designed to take full advantage of the charging capabilities of 800-volt vehicle electrical architectures even when charging at 400-volt DC fast-charging stations.
Stellantis DC fast-charging boost system patent image
While dedicated DC boost modules exist, these add significant cost and weight, and can be difficult to package, Stellantis says in the document. As an alternative, the automaker proposes using a series of relay switches to boost voltage. These switches, along with a small DC capacitor, would be the only additional components needed, according to Stellantis, which added that such hardware could be applied to plug-in hybrids as well as EVs.
When charging at a lower-power station, the relay switches would allow current to flow through a vehicle’s inverter and an electric motor during charging, with those components generating two AC phase currents that could be converted into a third, higher-power DC current that would then be fed into the battery.
Stellantis DC fast-charging boost system patent image
The feature might not immediately be relevant for all that many models. Stellantis is sticking with a 400-volt architecture for most of the near-term EVs built on its STLA platform strategy set to underpin the 2024 Dodge Charger Daytona and 2024 Jeep Wagoneer S. But it has confirmed those big Ram EVs will charge at 800 volts.
Streamlining charging hardware has been a major focus for Stellantis. In 2023 the automaker discussed plans to drop onboard chargers and inverters altogether in a bid to simplify future EVs.
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Author news@greencarreports.com (Stephen Edelstein)
#Future #Stellantis #EVs #flex #800V #400V #Superchargers
Volvo’s revamped VNL Class 8 tractor. (Volvo Trucks North America)
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Volvo Trucks is targeting a 25% North American heavy-duty truck market share by 2030, according to executives at the company.
Volvo Trucks North America won a 10% share of Class 8 retail sales in 2023 while Mack Trucks captured a 6.8% share, according to Wards Intelligence data.
“Our ambition is for Volvo Trucks to have a 15% market share in North America. And it will happen,” company president Roger Alm said Nov. 14, while Mack is targeting a 10% slice of the pie.
“The untapped potential is huge in North America, and we have all the possibilities to make this happen now,” Alm told analysts during Volvo Trucks parent company Volvo Group’s Capital Markets Day in Dublin, Va.
VTNA relaunched its flagship semi, the VNL, in January and Mack is planning a similar if not more radical transformation of its key on-highway tractor in 2025, Mack President Stephen Roy revealed at the event.
The breakthrough aerodynamic design and next-gen technology found in every #AllNewVolvoVNL deliver mile after mile of unrivaled fuel efficiency. pic.twitter.com/C2OBRXARD9
— Volvo Trucks North America (@VolvoTrucksNA) October 16, 2024
“I really see this for Mack as an industry disrupter,” said Roy. “We go from a product that’s a fairly old product from a foundational standpoint to a premium product that will absolutely allow us to compete in 70% of the market.”
“We think we can triple our [longhaul] market share with the new product,” Mack’s top executive said, adding that the new flagship tractor, an expansion of Volvo Group’s North American truck production capacity and the end to supply chain woes would see Mack’s Class 8 market share vault the 10% barrier by 2030.
Volvo Group plans to open a truck production plant in Mexico for the first time in 2026 and bought Commercial Vehicle Group’s Kings Mountain, N.C., cab assembly plant, which had been slow in supplying bodies-in-white to Mack.
Volvo Group paid around $40 million for the Kings Mountain plant, adding 230 employees as a result. Mack already started to see improvements in total production as a result of the acquisition of the cab plant, Roy said during a presentation at the Capital Markets Day.
Roy’s counterpart at VTNA, Peter Voorhoeve, is similarly bullish about the sister brand’s prospects.
“The product has never been better. If you combine that with a more stable and stabilized supply chain, if you combine that with the extra capacity that we will get from both New River Valley and in Mexico, then I think that we have the elements to say that we are gearing for growth in North America with Volvo Trucks,” Voorhoeve said.
VTNA initiated operations of Plant 2 at the New River Valley manufacturing facility in Dublin its entirety for the first time June 21. Some $400 million was spent by Volvo on a revamp of New River Valley — which sits next to the Volvo Trucks customer center where the Capital Markets Day was held — ahead of the VNL redesign.
That spending and the 25% market share target was part of a long-term plan, according to Volvo Group CEO Martin Lundstedt. “Five, six years ago, we did see that we are getting our act together. We are getting our act together when it comes to serving the customer: customer satisfaction; we are getting our act together when it actually comes to different ranges; we’re getting our act together when it comes to our profitability with captive powertrains and services etc.,” said the parent company’s top executive.
“At that time, we said ‘now it is time to take the next step,’ because you cannot grow yourself out of other problems; you need to have the strong foundation that we have,” he said. “Then we took a bold decision, now we do a coordinated end-to-end effort. And that is what we see the result of.”
Host Seth Clevenger and Features Coordinator Mike Senatore take you behind the scenes to unveil the 2024 Top 50 Global Freight Companies. Tune in above or by going to RoadSigns.ttnews.com.
A large part of the push will be via trucks using fuels that are not diesel, said Lundstedt. Volvo expects all the new trucks it sells to be zero-emission by 2040.
In June, VTNA provided a first glimpse of a VNL 440 Electric. The order book for the VNL Electric is expected to open shortly. Volvo’s Cespira hydrogen internal combustion engine joint venture with Westport Fuel Systems began operations in the third quarter.
But Lundstedt told analysts the path to zero-emission trucks will be bumpy, even while Volvo remains committed to its goals. “The long-term trend is clear, our markets will transform … but what looks smooth and stable is not,” he said.
As a result, Volvo needed to be flexible enough to adapt to hurdles and accelerations, he said, noting that alternative fuel trucks were competing with an extremely efficient legacy diesel value chain.
Electric truck adoption requires the trucks, fossil-free energy, infrastructure, a supply network, customer peace of mind plus incentives and a price on carbon to succeed, he said.
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GM discontinued the Chevy Bolt EV and EUV at the end of the 2023 model year. During an early 2024 conference call with analysts, GM CEO Mary Barra agreed that environmental benefits of EVs continue to be compelling to the company. She also admitted that GM’s EVs need to be deployed in strategic segments as the nation continues to build out its charging infrastructure.
Just as the Chevy Bolt line seemed destined for collectors, 2023 became one of the Bolt’s best years yet, with record sales in the second quarter across multiple markets.
It’s still hard to wrap our heads around the fact that the Bolt EV and EUV are discontinued … at least for now. They’re two of the most successful electric cars sold in the US. I know: I own a Bolt EV. My decision to buy a used Bolt was a combination of its affordability, reliability, performance, range, and safety.
A new 2023 Chevrolet Bolt costs about $27,500 without any options. The 2LT trim raised the dealer price to $30,695. Edmunds says, “Since its introduction back in 2017, the Chevrolet Bolt has been a solid choice for buyers looking for a compact EV.” Sure, the price of my 2017 used Chevy Bolt has dropped since I purchased it in summer 2023. Now KBB says I could sell it to a private party for about $13,000. Nonetheless, I think there’s a value to owning a used Bolt that isn’t figured into this trade-in price at all. Let’s dig down and see.
Driving a Chevy Bolt allows us to experience all the perks of battery electric driving without the high cost of newer premium models. Not only is the Bolt an affordable EV to buy, it also will cost you less to maintain, insure, and run than an internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV).
When a consumer makes the decision to buy an EV like a used Chevy Bolt, they help to provide a sustainable solution to mitigate the environmental and energy crises and help meet the targets for achieving carbon neutrality under the Paris Agreement. It’s important to me to drive a battery electric vehicle to reduce transportation emissions — whether when at my year-round home or my vacation bungalow in the woods. Replacing gasoline with electricity greatly reduces the carbon emissions from driving.
A small electric SUV like the Chevy Bolt produces fewer life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than a comparable gasoline vehicle. Electric vehicles have no tailpipe emissions — nearly three quarters of the GHG emissions from a gasoline vehicle come from the tailpipe during vehicle operation. For those folks concerned about the ability for the grid to support rising levels of EV sales, researchers have concluded that EVs have increased utility revenues more than they have increased utility costs, leading to downward pressure on electric rates for EV-owners and non-EV owners alike.
Having a brand new battery in the 2017 used vehicle was pivotal to my buying decision. The recall and replacement of 2017–2019 model year Bolts with a previously flawed battery meant consumers who purchase a pre-owned Bolt from a dealer in that year span now own a brand new battery with a 8 year and 80,000 mile warranty.
The EV’s regenerative braking is quite solid and nicely adds electricity back into an EV battery while driving — it’s so sensible and efficient.
A used Bolt offers great range at an affordable price. The cars feature a 65 kWh battery pack, which means the EV has a max 259-mile range (I start looking for a charger after 200 miles of travel, just to be sure). The Bolt EV returns a 120 MPGe or 28 kWh per 100 miles combined energy consumption estimate, while the EUV is slightly heavier on energy, with its 115 MPGe or 29 kWh per 100 miles returns.
Someday we won’t have to plan for EV charging. There will be enough charging stations in major metropolitan and tourist areas to accommodate everyone who needs to charge. There are many more chargers available this year than last, and who knows about 2025? Plus, it’s so exciting to think that the Bolt is slowly becoming available to the Tesla Supercharger network! It’s a whole new charging ballpark.
A used Chevy Bolt may be eligible for the Used Clean Vehicle Credit if no previous owner has already grabbed it. If yours is eligible, then you can reduce the sticker price by $4,000. (Get it while you can, as rumor has it EV tax credits are soon to become obsolete.)
The Bolt — like other electric vehicles — offers me quick acceleration when at the top of highway on-ramps and when I need to pass a slow driver in front of me. It responds nicely in most traffic situations (however, it does not have strong self-centering action in the steering).
And it’s a SUV! That means when I find a treasure on Facebook Marketplace, I can lift it into the just-spacious-enough back hatch area of my own vehicle without needing to borrow a friend’s truck and time.
The Bolt EV can tow a trailer, as our CleanTechnica colleague Jennifer Sensiba has chronicled. If you manage your towing and passenger loads, you can travel or haul at much less cost than a typical pickup truck.
There’s a regional-specific reason that a Chevy Bolt has more value that a trade-in seems. In Texas, General Motors is teaming up with Reliant Energy — the automaker’s home energy subsidiary — to offer free nighttime charging to some Chevy electric vehicle owners in Texas. Chevy owners who enroll in Reliant’s EV charging plan will receive free nighttime charging through monthly bill credits that offset charges incurred between 11 pm and 6 sm, the companies said. Customers must also designate an EV to receive the charging credit through GM Energy’s Smart Charging Portal.
Final Thoughts
The reintroduction of the beloved Chevrolet Bolt EV will have residual positive effects on used Chevy Bolts. The anticipated new Bolt pricing in the $30,000 range will be strong for some entry level buyers, so the used models will have real appeal. From my perspective, GM will need to find a way to balance necessary profitability with the raison d’etre for the Bolt’s original success: it was a budget electric car that introduced a new audience to the world of transportation electrification.
Perhaps the new Chevy Bolt EUV will have long-range, better design, and hold a competitive edge to other EVs quickly emerging on the market.
This week on Electrek’s Wheel-E podcast, we discuss the most popular news stories from the world of electric bikes and other nontraditional electric vehicles. This time, that includes the launch of the Lectric XPedition 2.0, Yamaha e-bikes pulling out of North America, LiveWire unveils an electric scooter concept, PNY readying its cargo e-scooters for pilot testing, Royal Enfield’s first electric motorcycle, and more.
The Wheel-E podcast returns every two weeks on Electrek’s YouTube channel, Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter.
As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.
After the show ends, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:
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Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the Wheel-E podcast today:
Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 9:30 a.m. ET (or the video after 10:30 a.m. ET):
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In other words, PAO is “assuming the customer is obligated to pay the corporate utility the retail rate” for the power customers generate and use themselves — “and anything they do otherwise is stealing,” McCann said.
In terms of assessing who owes whom, that’s little different from saying that a customer who uses less electricity by insulating their home or switching to more efficient appliances owes the utility money for the electricity they’re no longer consuming, he said.
“If you’re growing vegetables in your garden, you don’t pay the grocery store the retail rate for those vegetables,” he said. “You own those vegetables — and you own the solar you generate.”
PAO’s calculations also ignore the reality that solar-equipped customers still pay utility bills, McCann said. His review of PAO’s work indicates that its cost-shift calculations fail to include the average of $80 to $160 per month that solar-equipped customers pay to the state’s three big utilities. Including that amount shaves another $1.4 billion off the PAO’s total.
Nor does PAO calculate the value of rooftop solar for low-income customers using special-assistance rates, he said. The lower rates for these California Alternate Rates for Energy (CARE) customers, whose annual earnings are at or below the federal poverty level, are subsidized by additional surcharges on all other utility customers’ bills. Not having to collect that money for the solar power those CARE customers generated themselves will save about $720 million in 2024, he said.
PAO’s analysis also contains some fundamental errors in calculating the true average costs of electricity paid by customers of the state’s three major utilities, McCann said.
For example, about $2.46 billion of the PAO’s $8.5 billion total is derived from assuming that solar-equipped customers are being charged significantly more than the true average rates they pay, and that their solar panels are generating more power on average than what official state-distributed generation data shows. That inflates PAO’s valuation of how much money those customers are saving from not using utility power.
How distributed solar can make the grid cheaper for everyone
One of the most glaring errors in PAO’s analysis is that it fails to account for how the state’s enormous rooftop solar resource has reduced the amount that utilities would have needed to spend on purchasing energy and building out their grids, McCann said.
That’s an important point, because utility cost-shift arguments are inextricably tied to the idea that solar-equipped customers aren’t paying their fair share for the power grids, power plants, and purchased energy that are bundled into utility costs.
McCann’s analysis finds that since California launched its Million Solar Roofs initiative in 2006, distributed solar has displaced about 15,000 megawatts of peak load compared with state forecasts from that time. Peak load — the maximum amount of power needed to serve every customer on the grid — is a key determinant of how much utilities have to spend on their power grids and on purchasing expensive peak energy resources.
Utilities in California earn back the cost of the energy they purchase — and earn a guaranteed rate of profit on the capital investments they make — through the rates they charge their customers. Many of those costs are spread out for years or even decades after they’re incurred, which means that money saved in not buying energy or building grid infrastructure years ago translates into lower rates today.
McCann’s analysis found that this rooftop solar cost reduction adds up to $2.17 billion in 2024. That final benefit pushes the calculation for rooftop solar firmly out of the realm of extra costs for utility customers at large, and into the realm of net benefits for all customers.
To be clear, these benefits are backward-looking, he said. Since 2006, the peak loads on California’s grid, which are largely driven by air-conditioning use during heatwaves, have shifted from the midafternoon into later in the evening, which is when California has faced its most significant grid emergencies in the past few years.
In the years to come, California needs more batteries to soak up its ample solar resource to meet the state’s new evening peaks. That’s why the state’s new rooftop solar policy rewards customers who add batteries — although rooftop solar groups fear that those rewards aren’t rich enough to balance out the cuts made to the old net-metering rules.
But rooftop solar should still be credited for having helped reduce the grid costs from 2006 to today, McCann said. And state agencies shouldn’t use faulty estimates of past costs to undermine Californians’ ability to buy solar panels and batteries to save money and help combat climate change in future years.
A growing body of research indicates that distributed solar and batteries play a vital cost-cutting role in achieving a clean grid, compared with relying solely on large-scale solar and wind farms alone. Rooftop solar can also help people afford the electric vehicles and electric heating needed to cut carbon emissions from transportation and buildings — especially in California, where utility rates make electrification a tougher proposition.
Del Chiaro said M.Cubed’s new findings are yet more evidence that California policymakers and regulators need to push back harder against the utility-led cost-shift argument.
“They’ve gotten themselves into this weird mindset that all of the electrons” that solar-equipped customers are “generating and sharing with their neighbors are the property of the utility,” she said.
But the past two decades of rooftop solar growth show that “if we give customers a little bit of a boost, they’re going to meet us more than halfway with their investments,” she said.
Tesla has announced that it will finally deliver 500 kW charging as it is about to install its long-awaited V4 Supercharger cabinets.
The rollout of Supercharger V4 has been a strange one, to say the least.
Tesla has been deploying the new charging stations for two years and calling them “Supercharger V4”, but it has only been deploying the charging stalls.
Supercharger stations are made of two main parts: the stalls, which are where the charging cable is located, and the cabinets, which are generally located further back and include all the power electronics.
For all these new “Supercharger V4”, Tesla was actually using Supercharger V3 cabinets. This has been limiting the power output of the charging stations to 250 kW – although
Today, Tesla officially announced its “V4 Cabinet”, which the automaker claims will enable of “delivering up to 500kW for cars and 1.2MW for Semi.”
Here are the main features of the V4 Cabinet as per Tesla:
Faster charging: Supports 400V-1000V vehicle architectures, including 30% faster charging for Cybertruck. S3XY vehicles enjoy 250kW charge rates they already experience on V3 Cabinet — charging up to 200 miles in 15 minutes.
Faster deployments: V4 Cabinet powers 8 posts, 2X the stalls per cabinet. Lower footprint and complexity = more sites coming online faster.
Next-generation hardware: Cutting-edge power electronics designed to be the most reliable on the planet, with 3X power density enabling higher throughput with lower costs.
Tesla reports that its first sites with the new V4 Cabinets are going into permitting now. The company expects its first sites to open next year.
We recently reported about Tesla’s new Oasis Supercharger project, which includes larger solar arrays and battery packs to operate the charging station mostly off-grid.
Early in the deployment of the Supercharger network, Tesla promised to add solar arrays and batteries to all Supercharger stations, and Musk even said that most stations would be able to operate off-grid.
While Tesla did add solar and batteries to a few stations, the vast majority of them don’t have their own power system or have only minimal solar canopies.
Back in 2016, I asked Musk about this, and he said that it would now happen as Tesla had the “pieces now in place” with Supercharger V3, Powerpack V2, and SolarCity:
It took about 8 years, but it sounds like the pieces are now getting actually in place with Supercharger V4, Megapacks, and this new Oasis project.
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Source link by Electrek
Author Fred Lambert
#Tesla #announces #charging #finally #delivers #Supercharger #cabinets
New clean energy construction should be prioritized in downstate New York, DeRoche adds, a region that houses most of the state’s population yet relies heavily on fossil fuels compared with the largely hydro- and nuclear-powered upstate areas. The state will also need to address transmission and interconnection backlogs that make it harder to connect new power generation to the grid. Earlier this year, lawmakers passed the RAPID Act to expedite that process for clean energy projects and transmission lines.
Some activists argue that the state itself should take a leading role to develop more clean energy.
Last year, an amendment to the state budget granted the New York Power Authority the ability to build, own, and operate renewable energy projects for the first time. Organizers at the grassroots coalition Public Power New York say that government leaders have yet to capitalize on the change, commonly referred to as the Build Public Renewables Act. In October, NYPA released its first strategic plan for developing renewable energy projects, proposing the installation of 3.5 gigawatts of new clean energy in the next several years.
“This is only the first tranche of NYPA renewables projects,” the report said, with potentially “further projects for consideration.”
Andrea Johnson, an organizer with the New York City chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, a member group of Public Power New York, called that number “measly.” Public Power New York is rallying for the authority to commit to 15 gigawatts of new clean power by 2030, an amount based on research commissioned by the group.
Expanding clean power at a faster rate would fulfill NYPA’s responsibilities under last year’s expanded authority, which calls on it to build projects when the state falls short on its climate mandates, Johnson said. “When the private sector fails — and the private sector is failing — the state needs to step in and actually fill the gap.”
Leveraging NYPA can also allow New York to meet its climate goals at a lower cost, Johnson said. As a nonprofit, public institution, NYPA can access more favorable financing. It also owns and builds transmission lines, allowing it to plan for both energy generation and distribution at the same time, she said. NYPA is also required to provide utility bill credits to low- and moderate-income households for any clean energy produced from its projects.
Beyond building more clean energy, the state should also take steps to ease growing power demand, including strengthening building efficiency standards and accelerating the installation of heat pumps, said Michael Gerrard, faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School.
That includes addressing the rapid growth of crypto mining and AI electricity use and its effects on residents, said DeRoche. State officials noted that those rising energy demands have made it far more difficult to reach clean energy targets. But agencies have policy tools available to understand and reduce unabated growth — and they should start with making sure that discounted electricity rates for cryptocurrency and AI companies aren’t being subsidized by residents, DeRoche said.
Offshore wind’s uncertain future
Any effort to accelerate New York’s adoption of clean energy will need to grapple with challenges in the offshore wind sector, a cornerstone of the state’s strategy that is likely to face even more setbacks under the incoming Trump administration.
New York aims to install 9 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2035, but in the past four years, inflation, high interest rates, and supply-chain issues led developers to pull out of contracts in the state.
That challenging economic environment is now improving, however, according to Atin Jain, an offshore wind analyst at the energy consulting firm BloombergNEF. As inflation has started to ease and interest rates have begun to come down, “We have probably passed the worst of it,” Jain said. State officials have been quick to respond to the industry’s economic pressures, he added, expediting auctions to renegotiate previous agreements and adding language in contracts to allow for inflation adjustments.
Two new projects, Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind 1, with 924 and 810 megawatts of capacity, respectively, are currently moving forward in New York. The 132-megawatt South Fork Wind farm went live in March off the coast of Long Island.
But Trump’s reelection casts a new uncertainty over the industry. Trump has vowed to stop offshore wind development “on day one” and to “terminate” the Inflation Reduction Act. If those declarations end up translating to real policy, then offshore wind, which relies heavily on federal tax credits and requires federal approval and permits to build and operate, could suffer — in New York and beyond.
Still, New York has enshrined a legal mandate to decarbonize its economy — meaning no matter the headwinds, the state has an obligation to follow through, DeRoche said.
“We hear from the governor that the CLCPA is the nation’s leading climate law,” said DeRoche. “Well, it’s only the nation’s leading climate law if we’re implementing it.”
