FROM: Ostroff Associates

DATE: November 20, 2020

RE: Climate Action Council – Power Generation Advisory Panel

Chair
• John Rhodes, New York State Department of Public Service
Members
• Corinne DiDomenico, Assistant Director, Large Scale Renewables, New York State Energy
Research and Development Authority
• William Acker, Executive Director, New York Battery and Energy Storage Consortium
• Cecilio Aponte, III, Senior Analyst, Origination, sPower
• Elizabeth (Betta) Broad, Outreach Director, New Yorkers for Clean Power
• Rory Christian, President, Concentric Consulting, LLC
• Lisa Dix, Senior New York Representative, Beyond Coal Campaign, Sierra Club
• Annel Hernandez, Associate Director, New York City Environmental Justice Alliance
• Kit Kennedy, Director of Energy & Transportation, Natural Resources Defense Council
• Shyam Mehta, Executive Director, NYSEIA
• Emilie Nelson, Executive Vice President, New York Independent System Operator
• John Reese, Senior Vice President, Eastern Power Generating Company
• Stephan Roundtree, Jr., Northeast Director, Vote Solar
• Jennifer Schneider, International Representative and Legislative and Political Coordinator
for New York, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
• Darren Suarez, Manager of Public and Government Affairs, Boralex Inc.
• Laurie Wheelock, Litigation and Policy Counsel, Public Utility Law Project
Carl Mas, NYSERDA Director of Energy and Environmental Analysis:
Kevin Steinberger, E3:
Kevin Steinberger: There may be an increased role for zero carbon thermal generation, but the
feasibility is still uncertain. Renewables will experience significant growth over the next several
decades. Planning and siting will require careful consideration. Battery storage will be critical, but
progress is needed.
Rory Christian: At what point will the need for these emission-free dispatchable resources become a
necessity?
Steinberger: I think we see there’s substantial flexibility to help the State meet its goals, but increase
deployment of batteries will also facilitate the integration of those renewables. I think as we move
towards 2040, we’ll the see the need for firm capacity that replaces gas generators.
Carl Mas: There was a recent study that looked at 90% clean system for the US, and saw we could
get to that point without breakthrough technologies, so it’s that last 10% we’ll need new
opportunities for.
Christian: You had a line item for hydrogen and one for electrolysis, would electrolysis be producing
the hydrogen?
Mas: Yes.
Emilie Nelson: Can you explain the trade-off between transmission buildout and resource buildout
and how the model handles that? How is near-term defined?
Steinberger: Our electric sector model divided NY upstate and downstate, but does not have more
granular transmission restraints represented. Will be updating the two-zone model. We generally
find that build out of planned projects is sufficient and NYS can accommodate the resource builds
being added.
Darren Suarez: There’s representation of electric load and wind and solar generation, has there
been a look at the geographic location of those resources and how integration of different locations
would change?
Steinberger: We do look at statewide load and aggregate wind and solar generation, and this does
take into account the different output profiles that would be associated with land-based wind vs.
offshore wind.
Suarez: Would it also capture potential imports of those resources?
Steinberger: It does not. While NY can rely on imports, that’s not sufficient to make up the gaps.
William Acker: In regards to alternatives to transmission buildouts – will you consider other
alternatives to energy delivery questions?
Steinberger: That’s an area where we’ll look at other studies.
Mas: There is a power grid study and that team is looking at production cost modeling throughout
the State, so we’ll leverage that to inform what the E3 team is doing.
Kit Kennedy: Can you explain the point “to decarbonize electricity supply, New York must meet
rapidly growing loads while transforming to a system powered primarily by variable renewable
resources” - what is that telling us about the future of fossil gas generation?
Steinberger: With the total generation mix in NYS under each of our starting pathways, load is
increasing so NY generation overall has to increase rapidly, and at the same time renewables start
to become the primary source of electric generation. Regarding fossil gas, by 2040, there is no fossil
gas being used for generation without carbon capture, effectively the existing gas generators can
either transition to running on zero carbon fuels or there’s a small role for gas with DCS to provide
that firm capacity.
Mas: There’s a small sliver of bioenergy that continues to be consumed in small quantities, that’s
predicated on substantial batteries, as well as our strong hydro instate and some of those new
imports of hydro.
Steinberger: While a good amount of gas has to stay to meet reliability needs, it is running at fairly
low levels, so there are stretches those generators will be needed to provide reliability.
Kennedy: Regarding your thought on adding firm zero emission resources – has your analysis ruled
out intermittent resources are not capable of meeting reliability or does that need to be dived into
more?
Steinberger: We have not looked at the scenario yet, in California that is something we have
analyzed and found those scenarios are often extremely challenging.
Annel Hernandez: Talking about those firm resources – that’s an issue not right now but that begins
around 2040?
Steinberger: Right. The need for firm zero emission resources arises at 2040. Before 2040, gas
generators can continue to play a role.
Hernandez: I know we’re focused on long term analyses but we want to ensure we are not allowing
new fossil fuel infrastructure and a dependency on hydrogen that’s not necessary right now. Also
wanted to point out concerns with blended hydrogen.
Acker: it concerns me we are only using the transmission answer to unbottle the renewables. I have
week-long energy storage in my garage right now, so if we have days with light wind and solar, we
are hopefully steering the charging away from those days so we likely would not see a profile that
looks the same every day. Is that something being looked at? Using the flexibility of the vehicle load
profiles?
Mas: Yes, this is on the mind of the transportation group. We explicitly look at these types of trade-
offs.
Rhodes: I would think it’s appropriate for us to care about this curve and the shape of demand. I
think we can only help optimize the future infrastructure investments on the building side and the
grid side.
John Reese: Transmission in NY takes forever to site and build, can we build the infrastructure to get
to the 70% renewable generation? I’m wondering if you can tell me what happens with
coordinating the gridwork with these activities because there are a lot of decisions that need to be
made now to get us to 2030.
Mas: There already was a submission by the utilities on November 1st, by the end of the year there’s
an integrated study so I think that will be the main forum for the debates and discussion.
Rhodes: Once we’re talking about electrification, we’re probably getting pretty local and are well
into distribution, so need to make sure those distribution investments happen.
Nelson: Interested to see where heat pump technology currently is and how it performs in cold
weather climates, does that still need to evolve?
Steinberger: We’re seeing cold climate heat pumps that are relatively new and are starting to grow.
Betta Broad: Question about roadmaps – When will those be available for review? Also wanted to
ask about the strategic advisory group – is that feedback going to be fed into that process? Will we
be able to review analysis?
Rhodes: That is the intent. The mechanics have not been sorted out yet.
Kennedy: Slide 25 (Bulk transmission) – what assumptions are built into that analysis?
Mas: This framework is not a transmission planning tool, so they need to extract knowledge and
incorporate costs and other configurations.

Hernandez: NEJA and UPROSE! Should be considered for environmental justice groups.
Suarez: Under Labor I would suggest the Workforce Development Institute
Kennedy: Would ask Ann Reynolds to present to this group. ACE should be added and potentially
other renewable trades.
Christian: Suitability of long duration storage reliability is something we as a panel should learn
more about, possibly from NYSO or RMI.
Roundtree: IBEW2 should be added.
Betta Broad: Wonder if it might be important to think through how we get regional perspectives.
Local elected officials, or Associations of Towns could be included.
Kennedy: Sierra Club or New Yorkers for Clean Energy should be added.
Subgroup Work:
Reese: I think the key thing markets bring is a nimbleness to respond. Look at wholesale delivery of
electricity, the qualities that are necessary in the electric system have changed over time and will
undergo a fundamental change going forward. There are tens of thousands of megawatts of large
steam units and combined cycle units that provide a quality to the electric system, they provide
inertia, a lag time, that allows you to accommodate certain failures and that will disappear. There’s
a need for duration products – there’s a value there that needs to be recognized.
Nelson: With respect to the markets specifically, some of the ideas or concerns I’ve seen expressed
are very near-term market design challenges. I would urge this panel to really think at a larger level
about what critical recommendations we can put forth that will get us to 2030 and 2040. One idea
is carbon pricing. This panel should consider that the way to make these work to achieve these
environmental goals is to include the attribute that is now desired, which is reliable cost-effective
power that is also consistent with the emissions we need to see. I think that with respect to
preserving reliability standards,
Suarez: The markets themselves provide great opportunities for investment and signals. I think one
of the things we can take a look at is ancillary services. Who’s going to be generating in the future
can change the market. We may need to value some services that we haven’t. If we can give the
markets early signals, that would be good.
Reese: You’ve laid out a path for what kinds of renewable generation will go into the system. We
have an opportunity for a head start given the work being done on reliability. One barrier is having
a reliable system, and we can identify that in advance.